[ RadSafe ] US Energy Chief: Yucca Mountain Project Moving Forward

[Sandy Perle]

Index:

US Energy Chief: Yucca Mountain Project Moving Forward
EU Calls For New Nuclear Controls After Sellafield Leak
Chernobyl victims criticize Ukraine's plans to recycle nuclear fuel
G7 seeks Ukraine clarity on Chernobyl "sarcophagus"
Russia to send Iran nuclear fuel "by early 2006"
IAEA simulates accident at Romanian nuclear power plant
UCLA Researchers Produce Nuclear Fusion
Japan to lodge protest with EU over brief on fusion reactor bid
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US Energy Chief: Yucca Mountain Project Moving Forward

WASHINGTON (AP)--U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman says Yucca 
Mountain is moving forward despite a controversy over document 
falsification on the nuclear waste dump project.

"It has been my judgment that until I see something that indicates to 
me that the science of this project has been compromised, we're going 
to continue to go forward as planned," Bodman told reporters Tuesday 
after meeting with Nevada's congressional delegation for the first 
time since announcing the existence in mid-March of emails suggesting 
workers on the project might have falsified documents.

Bodman said he was awaiting results of a scientific inquiry by the 
Department of Energy and criminal investigations by the inspectors 
general of the Energy and Interior departments, who are being 
assisted by the FBI.

Meanwhile, Bodman said: "We're continuing to do our work, and I do 
not consider Yucca Mountain to be dead."

Frustrated Nevada lawmakers said the energy secretary delivered the 
same message to them during the half-hour meeting in the office of 
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

"He just brushed it off like it's really no big deal," said Sen. John 
Ensign, R-Nev. "We think it is a big deal and there are serious 
concerns that should be taken seriously, even if they turn out the 
way he believes they'll turn out. I don't think he should go into it 
with such a biased view."

Bodman, who took office earlier this year, could not say when the 
investigations would be complete, though he said there was "a sense 
of urgency" in gathering information.

Portions of the emails released by a congressional panel chaired by 
Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., show workers discussed making up data and 
keeping two sets of figures related to water infiltration at the dump 
site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The emails were written from 
1998 to 2000, mainly by two U.S. Geological Survey employees in Las 
Vegas.

While Bodman has said he was troubled over the release of the emails, 
Porter said Bodman has not cooperated with his subcommittee's 
investigation.

"We called for cooperation; the secretary refused," Porter said. "Was 
I surprised? Absolutely not. Was I disappointed? Absolutely."

Subcommittee staffers, who said the Energy Department has not 
released all the documents being sought, are preparing for a second 
hearing on the issue and trying to interview the workers at the 
center of the controversy.

The Energy Department plans to seek a license to bury 77,000 tons of 
highly radioactive waste from 39 states at Yucca Mountain.
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EU Calls For New Nuclear Controls After Sellafield Leak

BRUSSELS -(Dow Jones)- The European Union Commission Tuesday stepped 
up calls for it to be given greater powers over the nuclear industry 
after a radioactive leak at the U.K.'s largest nuclear site.

A spillage of radioactive liquid at the THORP reprocessing center, 
part of the Sellafield nuclear site in northwest England, forced 
British Nuclear Group to close one of its reprocessing centers on 
April 18. An inspection found liquid leaking from the pipes within a 
sealed steel and concrete cell. It poses no risk to workers or 
residents, according to BNG. BNG is part of British Nuclear Fuels PLC 
(BNF.YY).

"The recent Sellafield incident shows once more that the E.U. should 
be allowed overall framework control of the safety of nuclear 
installations," said E.U. Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs.

The Commissioner warned over differences in national safety 
legislation, saying it was hampering the transparency essential for 
the efficient functioning of the nuclear sector.

Last year Piebalgs' predecessor Loyola de Palacio was forced to scale 
back a planned reform of nuclear safety and radioactive waste 
management rules in the face of stiff opposition from member 
governments resistant to moves to increase E.U. control over the 
industry.

The U.K was an outspoken opponent of the plans. London and Brussels 
have sparred repeatedly over the sector. Last year the E.U. launched 
a suit against the U.K. government over Sellafield, saying it was 
concerned about the amount of plutonium, uranium and radioactive 
waste stored at the site. The Commission charges that state-owned 
BNFL has failed to keep proper records and that E.U. nuclear experts 
have been unable to carry out "appropriate inspections."

De Palacio had wanted to supervise the safety of nuclear 
installations, but under the measures, Brussels will take on an 
advisory role, rather than a regulatory one.

The reforms, which include greater public accountability and common 
standards for safety inspections, are designed to supplement existing 
international provisions on nuclear safety and make them legally 
binding across the E.U.'s 25 member states.

The measures are intended to boost the sector's credibility and 
improve public confidence, shaken by the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

After the tragedy, the E.U. along with other countries including the 
U.S., signed the International Atomic Energy Agency's Convention on 
Nuclear Safety. The Commission's proposal will enable the E.U. to 
meet its commitments under this treaty and head off any future legal 
challenge, the Commission said.
------------------

Chernobyl victims criticize Ukraine's plans to recycle nuclear fuel

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) - A group representing victims of the 1986 
Chernobyl disaster on Wednesday criticized plans by Ukraine to 
examine the possibility of nuclear fuel reprocessing.

The Chernobyl Union, which is also a leading Ukrainian anti-nuclear 
group, described the move as "impossible from an economic and 
technical point of view." Yuriy Andreev, the union's head, said the 
plan would cost hundreds of millions of dollars (euros) to implement.

"It's just a political move ... only Russia and America have the 
capacities for that," Andreev said.

The state-run nuclear operator said Saturday that Ukraine wants to 
build 11 new nuclear reactors by 2030 in a strategic move aimed at 
boosting its energy independence. Energoatom also said the government 
had instructed it to carry out a feasibility study into recycling 
nuclear fuel.

In 1986, Ukraine was the site of the world's worst nuclear accident, 
when a reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear plant exploded, spewing 
radiation over much of northern Europe. Some 4,400 people died and 
about 7 million people in the former Soviet republics are believed to 
have suffered from radiation-related health problems.

Chernobyl's remaining reactors were finally shuttered in 2000.

At a donor conference to be held in London later this week, Ukraine 
will seek funds to build a new shelter over the hastily constructed 
entombment that secures the destroyed reactor core.
-----------------

G7 seeks Ukraine clarity on Chernobyl "sarcophagus"

KIEV, May 10 (Reuters) - Western countries urged Ukraine on on 
Tuesday to make clear how it intended to help build a new shelter 
enclosing and sealing off the Chernobyl nuclear power plant's fourth 
reactor, which exploded nearly two decades ago.

G8 industrial countries, together with the European Union have long 
proposed building a new "sarcophagus" to guard against leaks of 
radioactivity at the plant, scene of the world's worst civil nuclear 
accident.

Donor countries meet this week in London to raise funds to replace 
the concrete and steel structure hurriedly erected after the April 
1986 Chernobyl disaster, which contaminated vast tracts of land and 
sent clouds of radioactivity across Europe.

The plant was entirely closed in 2000.

British ambassador Robert Brinkley, representing G8 countries, told 
Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko that Western countries wanted close 
cooperation with Kiev in ensuring the mothballed site remained safe.

"We are now close to raising the full sum of money required to build 
the Chernobyl shelter. We hope that this will be achieved at the 
pledging conference in London on May 12," Brinkley said at the 
meeting, requested by diplomats.

"We would very much welcome clarification from you ahead of that 
meeting in London of Ukraine's intentions. Is your government going 
to contribute to the Chernobyl shelter fund?"

Liberal President Viktor Yushchenko, catapulted to power after street 
protests last year against election fraud, last month called on the 
government to speed up the shelter project.

He said plans should be completed and construction started by next 
year's 20th anniversary of the disaster in what was then the Soviet 
Union.

But Brinkley said G8 was concerned the plan might be thrown off 
course by the government's transfer of responsibility for Chernobyl 
from the Energy Ministry to its Emergencies Ministry.

"We hope to receive, prime minister, your reassurance that this 
changeover of responsibilities will be conducted without any negative 
impact on the shelter project," he said.

"It is important for us to know who are our partners on the Ukrainian 
side in this project -- within the government and at expert level."

Diplomats say delays have prompted a reassessment of costs, with the 
original budget of $716 now standing at about $1.1 billion ahead of 
Thursday's conference, overseen by the European Bank for 
Reconstruction and Development.

Thousands of people are believed to have died from the effects of 
radiation since the accident and research continues into the long-
term health effects, particularly the incidence of thyroid cancer.
------------------

Russia to send Iran nuclear fuel "by early 2006"

MOSCOW, May 11 (Reuters) - Russia plans to start shipments of 
enriched uranium fuel to Iran late this year or early next to start 
up a Russian-built nuclear power plant there, a top Russian nuclear 
official was quoted as saying on Wednesday.

Moscow and Tehran signed a fuel supply deal earlier this year that 
paved the way for starting up the Bushehr power station in late 2006 
despite U.S. concerns that Iran could use Russian technology to make 
illicit nuclear weapons.

"The first casing with fuel is to be installed at the reactor in mid-
2006," Alexander Rumyantsev, head of Russia's Atomic Energy Agency, 
was quoted as saying by RIA Novosti news agency.

"The fuel is supposed to arrive at the station half a year before 
that, although it is acceptable to send it three to four months in 
advance," RIA quoted him as telling Vremya Novostei newspaper in an 
interview to be published on Thursday.

The shipments schedule, closely watched by the United States and 
other Western powers, has been surrounded by secrecy. Officials have 
given little indication of the timing and Russian media have issued 
widely varying reports.

Iran, whose nuclear programme has raised deep suspicions in the 
United States and Israel, is under international pressure to do more 
to prove its activities are entirely peaceful.

Tension intensified this week when Tehran confirmed it would soon 
resume some sensitive nuclear work and end a freeze it agreed with 
the European Union in November.

Russia and Iran, whose nuclear ties date back to the early 1990s, 
have maintained the project is peaceful. But Moscow sounded tougher 
with Iran last month, saying it should do more to soothe 
international concerns.

Rumyantsev said Russia would supply 100 tonnes of nuclear fuel -- 
currently stored in Siberia -- to Iran by air and under strict 
surveillance by the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the IAEA.

After years of use, Iran will return all spent nuclear fuel to 
Russia, according to their agreement.

Once operational, Bushehr will generate 1,000 megawatts of 
electricity. Initiated before Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution and 
badly damaged during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, the project was later 
revived with Russian help and has cost about $1 billion.
------------------

International Atomic Energy Agency simulates accident at Romanian 
nuclear power plant

AFUMATI, Romania (AP) - Sixty member states of the International 
Atomic Energy Agency took part in a simulated accident at a nuclear 
power plant in eastern Romania on Wednesday - a two-day exercise 
aimed at testing preparedness for a nuclear emergency.

The aim of the U.N. watchdog's two-day exercise is to test national 
and international preparedness in the case of a nuclear emergency.

The exercise began at 6 a.m. (0300GMT) in Cernavoda, a town of 
20,000, where there is a Canadian-designed power plant near the Black 
Sea, said Florin Baciu, head of the radiological emergency sector at 
the Nuclear Regulatory Authority of Romania.

The world's worst nuclear accident occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear 
plant in 1986 when a reactor exploded and caught fire, spewing 
radiation over much of northern Europe.

In the exercise, participants will pretend a tube, one of 300 in the 
reactor, broke and leaked onto the floor in the chamber, said Baciu. 
Local authorities, the government and the Nuclear Regulatory 
Authority of Romania will respond.

Within an hour, five neighboring countries, Bulgaria, Russia, 
Hungary, Slovakia and Greece were also alerted along with the IAEA in 
Vienna, Austria and World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, 
Baciu said.

"This is the biggest exercise that has occurred since the power plant 
started functioning (in 1996),"said Cernavoda mayor Gheorghe Hansa. 
"The reactions of us, the local authorities in the face of an 
emergency, were being tested," he said.

"I personally hesitated for half an hour to give orders. I realized 
later that I had hesitated," he said.

He said local authorities were being evaluated by international 
specialists to determine their reactions and a decision was being 
taken on whether to order an evacuation of local residents on 
Thursday as part of the exercise.

Sang Moo Lim, head of the Department of Nuclear Medicine, at the 
Korea Institute of Radiological and Medical Sciences said he was 
interested in the exercise because four of his nation's 19 operating 
nuclear plants are Candu, Canadian-designed reactors.

Scientists were to travel to Cernavoda, 200 kilometers (125 miles) 
east of Bucharest, later Wednesday to inspect how emergency measures 
worked.
--------------------

UCLA Researchers Produce Nuclear Fusion

LOS ANGELES (April 28) - A tabletop experiment created nuclear fusion 
- long seen as a possible clean energy solution - under lab 
conditions, scientists reported.

But the amount of energy produced was too little to be seen as a 
breakthrough in solving the world's energy needs.

For years, scientists have sought to harness controllable nuclear 
fusion, the same power that lights the sun and stars. This latest 
experiment relied on a tiny crystal to generate a strong electric 
field. While falling short as a way to produce energy, the method 
could have potential uses in the oil-drilling industry and homeland 
security, said Seth Putterman, one of the physicists who did the 
experiment at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The experiment's results appear in Thursday's issue of the journal 
Nature.

Previous claims of tabletop fusion have been met with skepticism and 
even derision by physicists. In 1989, Dr. B. Stanley Pons of the 
University of Utah and Martin Fleischmann of Southampton University 
in England shocked the world when they announced that they had 
achieved so-called cold fusion at room temperature. Their work was 
discredited after repeated attempts to reproduce it failed.

Fusion experts noted that the UCLA experiment was credible because, 
unlike the 1989 work, it didn't violate basic principles of physics.

"This doesn't have any controversy in it because they're using a 
tried and true method," said David Ruzic, professor of nuclear and 
plasma engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 
"There's no mystery in terms of the physics."

Fusion power has been touted as the ultimate energy source and a 
cleaner alternative to fossil fuels like coal and oil. Fossil fuels 
are expected to run short in about 50 years.

In fusion, light atoms are joined in a high-temperature process that 
frees large amounts of energy.

It is considered environment-friendly because it produces virtually 
no air pollution and does not pose the safety and long-term 
radioactive waste concerns associated with modern nuclear power 
plants, where heavy uranium atoms are split to create energy in a 
process known as fission.

In the UCLA experiment, scientists placed a tiny crystal that can 
generate a strong electric field into a vacuum chamber filled with 
deuterium gas, a form of hydrogen capable of fusion. Then the 
researchers activated the crystal by heating it.

The resulting electric field created a beam of charged deuterium 
atoms that struck a nearby target, which was embedded with yet more 
deuterium. When some of the deuterium atoms in the beam collided with 
their counterparts in the target, they fused.

The reaction gave off an isotope of helium along with subatomic 
particles known as neutrons, a characteristic of fusion. The 
experiment did not, however, produce more energy than the amount put 
in - an achievement that would be a huge breakthrough.

Commercial neutron generators work in a similar way. But the UCLA 
instrument was "remarkably low-tech" in comparison, Michael 
Saltmarsh, a retired physicist from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory 
in Tennessee, wrote in an accompanying article.

UCLA's Putterman said future experiments will focus on refining the 
technique for potential commercial uses, including designing portable 
neutron generators that could be used for oil well drilling or 
scanning luggage and cargo at airports.
----------------

Japan to lodge protest with France and EU over brief on fusion 
reactor bid

TOKYO (AP) - Japan will lodge a protest with both France and the 
European Union after President Jacques Chirac suggested that Tokyo 
might give up its bid to host an international fusion reactor, an 
official said Friday.

In Paris, Francois D'Aubert, French deputy minister of research, said 
EU and Japanese negotiators sealed a "technical agreement" in Geneva 
on Thursday to jointly build the reactor, an indication that Tokyo 
might drop its bid to act as host.

Chirac suggested Paris' victory was imminent, but Japanese science 
and technology ministry official Takahiro Hayashi said Tokyo hasn't 
abandoned its effort to win the project, and a final decision was 
pending.

"The rumor that we have given up our bid is not a fact," Hayashi 
said. "Our negotiation is still continuing."

Hayashi called Chirac's comments inappropriate, and said the ministry 
was to file a protest with France and the EU through diplomatic 
channels.

The US$13 billion (10 billion) experimental International 
Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor project is funded by a consortium 
comprised of Japan, the United States, South Korea, Russia, China and 
the European Union.

But the six parties have been divided over where to locate the plant. 
Japan, the United States and South Korea want it at Rokkasho in 
northern Japan. Russia, China and the EU want it at Cadarache in 
southern France.

European Commission and Japanese negotiators met in Geneva Thursday, 
following a meeting in Paris the day before between the French and 
Japanese foreign ministers, Michel Barnier and Nobutaka Machimura.

European Commissioner for External Relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner, 
speaking on the sidelines of an Asia-Europe foreign ministers' 
meeting in the western city of Kyoto, said a final decision could be 
expected by July.

"By the beginning of July, we should have an agreement," she told 
reporters, saying that progress had been made on working out a 
"host/non-host agreement" at talks in Luxembourg between Japanese and 
EU technology officials earlier this week.

The ITER plant aims to show that nuclear fusion presents a vast and 
safe source of energy that can wean the world off pollution-producing 
fossil fuels. Nuclear fusion produces no greenhouse gas emissions and 
only low levels of radioactive waste.

Japan's Yomiuri newspaper said Tokyo was ready to negotiate options, 
including one to give up its bid to host the reactor at Rokkasho in 
exchange for a bigger share of construction orders and research 
personnel. The two sides are racing to meet a self-imposed July 
deadline for a deal.

-------------------------------------
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/