[ RadSafe ] Russia Plans 3 New Nuclear Reactors, Security Improvements

[Sandy Perle]

Index:

Russia Plans 3 New Nuclear Reactors, Security Improvements
Antinuclear activists stage peace march ahead of Bikini
IAEA to check on Japan's transport of nuclear materials by sea
Gov. Huntsman to discuss nuke waste site with Bush
Nuclear licensing board OK's Utah Skull Valley waste site
Potential Hanford quake impact greater than thought
Cleanup resumes at former nuclear site
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Russia Plans 3 New Nuclear Reactors,Security Improvements

MOSCOW (AP)--Russia plans to launch three new commercial nuclear 
reactors over the next five years and upgrade existing ones to higher 
standards, including stronger protection from possible terror 
attacks, top nuclear officials said Thursday.

U.S. officials have warned repeatedly about the dangers of poor 
security at Russia's nuclear plants and other facilities - and the 
possibility of international terrorists either getting their hands on 
weapons material or staging an attack at a poorly guarded facility.

In December, Russia started up its 31st nuclear reactor, at the 
Kalinin nuclear power plant in western Russia. By 2010, the nation 
will have 34 reactors, said Oleg Sarayev, the head of the state-
controlled Rosenergoatom consortium in charge of Russia's nuclear 
power plants.

"We aren't going to take any of the currently operating reactors off 
duty during that period, and work has already started to modernize 
the reactors approaching the end of their designated lifetime," 
Sarayev said at a news conference.

Also on Thursday, former U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said 
the U.S. should double its nuclear power capacity by 2030 to help 
stave off a looming energy crisis. No nuclear power plants have been 
built in the U.S. since the 1970s, said Abraham, who also called for 
a federal legislative package to help construct new plants.

During recent years, Russia has overcome a public backlash against 
nuclear power that followed the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and 
supported an ambitious program to develop its nuclear industry.

Sarayev said the two latest nuclear reactors put on line since 2001 
have upgraded security systems for stronger protection against 
possible terror attacks and other risks. He said security at other 
reactors would also be tightened.

"We are paying increased attention to strengthening the physical 
protection of our plants," Sarayev said. "New threats have emerged, 
which made that necessary."

Sarayev said Russia's security services have conducted regular 
exercises imitating terror attacks on nuclear power plants that 
helped enhance their security.

"That doesn't mean that we have such a level of protection that 
completely satisfies us. We will continue to make improvements," 
Sarayev said.

He said living conditions have been improved for the Interior 
Ministry troops guarding the Rostov nuclear power plant in southern 
Russia, about 300 miles north of Chechnya.

The U.S. Nunn-Lugar program has spent billions of dollars to improve 
security at weapons-storage sites in Russia and other former Soviet 
republics, but U.S. officials say many of Russia's nuclear sites 
still don't have sufficient safeguards in place.
---------------

Antinuclear activists stage peace march ahead of Bikini

TOKYO, Feb. 26 (Kyodo) - About 40 antinuclear activists marched 
Saturday in Tokyo toward Yaizu, Shizuoka Prefecture, before the 51st 
anniversary of the 1954 U.S. hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll next 
Tuesday.

Participants included members of the Japan Congress Against A- and H-
Bombs, or Gensuikin. Yaizu was the home of the 140-ton trawler 
Fukuryu Maru No. 5, known in English as the Lucky Dragon. It was 
irradiated by the blast from the bomb "Bravo" in the experiment.

A total of 23 crew members were aboard the ship fishing for tuna some 
160 kilometers east of the test site at the time of the experiment.

"Nuclear weapons are now prevalent in the world, as North Korea 
recently declared it has nuclear arms," said Shingo Fukuyama, head of 
the Gensuikin's secretariat, at a rally before the march began. "As a 
victim of A-bomb attacks, Japan should play a central role in a 
global appeal toward nuclear abolition."

Following the rally held at the exhibition hall of the Lucky Dragon 
in Tokyo's Koto Ward, activists marched through the city, holding 
banners and flags saying "We do not want nuclear weapons or nuclear 
plants."
-----------------

IAEA to check on Japan's transport of nuclear materials by sea

VIENNA, Feb. 26 (Kyodo) - The International Atomic Energy Agency will 
dispatch a research mission to Japan in the fall to assess the safety 
of its transportation of nuclear fuel and waste by sea, diplomatic 
sources close to the IAEA said Friday.

The mission of the IAEA's Transport Safety Appraisal Services will 
evaluate the effectiveness of measures taken by Japan to prevent 
radiation leakage and terrorist attacks on ships carrying nuclear 
materials for the first time, the sources said. TranSAS sent similar 
missions to Britain in 2002 and France in 2004.

Comprising officials of IAEA member states and IAEA experts on marine 
transport, the mission to Japan is expected to arrive around 
November, the sources said.

The delegation is expected to visit a spent nuclear fuel-reprocessing 
facility in the village of Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture, and a nuclear 
fuel-processing plant in Tokaimura, Ibaraki Prefecture, the sources 
said.

The delegation will visit ports and other cargo-loading points and 
check transport vessels and containers. It will also study the 
effectiveness of domestic laws in ensuring the safety of marine 
transport, the sources said.

If the mission finds no problems with the Japanese measures, the 
safety of Japan's sea-based nuclear transport will be recognized as 
meeting international standards.

Japan basically imports uranium for use in atomic power generation 
while it entrusts France and Britain with the task of reprocessing 
spent nuclear fuel. All such materials are sent by sea.
---------------

Gov. Huntsman to discuss nuke waste site with Bush

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Gov. Jon Huntsman says he'll take his concerns 
to President Bush over a federal regulatory board's approval of a 
nuclear waste dump in Utah.

Huntsman will be in Washington for the National Governors Association 
meeting, and is scheduled to meet with Bush Sunday.

After the state lost a key battle Thursday to keep the Goshute Indian 
Reservation from obtaining a license to store 44,000 tons of waste on 
its land 45 miles west of Salt Lake City, Huntsman says he will 
exhaust every chance Utah has to keep the waste out.

He said if he can't convince Bush, "We will be back in the next two 
to three weeks to meet with the secretary of the Interior and others 
and fight this battle with every ounce of energy we can muster."

Huntsman noted the state could still appeal Thursday's decision from 
the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board to the five-member Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission. Officials could also petition the Bureau of 
Land Management against approving the deal, and possibly seek 
intervention from the U.S. Supreme Court.

The latter option, he said, is "becoming increasingly viable."

Thursday's decision cleared the way for a utility consortium called 
Private Fuel Storage to get a license from the NRC to build and 
operate a storage site on Goshutes land. State officials have long 
opposed the plan, but the latest ruling is a significant setback.

The governor also says he will talk to Bush about his No Child Left 
Behind initiative, which Utah lawmakers call an intrusive and 
underfunded mandate.

The House of Representatives last week passed a bill and resolution 
hammering the law for reaching into state affairs.
-----------------

Nuclear licensing board OK's Utah Skull Valley waste site

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Reversing a previous decision, a nuclear 
licensing board decided Thursday the risk of a plane crash into a 
proposed nuclear waste site was not significant enough to halt the 
facility, sending the proposal to the full Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission for final approval.

The state of Utah has long fought the proposed nuclear waste dump on 
Skull Valley Band of Goshute land about 50 miles southwest of Salt 
Lake City, but on Thursday lost two final contentions before the 
Atomic Safety and Licensing Board.

The site, to be operated by Private Fuel Storage, is intended to be a 
temporary dump for spent nuclear fuel rods before they end up 
permanently in the proposed Yucca Mountain facility in Nevada.

As planned, the storage pad would hold up to 4,000 casks filled with 
depleted nuclear fuel - about 10 million rods - across 100 acres of 
the Skull Valley. The waste would be shipped by rail, mostly from 
reactors east of the Mississippi River. Utah has no nuclear power 
plants.

The issue has wound its way through the courts since Skull Valley 
Band Tribal Chairman Leon Bear signed a lease in 1997 allowing PFS to 
store the fuel on Goshute land. The site is barren desert, and the 
storage plan would bring the small impoverished tribe a fortune - 
possibly as much as $3 billion.

PFS spokeswoman Sue Martin said the consortium was pleased with the 
ruling, and remained undeterred by the state's opposition.

"I can't think of any nuclear facility that has been welcomed with 
open arms. ... But once the facility is there and operating safely, 
it becomes part of the community, and the opinions and attitudes 
change," she said.

The board in March 2003 stalled construction by ruling the chances of 
a fighter jet from Hill Air Force Base crashing into the storage pad 
made the project too risky.

Besides the probability of a jet crash, the attorney general's office 
also argued that the Department of Energy wasn't obligated to 
transport the waste to Nevada, and it would end up permanently in 
Utah.

Assistant Utah Attorney General Denise Chancellor said her office 
would continue to fight the planned facility, either through another 
appeal to the board, in court or in front of the NRC itself.

"We'll pursue every legal avenue available to us," she said.

Mike Lee, general counsel to Gov. Jon Huntsman, also said the 
governor was disappointed with the decision, but PFS still has to 
cross several hurdles before moving forward. Among them is securing 
Bureau of Land Management approval to ship the waste over federal 
land.

"This is one setback in a process that consists of many, many steps," 
he said.
----------------

Potential Hanford quake impact greater than thought

YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) - The impact a severe earthquake could have on a 
nearly $6 billion waste treatment plant under construction at the 
Hanford nuclear reservation is almost 40 percent greater than 
previously estimated, according to a new study.

The plant, which is the federal government's largest construction 
project, is being built to treat millions of gallons of highly 
radioactive waste left from Cold War-era nuclear weapons production. 
Construction is already about 35 percent complete at the south-
central Washington site, and work has been slowed or shifted to other 
parts of the plant while engineers re-evaluate its design.

The U.S. Department of Energy, which manages cleanup at the site, and 
the contractor hired to build the plant stressed that the chances of 
a severe earthquake at the site are slim. In addition, some 
construction work that already has been re-evaluated, such as the 
concrete walls of the plant, meets the new seismic requirements and 
will not have to be changed.

"Earthquakes, No. 1, don't happen a lot in this area, and if they do 
happen, we are building a very robust plant to handle it," Roy 
Schepens, manager of the Energy Department's Office of River 
Protection, said Thursday.

In 2002, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board raised concerns 
that the Energy Department had failed to adequately investigate the 
impact a severe earthquake might have on the plant.

The agency had gathered seismic data from the entire 586-square-mile 
Hanford reservation to determine the impact such a quake might have 
on the plant, but it did not conduct a seismic investigation of the 
plant site itself.

The agency conducted a more thorough evaluation in 2004 and sent that 
data to a federal science laboratory for review. The results of that 
review, released this week, found that the force of the ground 
movements at the plant site during a worst-case-scenario earthquake 
would be 38 percent greater than previously estimated.

Engineers now are working to apply that new number to the plant's 
design - a process that could take between four and six months, 
Schepens said.

"In the near term, we will develop very conservative design criteria 
that will allow us to advance the design and construction 
activities," he said.

The impact of the new seismic data on the final cost of the building 
and the construction schedule has not yet been determined, Schepens 
said.

For 40 years, the Hanford reservation made plutonium for the nation's 
nuclear weapons arsenal. Today, work there centers on a $50 billion 
to $60 billion cleanup, to be finished by 2035.

Much of the cleanup involves treating 53 million gallons of highly 
radioactive waste stewing in 177 aging underground tanks less than 10 
miles from the Columbia River.

The waste treatment plant will use a process called vitrification to 
turn waste into glass logs for permanent disposal in a nuclear waste 
repository.

The Energy Department and the contractor building the one-of-a-kind 
plant have encountered several problems since construction began in 
2001. Design of the plant is about 70 percent complete, but it is 
being designed as it is being built, which has resulted in 
significant cost overruns.

Construction was estimated at $4.35 billion before the contract was 
awarded in 2000. The current estimate is close to $5.8 billion, an 
increase of more than 30 percent.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which concluded last year there is 
a significant risk of construction cost increases for the plant, will 
review the Energy Department's new cost estimate and schedule, 
Schepens said.

Annual funding for the construction project also falls $65 million, 
to about $625 million, in the proposed 2006 federal budget, in part 
because of the unresolved seismic issues.

Last summer, a nuclear watchdog group released a paper concluding 
that the plant has a 50 percent chance of a chemical or radiological 
accident.

The paper was based on a three-year-old study by the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission, and the Energy Department said the information 
used to prepare the paper was outdated and that the plant faces no 
significant risk of a major accident.

In addition, contractor Bechtel National has come under fire for 
safety problems at the site. In a letter sent Wednesday to the 
contractor about those safety concerns, the Energy Department said it 
was withholding $300,000 from the company's $3 million quarterly fee 
to be paid March 1.

Last year, the company halted construction for a day at a cost of 
$500,000 to discuss safety problems with workers.

About 1,700 people have been working to build the plant, which will 
stand 12 stories tall and be about the size of four football fields.
----------------

Cleanup resumes at former nuclear site

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) - Cleanup operations resumed Wednesday at a former 
nuclear site in western New York, more than a month after two workers 
were exposed to higher doses of radiation than allowed under the 
site's guidelines.

West Valley Nuclear Services Co. voluntarily halted work at the 
Cattaraugus County site following the Jan. 19 exposure, the third 
safety lapse in less than a month.

Cleanup was being resumed in phases.

The overexposed workers required no medical treatment and no 
radiation was released into the environment, authorities said. The 
other lapses involved the ignition of small fires.

"Our approach to safety is to plan for all contingencies and stop 
work if something unexpected occurs," said Russ Mellor, president of 
West Valley Nuclear Services Co., which operates the West Valley 
Demonstration Project about 35 miles south of Buffalo.

West Valley 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 
following the worker exposure indicated the employees 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 exceeded West Valley's self-imposed limit of 100 
millirems per day but did not exceed federal Energy Department 
standards, West Valley spokesman Terry Dunford said.

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

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

Mellor said training and other recommendations included in the 
findings were being implemented.

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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) 296-1144

Global Dosimetry Website: http://www.dosimetry.com/ 
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