[ RadSafe ] Duke Energy, Progress Energy see prospects for new nuclear plants

[Sandy Perle]

Index:

Duke Energy, Progress Energy see prospects for new nuclear plants
EU, France say deal near with Japan on reactor
UK Nuclear Site Shuts Down One Reprocessing Plant On Leak
Radiation program helping save cash crops from medfly damage
GE Energy Signs Nuclear Reactor Pact With Energy Group
German state governor calls for U.S. nuclear weapons to be withdrawn 
Experts: Much Nuclear Safety Work Remains
Director of U.S. nuclear lab at Los Alamos resigns
Govt Refuses To Pay $14M For Los Alamos Security Shutdown
US To Spend Billions More to Alter Security Systems -NYT
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Duke Energy, Progress Energy see prospects for new nuclear plants

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - With energy costs soaring and Washington 
continuing to debate a new national energy policy, North Carolina's 
two major electric companies say the time is right to reconsider 
nuclear energy.

Like so much of the state's changing economy, it has a lot to do with 
foreign competition.

This time, the competition from China, India and other developing 
nations is for coal and natural gas - the primary fuels burned by 
American power plants. That's driven fuel prices higher and made 
nuclear power cheaper by comparison.

"The energy market is indeed a world market. As demand increases in 
one place cost goes up in another," said Scott Hinnant, chief nuclear 
officer at Raleigh-based Progress Energy Inc., which serves almost 3 
million customers in the Carolinas and Florida.

"Nuclear is an important component of our company," Hinnant said. "We 
value a diversity of fuel mixes. This gives us protection against 
rising prices in one fuel market or another."

Should either Progress or Charlotte-based Duke Power move ahead with 
building a new nuclear power plant, it would mark a return to a power-
generation technology that American utilities haven't expanded for 
decades.

Demand for new plants disappeared after regulatory oversight grew 
more stringent following the 1979 near-disaster at Three Mile Island 
and the explosion at the Soviet Union's Chernobyl plant, which 
released deadly amounts of radiation in 1986.

No new nuclear plants have been ordered since 1978 and more than 100 
new reactors have been canceled, including all ordered since 1973. 
The last license was issued in 1996 to the Tennessee Valley 
Authority's Watts Bar No. 1 reactor, which was ordered in 1970.

And even though the costs of using natural gas and coal continue to 
rise rapidly - gas prices in December were 24 percent higher than the 
previous year, while the price of coal was up 12 percent - expanding 
nuclear power means incurring the huge startup costs of building new 
facilities.

Brew Barron, Duke Power's chief nuclear officer, said at a February 
industry conference in Washington that investing in a new nuclear 
facility would mean making a multiyear capital commitment, cutting 
into a utility's cash flow and increasing the amount spent on debt, 
which could cut into share value.

"Shareholders should not be unfairly penalized for a project that is 
clearly good for both the customers and the environment," he said. 
"Thus, whether it is at the federal or state level, innovative 
solutions need to be created which alleviate these valid shareholder 
concerns."

Both companies have experience with the cost overruns that can 
accompany such a massive undertaking.

Duke Power and the forerunner of Progress Energy, Carolina Power & 
Light, made partners of 51 cities and towns to raise the money to 
build four nuclear power plants. The municipalities, expecting the 
plants to provide cheap energy for residents, pledged monthly 
electricity bills to repay the money borrowed to finish construction.

But because costs skyrocketed, electricity bills in the participating 
communities are generally higher than for other utility customers.

Last year, Duke Power produced 46 percent of its power with nuclear 
fuel. About 35 percent of Progress Energy's power generation comes 
from nuclear - more than three-quarters of that in the Carolinas. 
Nuclear power provides about 20 percent of America's electricity.

Duke Power is further along than Progress in welcoming back nuclear 
power. It's planning to test the government's new, slimmed-down 
application for a nuclear plant, which combines the construction and 
operating license processes into one. Duke Power also is in the early 
stages of picking a site and reactor technology.

"We're not at that point yet," Hinnant said. "We're still considering 
the business case."

Duke's coal plants are aging - the youngest is 30 years old and the 
oldest is more than 60 years old - while every indication is that 
state and federal limits on pollution they're allowed to emit will 
continue to get tougher.

Progress Energy expects it will need a new power plant by 2017, and 
it might decide to build another natural-gas plant, the most common 
fuel source used in the past decade.

Along with cost concerns, a major roadblock to reigniting a vibrant 
U.S. nuclear industry is the unresolved issue of how to dispose of 
waste produced by the plants, which remains dangerously radioactive 
for thousands of years. Plans to create a permanent underground 
storage facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada have been stalled for 
years.

And a Durham opponent of nuclear energy warns that Duke Power and 
Progress Energy should expect everything from scientific arguments to 
street protests against new plants.

"I don't think the North Carolina public will go along with more 
reactors," said Jim Warren, executive director of the North Carolina 
Waste Awareness Reduction Network.

But one environmentalist said nuclear energy is safer than coal. 
Thousands of Americans die every year from diseases resulting from 
coal pollution, while no one has died as a result of nuclear power, 
said professor Robert Jackson, director of the Duke University 
ecology program and Duke's Center on Global Change.

"It's very easy to say no to nuclear power without saying what we 
should do instead," Jackson said. "What do we choose if not nuclear 
and what are the costs with those choices?"
--------------------

EU, France say deal near with Japan on reactor

BRUSSELS/PARIS, May 5 (Reuters) - The European Union and Tokyo are 
moving closer towards an agreement on whether France or Japan should 
host the world's first nuclear fusion reactor, EU and French 
officials said on Thursday.

The EU's executive commission said low-level talks with Japanese 
officials in Geneva earlier on Thursday had gone "in a good direction 
for the European Union."

"There's no agreement," a spokesman for the commission said in 
Brussels. But he added: "It was very much in favour of the European 
side."

Francois d'Aubert, France's junior minister for research and new 
technology, said in a written statement in Paris: "The conclusion (of 
talks) is near!"

There was no immediate comment from Tokyo.

The six partners involved in the project -- the EU, Japan, China, the 
United States, Russia and South Korea -- are divided in support for 
the competing bids from Japan and France.

French President Jacques Chirac said on Tuesday France was on the 
verge of winning the 10 billion euro ($12.96 billion) project to host 
the reactor, which will try to emulate the power of the sun.

A Japanese newspaper, the Yomiuri Shimbun, said on Wednesday that 
Japan may give up its bid to host the International Thermonuclear 
Experimental Reactor (ITER), but the Japanese government has not 
confirmed the report.

The experimental reactor would try to reproduce the sun's nuclear 
fusion to generate what supporters say could be an inexhaustible 
energy source of the future. It is not expected to be operational 
before 2050.

Japan has previously balked at holding high-level talks over ITER, 
which it wants to build in the northern fishing village of Rokkasho. 
Paris wants it to be in Cadarache in southern France.

"We will have it at Cadarache," Chirac said in a televised interview 
on Tuesday.
---------------------

UK Nuclear Site Shuts Down One Reprocessing Plant On Leak

LONDON (AP)--A leak of radioactive liquid has forced the U.K.'s 
biggest nuclear site to close one of its reprocessing centers, but 
the leak occurred in a sealed chamber and poses no risk to workers or 
residents, its operator said Monday.

An inspection found liquid leaking from the pipes within a sealed 
steel and concrete cell at the THORP reprocessing center, part of the 
Sellafield nuclear site in northwest England, British Nuclear Group 
said.

The THORP plant was closed April 18, and BNG announced the closure 
April 27 in Sellafield's regular newsletter.

"The plant is in a safe and stable state," said Barry Snelson, 
Managing Director of British Nuclear Group, Sellafield. "There is no 
risk to employees, the local community or the environment."

Another reprocessing plant at Sellafield, known as MAGNOX, remains 
open, BNG said. The site's Calder Hall nuclear power plant shut in 
2003.

THORP - an acronym for Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant - extracts 
uranium and plutonium from nuclear waste from reactors throughout 
Europe.
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U.N. nuclear agency says radiation program helping save cash crops 
from medfly damage

VIENNA, Austria (AP) - A radiation program jointly sponsored by the 
U.N. nuclear agency and the U.N. agriculture office is helping spare 
farmers in the Mediterranean basin from crop devastation inflicted by 
the medfly, officials said Monday.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, opening a weeklong conference 
on the issue, said its project with the U.N. Food and Agriculture 
Organization is especially helping farmers in Israel, Jordan and the 
Palestinian territories.

The agencies are helping farmers use radiation technology to make 
medflies sterile and stop them from breeding. Experts say annual 
losses from medfly destruction total an estimated 235 million (US$300 
million) in the region.

The female medfly attacks bell peppers and other ripening fruit and 
vegetables by piercing the skin and laying its eggs inside. When the 
maggots hatch, they feed off the pulp.

"After attempts to control the medfly using insecticides and bait 
sprays failed, the Middle Eastern countries turned to the IAEA and 
FAO for support," the Vienna-based nuclear agency said in a 
statement.

"A radiation technology known as the sterile insect technique is used 
to stop the medflies from breeding. In fly rearing laboratories, 
medfly eggs are bathed in warm water - a process that kills the 
female embryos but doesn't harm the male embryos. In the pupal stage, 
the males are irradiated until sexually sterile. They are then 
released on mass in the Arava Valley on both sides of the Israeli and 
Jordanian borders."

As many as 15 million sterile male medflies are released each week, 
the agency said, crediting the program for crippling the region's 
medfly population and dramatically reducing local farmers' reliance 
on expensive and harmful pesticides.

The IAEA and the FAO began setting up pilot projects and supplying 
sterile male medflies to Israel and Jordan in 1998. The Palestinian 
Authority joined the partnership a year later, the nuclear agency 
said.
---------------------

GE Energy Signs Nuclear Reactor Pact With Energy Group

WILMINGTON, N.C. -(Dow Jones)- General Electric Co. (GE) unit GE 
Energy signed a contract with NuStart Energy Development LLC to seek 
a Nuclear Regulatory Commission license for its Economic Simplified 
Boiling Water Reactor, or ESBWR.

Financial terms weren't disclosed.

In a press release Friday, GE Energy, which supplies power generation 
and energy delivery technology, said the reactor will be designed for 
use at one of two proposed project sites at existing nuclear power 
plants.

NuStart Energy, a nuclear industry consortium comprised of nine 
utilities and two nuclear suppliers, signed the other reactor 
technology agreement for the Westinghouse Advanced Passive 1000 
Reactor.
---------------------

German state governor calls for U.S. nuclear weapons to be withdrawn 
from Germany

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) - The governor of Rhineland-Palatinate state 
called Friday for the United States to withdraw its nuclear weapons 
from Germany, saying they were no longer necessary.

"There is no longer justification for the stationing of atomic 
weapons here," Kurt Beck, a member of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's 
ruling Social Democrats told reporters during a visit to the U.S. Air 
Force's Ramstein Air Base, in his state. "There is no longer a 
threat."

German Defense Minister Peter Struck, who was also visiting the base, 
which is being expanded to accommodate more U.S. military traffic 
once the Rhein-Main Air Base in Frankfurt is closed, said the issue 
has to be addressed by NATO with other member states who have nuclear 
weapons.

Earlier this week, Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer discussed the 
issue on the sidelines of a U.N. conference on the Nuclear 
Nonproliferation Treaty in New York, according to his office. A 
spokeswoman would not provide further details.

The U.S. military withdrew 95 percent of its nuclear weapons from 
Germany during a major drawdown in the 1990s after the Berlin Wall 
fell.

Rhine-Main, known for decades as the U.S. military's "Gateway to 
Europe" is to close at the end of the year, when it will be handed 
back to German authorities for use as part of the commercial 
Frankfurt International airport.
-------------------

Experts: Much Nuclear Safety Work Remains

WASHINGTON (AP) - Even as the government warns of al-Qaida's 
determination to obtain nuclear weapons, programs funded by the 
United States secured less Russian nuclear material in 2004 than the 
year before, according to a report Thursday by private nuclear 
analysts.

The study on global nuclear threat reduction programs came the day 
after U.S. and Pakistani officials announced the arrest of al-Qaida's 
No. 3 operative, Abu Farraj al-Libbi. The Pakistani government 
believes al-Libbi may have allies in its military's senior rungs, and 
U.S. experts say those officers may play a role in guarding Pakistani 
nuclear sites.

"The danger of nuclear theft is a global problem. It is not just a 
Russia problem," said Matthew Bunn, a co-author of the report from 
Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government and the Nuclear Threat 
Initiative.

"We need to forge a common nuclear standard for the world because 
terrorists are going to get nuclear material wherever it is easiest," 
Bunn added. "Nuclear security is only as strong as its weakest link."

U.S. intelligence officials have warned for some time about al-
Qaida's interest in launching a nuclear attack, although the group is 
not believed to possess a nuclear device. Obtaining the weapon is 
believed to be harder than getting radiological material, which could 
be used in a dirty bomb.

Nevertheless, in 2003, Osama bin Laden sought - and received - a 
religious edict from a radical Saudi cleric that permitted using a 
nuclear bomb against U.S. civilians.

The new study looks at the terrorist threat and provides a detailed 
assessment of Russia, where most of the world's vulnerable stockpiles 
lie.

Since 1991, the United States has paid for programs to secure nuclear 
material developed by the former Soviet government. The report finds 
that such work in Russia is half done.

It said comprehensive security upgrades were completed in 2004 on 4 
percent of Russia's nuclear material - its highly enriched uranium or 
plutonium - down from 6 percent in 2003. At the end of last year, 26 
percent had been secured.

Safeguards include ensuring nuclear sites have undergone full 
vulnerability assessments and received a full complement of intrusion 
detectors and other modern security equipment.

Yet the report found some room for optimism. The authors said the 
Energy Department has predicted a substantial increase in progress 
this year, perhaps a tripling of the 2004 pace.

"The good news is that we are making progress," said former Sen. Sam 
Nunn, D-Ga., a chief architect of the legislation that created the 
U.S. programs supporting Russian nuclear security. "The bad news is 
that we are doing too little and moving too slowly."

Bryan Wilkes, a spokesman for the Energy Department's National 
Nuclear Security Administration, disputed the report's pessimistic 
findings and its focus on amount of material secured instead of the 
number of facilities. He set the figure of secured nuclear material 
at 46 percent instead of only 26 percent. He also said more than 75 
percent of Russian facilities have been secured, with negotiations 
progressing on access to two major facilities that hold most of the 
remaining material.

"We are working hard and the budget has doubled in the last four 
years for this type of work," Wilkes said. "It's easy for critics to 
throw rocks and say not enough is being done, but we're actually the 
ones doing the work on the ground and we're getting quite a lot 
done."

The U.S.-backed programs in Russia have been riddled with issues, 
including disputes over who is liable if someone gets hurt while 
securing the material. The Russians also want access to sensitive 
U.S. nuclear sites, comparable to what the U.S. government is asking 
of them.

Nunn and the reports' authors urged the White House to maintain 
pressure on U.S. and Russian bureaucracies to get the work done. They 
also want more support from U.S. allies, noting that a nuclear 9/11 
would be a world-changing event, shaking the global economy.
---------------------

Director of U.S. nuclear lab at Los Alamos resigns

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The director of the Los Alamos National 
Laboratory who spent the past two years overhauling management of the 
nuclear weapons research center is stepping down to take up a 
Pentagon post, the University of California system said Friday.

A spokesman for the system, which has managed the center since 1943 
when it launched as the Manhattan Project to develop the first atomic 
bombs, said Peter Nanos would be replaced on May 16 by interim 
director Robert Kuckuck, a nuclear physicist and veteran 
administrator at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Nanos served as New Mexico-based Los Alamos National Laboratory's 
pointman for two tumultuous years since taking charge in January 
2003.

In July 2004, he suspended all work so staff could focus on safety 
and security procedures. Most of the work resumed after thirty days, 
but activities involving nuclear or hazardous materials were 
suspended until the end of this past January.

Nanos informed Los Alamos staff of his resignation by e-mail and said 
he thought the University of California system would not lose the 
federal contract to manage Los Alamos.

"I take great pride that during my tenure you vastly improved our 
business systems and processes, gained firm control of all our 
accountable classified electronic removable media, and pursued a 
comprehensive safety hazard identification process to protect each 
other," Nanos wrote in his e-mail.
--------------------

Govt Refuses To Pay $14M For Los Alamos Security Shutdown

WASHINGTON (AP)--The government is refusing to pay $14 million of the 
costs associated with last year's security-related shutdown at the 
Los Alamos nuclear weapons laboratory, although a top official said 
most of the expenses were reasonable and praised the lab's 
efficiency.

The total cost of the seven-month suspension of work at the New 
Mexico lab - which followed reports that two classified computer 
disks had disappeared - remains unclear. The lab puts the figure at 
$119 million, while the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security 
Administration estimates up to $367 million.

The "stand-down" at Los Alamos National Laboratory lasted from July 
2004 into February 2005, though many workers resumed normal duties 
after the first month. An investigation concluded that the disks 
reported missing had never existed.

The length of the stand-down was reasonable and "the vast majority" 
of the costs should be reimbursed, Jerry Paul, NNSA's principal 
deputy administrator, said Thursday in written testimony to the House 
Energy and Commerce subcommittee on investigations.

"In fact, I believe that the duration was not only reasonable, but 
likely noteworthy for its efficiency," Paul said.

Nonetheless, he said, NNSA has decided to refuse payment to the lab's 
manager, the University of California, of $6.3 million in 
subcontractor claims and other incremental costs, as well as $8 
million in salary costs for lab employees during the first two days 
of the stand-down.

The agency says subcontractor costs weren't adequately explained and 
the salary costs weren't allowable.

University of California spokesman Chris Harrington said the 
university is providing additional documentation to bolster its 
argument for reimbursement.
------------------

US To Spend Billions More to Alter Security Systems -NYT

NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- After spending more than $4.5 billion on 
screening devices to monitor the nation's ports, borders, airports, 
mail and air, the U.S. federal government is moving to spend billions 
of dollars more to replace or alter much of the antiterrorism 
equipment, concluding that it is ineffective, unreliable or too 
expensive to operate, the New York Times reported in its Sunday 
editions.

Many of the monitoring tools - intended to detect guns, explosives, 
and nuclear and biological weapons - were bought during the blitz in 
security spending after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the report 
said.

In its effort to create a virtual shield around the U.S., the 
Department of Homeland Security now plans to spend billions of 
dollars more, the report said. Although some changes are being made 
because of technology that has emerged in the last couple of years, 
many of them are planned because devices currently in use have done 
little to improve the nation's security, according to a review of 
agency documents and interviews with federal officials and outside 
experts, the Times reported.

"Everyone was standing in line with their silver bullets to make us 
more secure after Sept. 11," said Randall J. Larsen, a retired Air 
Force colonel and former government adviser on scientific issues, 
according to the Times. "We bought a lot of stuff off the shelf that 
wasn't effective," he was quoted as saying by the Times.

Among the problems:

-Radiation monitors at ports and borders that cannot differentiate 
between radiation emitted by a nuclear bomb and naturally occurring 
radiation from everyday material like cat litter or ceramic tile, the 
Times reported.

-Air-monitoring equipment in major cities that is only marginally 
effective because not enough detectors were deployed and were 
sometimes not properly calibrated or installed. They also do not 
produce results for up to 36 hours - long after a biological attack 
would potentially infect thousands of people, the Times reported.

-Passenger-screening equipment at airports that auditors have found 
is no more likely than before federal screeners took over to detect 
whether someone is trying to carry a weapon or a bomb aboard a plane, 
the Times reported.

-Postal Service machines that test only a small percentage of mail 
and look for anthrax but no other biological agents, the report said.

Federal officials say they bought the best available equipment but 
they acknowledge that it might not have been cutting-edge technology 
but said that to speed installation they only bought devices that 
were readily available instead of trying to buy promising technology 
that was not yet in production, the report said.

The department says it has created a layered defense that wouldn't be 
compromised by the failure of a single device. Even if the monitoring 
is less than ideal, officials say, it is still a deterrent, the Times 
reported.

"The nation is more secure in the deployment and use of these 
technologies versus having no technologies in place at all," said 
Brian Roehrkasse, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland 
Security, the report said.

-------------------------------------
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
E-Mail: sandyfl at earthlink.net 

Global Dosimetry Website: http://www.dosimetry.com/ 
Personal Website: http://sandy-travels.com/