Free Tests For Nuclear Exposure & other news briefs

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

Free Tests For Nuclear Exposure - (STATEWIDE) -- Health 
departments in Idaho, Oregon and Washington are offering tests to 
people who may have been exposed to radioactive iodine. 
Releases from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in the 1940's and 
1950's affected part of western Idaho north of McCall. Health 
departments say they'll offer thyroid screening to anyone living in 
the area at the time. (You can get more information  
by calling 1-800- 432-6242.) 

-----------

Thursday October 29 1:54 AM EDT 

Radiation Dose Estimates Available

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) - People who grew up downwind of the 
Hanford nuclear reservation during the 1940s and '50s can
get an estimate of their radiation exposure from state officials.

The state Department of Health was to begin the program today to 
produce individual estimates of radiation doses to the
thyroids of people who lived in the shadow of the giant nuclear 
weapons production site.

As many as 2 million people who lived in eastern Washington, 
northeastern Oregon and parts of northern Idaho between
1944-1957 will be able to get estimates of their exposure to 
radioactive iodine 131.

Radioactive iodine, which can cause thyroid disease, was spewed 
into the air as a byproduct of the chemical process to extract
plutonium from spent reactor fuel rods.

The iodine would settle on grasses that were consumed by cows, 
and entered the human food chain through milk. As a result,
children were most vulnerable.

The government contends that iodine 131 constituted 98 percent of 
the radiation that most people received from Hanford
emissions.

Hanford produced 40 years' worth of plutonium for the nation's 
nuclear weapons, including the bomb dropped on Nagasaki,
Japan, in 1945.

The reservation stopped producing plutonium in the 1980s. Billions 
of dollars are being spent to clean up the site along the
Columbia River in southeastern Washington. 

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

Wednesday October 28, 8:57 pm Eastern Time

Nuclear power needed to cut emissions-US Eizenstat

WASHINGTON, Oct 28 (Reuters) - The United States and other 
industrialized nations will have to rely on nuclear power to help cut 
greenhouse gas emissions under a global warming pact, a top U.S. 
State Department official said on Wednesday.  

``I believe very firmly that nuclear has to be a significant part of our 
energy future and a large part of the western world, if we're going to 
meet these (emission reduction) targets,'' said Stuart Eizenstat, 
undersecretary of state for economic, business and agricultural 
affairs.  

Eizenstat, in a speech to environmentalists, also said he foresees 
greater use of natural gas to generate power because it's cleaner 
than many other fuels and there's ample supply worldwide. He also 
said he believes there's still room for coal as well.  

Under the global warming agreement, the Clinton administration 
has committed the United States to cutting its greenhouse gas
emissions 7 percent below 1990 levels between the years 2008 
and 2012.

Negotiations resume next week in Buenos Aires on the terms of 
the Kyoto Treaty reached in Japan in December 1997. Eizenstat 
said the Clinton administration would not submit the treaty to the 
U.S. Senate for approval until developing countries agree to cuts in 
their emissions.  

While environmentalists generally support the administration's plan, 
they don't like nuclear power because of the problem with storing 
spent nuclear fuel.  

Eizenstat acknowledged that the storage problem must be worked 
out, but he said environmental groups must ``rethink'' their position 
on nuclear power and the role it can play in reducing greenhouse 
gas emissions.  

``Those who think we can accomplish these goals without a 
significant nuclear industry, I think are simply mistaken,'' he said, in
response to questions from members of the International Climate 
Change Partnership, an environmental group that supports the
Kyoto accord.

``In the energy mix, nuclear (power) can't be excluded,'' Eizenstat 
said.

As for other fuels, Eizenstat pointed out that natural gas is 
``plentiful. We're finding more and more of it worldwide, and gas will 
clearly be a very major factor.''  

And he said that coal, as long as the cleaner-burning type is used, 
remains an alternative, adding, ``I would hope that we would move 
not away from coal per se...but the use of coal would be become 
fairly cleaner as an ingredient in our energy mix.''  

Utilities are the biggest users of coal in the United States. Much of 
the coal they buy to fuel their power generating plants is
mined in the East, which is dirtier than than cleaner-burning coal 
found in the West. The Western coal is more expensive for
Eastern utilities because of shipping costs.


Sandy Perle
sandyfl@earthlink.net
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/1205

"The object of opening the mind, as of opening 
the mouth, is to close it again on something solid"
              - G. K. Chesterton -
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