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A quarterly newsletter for Sierrans interested in problems posed by the escalating accumulation of nuclear waste. Compiled, condensed, and edited by Ellen Winchester for the Sierra Club National Nuclear Waste Task Force, tel. 850-576-0954.
U.S. TO ALLOW USE OF PLUTONIUM SURPLUS IN MIXED OXIDE FUEL (MOX), dropping two-decade policy against separation of military and civilian nuclear technology. The United States has kept weapons grade plutonium out of civilian use to reduce the risk of loss or theft and also as an example discouraging the spread of nuclear waste reprocessing, a plutonium producing technology vulnerable to copying by terrorists or aggressor nations with access to spent nuclear fuel. Administration officials point to the long term difficulties of storing surplus stocks of plutonium and also say that using it as reactor fuel would help secure cooperation for weapons disposal from Russia, which is intent on using its surplus weapons plutonium in power plants. Critics of the apparent new policy speak highly of vitrification, immobilizing plutonium in glass, rather than reducing stocks of plutonium by the slow, expensive process of repeated recycling in reactors. A big worry now , suggested John Holum, director of the Arms Control Agency, is that other countries will use the pretext of military plutonium disposal to build and operate nuclear plants that depend on plutonium for fuel. (NYT, 11/22/96) ARMS CONTROL ADVOCATES BELIEVE CTB ADDS GREATLY TO INTERNATIONAL PRESSURES against spread of nuclear arms. Australia's special credibility with nonaligned and non-nuclear nations on nuclear issues helped override India's demand for abolition of nuclear arms and brought the treaty its overwhelming endorsement by the General Assembly. President Clinton called it "the longest-sought, hardest- fought prize in arms control history." In reference to India's refusal to sign he said, "Some have complained that it does not mandate total nuclear disarmament by date certain. I would say to them, do not forsake the benefits of this achievement by ignoring the tremendous progress we have already made toward that goal." Representatives of about 60 countries signed the treaty by the end of the day. It has not yet been ratified by national legislatures. (NYT, 9/25/96) NOT TO RAIN ON THE CTB TRAIN, THIS CTB WILL NOT HAVE THE IMPACT ENVISIONED 40 years ago. In August 1995 the Clinton administration acknowledged that the United States would reserve the option to bolt the treaty "if the safety and reliability of our nuclear deterrent could no longer be certified." Less than a week after signing the CTB, President Clinton signed a bill authorizing the spending in 1997 of $191 million for construction at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory of a gigantic laser complex, the National Ignition Facility, capable of generating miniature thermonuclear explosions. The facility will be a part of the Department of Energy's Stockpile Stewardship Program, which is designed to maintain nuclear warheads, to increase DOE's capability to conduct experiments that could be used in designing new warheads, and perhaps to insure the reliability of the nuclear arsenal for use in a nuclear first strike. The total cost of the stadium sized complex will be $1.1 billion. Current plans call for the total U.S. stockpile of warheads to remain at nearly 10,000 well into the next century, and the nuclear weapons community stands to receive more money for weapons work for each year over the next ten years than it received on average throughout the forty years of the Cold War. After the final environmental impact statement is released, a coalition of some 90 environmental and disarmament groups is expected to challenge it, charging that it failed to adequately consider all reasonable alternatives to the Stewardship Program. (Wash. Post 9/30/96; Tal. Dem. 10/2/96; The Amicus Journal, Winter 1997; Scientific American, 12/96; The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Sept./Oct. 96) GREATEST THREAT OF NUCLEAR ATTACK NOW COMES FROM TERRORISTS, NOT GREAT POWERS is the view of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, the group that received the Nobel Peace Prize for advocating nuclear disarmament 10 years ago. The terrorist threat can be eliminated, the group says, if governments destroy the radioactive materials under their control, depriving would-be terrorists of the means to build homemade bombs. Meeting in Boston in July, the group's report outlined the ease with which a nuclear weapon could be built and the likelihood that weapons-grade radioactive materials eventually will make their way into terrorists' hands. "The nuclear weapons powers...must either negotiate an international convention abolishing nuclear weapons or face an extremely unstable world," say the physicians. (Salem Evening News, 7/24/96) FORMER CIA HEAD R. JAMES WOOLSEY WARNS THE SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE about ballistic blackmail in which nations, aided by improved missile guidance systems, could threaten specific targets, such as nuclear power plants. (Navy Times, 10/77/96) COURT ORDERS DOE TO ACCEPT 30,000 TONS OF SPENT FUEL IT HAS NO PLACE TO PUT. Even if the proposed Yucca Mountain site is found technically acceptable for underground storage of the nation's commercial spent fuel, officials do not expect it to be completed until 2010 at the earliest. Nevertheless, in response to a lawsuit filed by nuclear plant operators and some state regulators, a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last July that the government is obligated under a 1982 law to take the radioactive spent fuel from reactor sites and store it at a centralized location beginning at least by Jan. 31, 1998. With the nuclear industry hoping Congress will pass another version of Mobil Chernobyl, the Administration seems literally between a rock and a hard place EXCEPT that the court decision has a murky clause permitting delay for a good reason. (Wash. Post 10/23/96; David Lochbaum, Union of Concerned Scientists) ROCKY FLATS DRAINS RISKY URANIUM TANKS. About 2,700 liters of highly enriched uranium nitrate solutions have been drained from tanks at the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant. They were used in experiments to establish controls for the safe handling and processing of fissile materials and have been stored since Rocky Flats ceased weapons production in the early 1990's. The solutions were shipped to Nuclear Fuel Services in Erwin, Tenn., where they will be converted to a more stable oxide form and eventually used as fuel in government research reactors. (Albuquerque Journal, 11/5/96) GREENPEACE SAYS BIGGEST UNDERGROUND NUCLEAR TEST IN HISTORY IS LEAKING. On Oct. 30 top DOE officials promised Greenpeace researchers they would analyze samples of radiation leakage that the environmentalists gathered last summer on the Aleutian island of Amchitka. Government scientists said the amounts found were small and might be fallout from weapons tests conducted elsewhere. The test concerned, in 1971, was opposed by Alaska natives, environmentalists, members of Congress and the Governments of Canada and Japan. Greenpeace says the test site and the site of a smaller test in 1965 are leaking plutonium and americium that can work up through the food chain to birds, some of which are game species and eaten by native Aleuts. Richard J. Guimond, U.S. assistant surgeon general, counters that if the materials entered the food chain and were eaten by people the doses would be well under 1 percent of the average annual dose Americans absorb from natural and man-made sources. (Matthew Wald, NYT, 10/30/96) IDAHO PROP 3 TO NULLIFY ACCEPTANCE OF NUCLEAR WASTE SHIPMENTS LOSES 65% - 35%. Opponents of Governor Batt's agreement to accept 1,133 shipments of mostly naval nuclear waste (which made idaho the first state to make such a commitment) now worry that Idaho will be the target for commercial reactor waste DOE must find a home for. (State Senator Clint Stennett for the Snake River Alliance) BROOKHAVEN LAB'S SPENT FUEL TO TRAVEL BY SHIP TO THE PORTSMOUTH, VA, MARINE terminal and then be trucked to the government's Savannah River nuclear storage site near Aiken, S.C., via Route 58 and Interstate 95. Michael Holland, director of nuclear programs at Brookhaven, says transportation costs, already estimated at $1 million, would grow significantly if the barge went straight to the South Carolina port of Charleston, as foreign spent fuels do. Trucking the wastes from Hampton Roads to South Carolina is cheaper, he said. (The Virginian- Pilot, (8/9/96) JUDGE CLEARS WAY FOR SHIPMENT OF FOREIGN RESEARCH REACTOR SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL to South Carolina. Federal District Court Judge Joseph F. Anerson Jr. denied the state's request for a preliminary injunction, allowing 275 spent fuel rods, the first of 22,700 to be sent over 13 years, to be shipped to the DOE Savannah River site in October. DOE cited the proliferation risk if the fuel remained abroad. (NYT 8/17/96) PUBLIC CITIZEN DECLARES NRC SLACK ON SAFETY, CITES WORST NUKES IN NATION. James Riccio, PC staff attorney, says "Although Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chair Shirley Jackson has tried to toughen enforcement, the agency's old guard is still unwilling to crack down on the worst reactors." PC President Joan Claybrook claims NRC has not established standards for shutting down aging, deteriorating reactors. Five at the top of the list, in descending order of trouble, are: Salem-1, NJ, Public Service Electric & Gas; Wash.Nuclear-2, WA, Washington Public Power Supply System; Millstone-2, CT, Northeast Utilities Service; River Bend-1, LA, Gulf States Utilities; Dresden-3, IL, Commonwealth Edison. For more info try the Critical Mass Energy Project's web site at: http://www.citizen.org/cmep/ NRC PLANS REORGANIZATION TO MEET GOVERNMENT'S 21ST CENTURY DOWNSIZING GOALS. The agency is shifting its regulatory philosophy to risk informed, performance based regulations that meet more of the needs of the regulated industry and the Department of Energy. To learn more about this Strategic Assessment and Rebaselining Initiative, contact the NRC Office of Public Affairs, NRC's home page on the internet, or the Fed World Electronic Bulletin Board system. CONTROLLING SAFETY MONITORS AT VIRGINIA POWER PLANT SET WRONGLY FOR TEN YEARS. The Virginian Pilot suggests two sentences should be added to Virginia Power's nuclear-power-plant safety manual: "Set safety switches in the proper positions. Check them occasionally." (Virginian - Pilot, 8/12/96) NUCLEAR WORKERS ORGANIZATION ARGUES LOW LEVELS RADIATION MAY BE GOOD FOR YOU. The Health Physics Society (HPS), an organization of nuclear plant workers, x-ray technicians, and others who work with radiation on a regular basis, in March published in its journal that 1) exposure to levels of 10 rems/year or less is not harmful and 2) exposure to lower levels of radiation may actually be beneficial. (NRC's current limit is 5 rems/year for plant workers and 100 millirems/year above background for most people) On July 10 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste (ACNW) backed up the workers by sending a letter to NRC Chairwoman Shirley Jackson in which it favorably discussed new studies showing a possible beneficial (or hormesis) effect of exposure to low levels of radiation. It added that societal costs associated with NRC's current standards could be avoided or reduced if a threshold level could be established and recommended that NRC continue to fund research into this area. (The Nuclear Monitor, 7/96) NUCLEAR PLANT ON ALERT AFTER SWITCHES GLUED. In mid-August Florida Power and Light declared a low level emergency at its St. Lucie power plant after inspectors discovered someone had poured glue into switches in a back-up control room. FPL spokesman said the company suspected sabotage because there was no other way that glue could get on the switches. FPL, Florida's largest utility, has been in the middle of a labor dispute, prompted by union claims that the company was cutting its work force without regard to safety. (AP 8/15/96) THE ULTIMATE NUCLEAR NIGHTMARE: RECYCLED RADWASTE IN CONSUMER PRODUCTS. EPA'S expected new dose exposure standards for "Slightly Contaminated Metals" may permit recycling into consumer products of scrap from nuclear reactor equipment, "low-level" radwastes, and DOE nuclear weapons facilities. None of the products produced will be labelled, nor will the total doses to individuals be monitored. Both the nuclear power industry and DOE are proposing permissive recycling regulations. DOE already smelts and recycles some radioactive metals (RSM) and is pressing EPA to expand the rules to permit the selling of weapons related RSM on the open market. EPA has been assigned the unenviable task of setting standards for doses to the public from an undetermined total number of sources and amounts of radioactivity. On the one hand if EPA refuses to permit any such standard and denies that it is appropriate to recycle contaminated metals at all, the public will be at the mercy of DOE, NRC, and IAEA approvals for unrestricted recycling. On the other hand, if EPA does set recycle standards up to some limit, it is giving governmental blessing to unmeasured, unknown, and unknowable irradiation of the American public without its knowledge or consent. The ruling would also serve as a bad example to the rest of the world. (From a report by Judith Johnsrud following an EPA funded workshop conducted by the DC based Environmental Law Institute in mid-October, 1996) BOTTOM LINE IS DEATH KNELL FOR CONNECTICUT YANKEE POWER PLANT. Northeast Utilities in Connecticut has decided it probably will not restart its 28-year-old power plant in Haddam Neck, currently shut down for safety reasons. The company said the numbers simply do not add up for the nation's oldest operating full-scale nuclear power plant. With newer, more efficient power plants and in some parts of the country plummeting costs for fuels like natural gas, being a power-generating company has become a high-risk business in one of the least forgiving environments of all: Wall Street. Speaking of utility deregulation, which requires utilities to compete for customers in much the same way telephone companies do, Karl R. Rabago of the Environmental Defense Fund said, "Nuclear Power is a big, lumpy investment that always needed stability in certain areas--and that's what missing now. We've got uncertainty in every major element." (NYT, 10/11/96) ADVANCED LIGHT WATER REACTOR LIVES. An amendment to the energy and water appropriations bill in both House and Senate failed to eliminate the ALWR program. It received $38 million. However, the conference report language stipulates that this is its final year of federal funding. Presumably because of Nevada's resistance to the Yucca Mt. repository, the conferees blocked any funding to the state to be used for oversight of that project. In the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, DOE was directed to give oversight money to aid any state where a repository might be placed. (Critical Mass Energy Project, 9/27/96) WESTINGHOUSE ELECTRIC CORP., WORLD'S LARGEST NUCLEAR POWER BUSINESS AND OWNER of CBS, is splitting its industrial base from its broadcast companies. Its broadcast interests have grown into a media company with 16 TV stations reaching one-third of the nation and 77 radio stations in 13 markets. The industrial half will concentrate on nuclear power interests and its Thermo King mobile refrigeration line. (AP/11/14/96) DOE AWARDS $6 BILLION TO WESTINGHOUSE TO MANAGE SAVANNAH RIVER, $5 BILLION TO Fluor Corp, Lockheed Martin Corp, Babcock & Wilcox, Rust Federal Services, Duke Power Co., and Numatec to clean up Hanford. Westinghouse has managed the Savannah River Site since 1989. Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary said the Hanford cleanup would create 3,000 new private-sector jobs. (The Virginian-Pilot, 8/7/96) PROFIT MOTIVE CLOUDING EFFORT TO BUY ENRICHED URANIUM FROM RUSSIA? In 1993 the US arranged, through the federally owned US Enrichment Corporation, to buy 500 tons of Russia's stocks of highly enriched uranium, blended down to reactor grade, to keep it out of the hands of terrorists or rogue nations. US Enrichment borrows from the Federal treasury to pay for the purchase, sells to US nuclear utilities, and pays back the Feds. However, the Russian fuel competes with fuel that the U.S.E.C. itself makes from American uranium, and this year it turned down enough Russian uranium to build 400 Hiroshima size bombs. That decision was reversed after New Mexico's Senator Domenici charged the U.S.E.C. with acting directly contrary to national-security interests. Others have pointed out that U.S.E.C. is scheduled to be privatized as early as this winter and that private ownership might tip the balance even further toward raising profits and away from stopping nuclear proliferation. (NYT, 11/07/96) DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION BILL CLEARS WAY FOR OPENING WIPP AS EARLY AS NOV. 1997! On Sept. 23 President Clinton signed the bill containing amendments to the 1992 WIPP Land Withdrawal Act. EPA will have one year to review the Compliance Certification Application, which DOE submitted at the end of October. After EPA certification, expected one year later, hauling the transuranic nuclear waste into the site can begin. DOE is no longer required to meet the "no migration" standard in the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act because EPA has more stringent radioactive waste disposal criteria. (DOE Carlsbad Area Office, P.O. Box 3090, Carlsbad, NM 88221) WARD VALLEY SEIS TO ANALYZE POSSIBILITY OF LLW DUMP CONTAMINATING GROUNDWATER. The tests will be conducted this winter, and the draft Supplementary Environmental Impact Statement is expected to be completed in the summer of 1997. (Ernest Goitein, 9/3/96) Special Report: DEPLETED URANIUM, WASTE OR WEAPON? Only the rare U-235 isotope, 0.7% of uranium, is fissile, and the nuclear industry enriches it to at least 3% for most power reactors and more than 90% for nuclear weapons. The depleted uranium (DU), with only 0.2% U-235, is a waste, much of it stored in outdoor leak- proof tanks as volatile uranium hexafluoride, UF6. A half million tons are in the U.S., around a million tons worldwide, and DU is growing a half million tons per decade to meet the demands of the world's nuclear electric power plants. Though only mildly radioactive compared to high level spent nuclear fuel waste, it emits densely ionizing alpha particles, making it dangerous if inhaled as dust or ingested in water or food. Once lodged in the lungs, kidneys, or bones it can stay indefinitely. But DU is now being recycled into weapons: armor piercing projectiles and armor plates for tank warfare. Uranium is our heaviest natural element, 50% more dense than lead, and when alloyed with beryllium, molybdenum, or titanium, can be fabricated into hard metal. The projectiles travel much further and faster than conventional shells, moving four times faster at a 40 kilometer range, and easily penetrate conventional armor plating on tanks. Conversely, a tank armored with DU plates easily resists penetration by conventional shells. During the Persian Gulf War in 1991 the U.S. tried these new weapons innovations with remarkable success. Now many countries are calling for DU enhanced conventional weapons, in an arms race where before long no country will want to do without. Thousands of tons of DU have already been shipped from the U.S. to NATO countries, most of it from Nuclear Metals, Inc., Concord, Massachusetts. But DU on the battlefield is seen as a mixed blessing. Upon impact a projectile can burst into flame, since hot metallic uranium is chemically reactive, converting most of it into fine uranium oxide dust of respirable particle size. Suspended in air for days, the contamination can spread for miles and be inhaled by people far from the scene of battle. Moreover, an enemy tank struck by a DU projectile is contaminated with the dust, and any army personnel coming near it risk contaminating themselves and ingesting the dust. Even without being struck, the crew of a DU armored tank receives a low but steady level of harmful radiation from the DU. Properties and military uses of DU have been summarized, based on government and other sources, in the September 20, 1996 report "Collateral Damage: How U.S. Troops Were Exposed to Depleted Uranium During the Persian Gulf War" by Dan Fahey, Depleted Uranium Network, 995 Market Street, 3rd Floor, San Francisco, CA 94103, tel. (415)247- 8777. NAVY BREAKS GROUND FOR NEW NUCLEAR POWER TRAINING SCHOOL IN CHARLESTON, NC, area where the local naval base and shipyard closed this year. All sailors who work with reactors aboard the Navy's 108 nuclear-powered ships and submarines must complete courses at the Naval Nuclear Power Training Command. About 40 per cent of the fleet's vessels are nuclear powered. (Soundings, 10/23/96) NAVY DECIDES ON DUAL PURPOSE CANISTERS FOR NAVAL SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL rather than multi-purpose canisters that would house the fuel both in transit and in ultimate repositories. In announcing the choice Richard A. Guida, Associate Director for Regulatory Affairs, Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, pointed out that the 65 metric tons of spent fuel the Navy expects to generate by 2035 is less than 0.1% of the commercial spent fuel expected by that date. (The Navy Times 9/96) NAVY PLAN TRIMS SUB ATTACK FLEET THROUGH 1999. A total of 36 attack subs have been taken out of service since Oct. 1989, and seven more will come out of the fleet for defueling before they are recycled into scrap during fiscal 1997. That will leave 69 attack submarines in service by the end of that year. Seven more will be decommissioned in each of fiscal years 1998 and 1999. Puget Sound Naval Shipyard has so far handled the bulk of the defueling and scrapping of submarines, but reactor compartments are sealed and shipped to the DOE disposal grounds at Hanford, Wash. The Navy Times, 9/96) NUCLEAR ELECTRIC POWER INCREASES WORLDWIDE SAYS DOE'S ENERGY INFORMATION Administration. 1995 world nuclear power generation accounted for 22 percent cent of total worldwide electricity generation, including a 4 percent rise in 1994. 437 nuclear electric generating units were in operation at the end of 1995 and 85 nuclear power projects were under construction at the end of the year, including 32 units in the Far East. EIA expects continued worldwide growth for nuclear power in the near term but uncertain long term prospects. The capital-intensive nature of plant construction and highly variable operating and maintenance costs for existing plants raise economic concerns. Public perceptions in some countries affect acceptance of commercial nuclear plants, and spent fuel management and disposal of nuclear wastes remain unsolved issues. (EIA Reports, 11/6/96) AFTER DECADE OF STUDY IAEA IS ABOUT TO APPROVE A PACKAGING STANDARD FOR AIR transport that, while requiring greater crash resistance for air shipments than for land and sea shipments of radioactive materials, is still considerably weaker than U.S. legal requirements for shipping plutonium by air and international requirements for protecting flight recorders in commercial airliners. The Nuclear Control Institute says no plutonium air-shipment cask has ever survived tests against these strict requirements. Worse, the new IAEA standard has a loophole exempting plutonium when it is shipped in the form most plutonium is to be shipped, as mixed oxide (MOX) fuel. Industry asserts that MOX fuel won't release plutonium in a crash and fire and therefore can be flown in the weaker existing casks. The Nuclear Control Institute is demanding that IAEA defer action until it develops a code that conforms with strict U.S. requirements and international aviation standards. (Nuclear Control Institute, 8/13/96) FIRST INTERNATIONAL PACT ON REACTOR SAFETY STANDARDS BINDS STATES TO REPORT safety status of current, land-based civil nuclear power plants and any plans to expand. States must also report on radiation protection, emergency procedures, and the location and design of new plants. The International Atomic Energy Agency says 27 states have consented to the accord, including four of the five declared nuclear- weapons states, Britain, China, France, and Russia. The United States, one of the first states to sign the pact, has not yet ratified it. (NYT, 10/25/96) CANADA EXPORTS DISASTER BY SELLING TWO REACTORS TO CHINA SAY ANTI- NUCLEAR groups. Members of the Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout say Canada is looking the other way when it comes to economics, human rights violations and nuclear proliferation. Instead, the Campaign urges Canada to follow the example of the United States in barring the export of reactors to China because China has supplied nuclear technology to other nations on the brink of building atomic bombs. Prime Minister Chretien responded that a high-principled "Boy Scout" approach would cost Canada jobs while having no effect on Chinese policy. Past sales of Canadian reactors to India and Pakistan led to friction when both countries refused to commit to nonproliferation. (NYT, 11-07-96) RUSSIA STILL PUMPS NUCLEAR WASTE INTO THE GROUND AT TOMSK AND KRASNOYARSK. Secret cities during the cold war, they now run their reactors to produce heat and electricity. They inject their high level wastes (from current reprocessing or from their former weapons program?) in shale and clay near Siberian rivers that empty into the Arctic Ocean. At a third site, Dmitrovgrad, injections could migrate into the nearby Volga River, near which great numbers of people live. Very little of the $530 million the US is spending on programs focused on the Russian weapons complex goes toward environmental activities. (Scientific American, 12/96) U.S., NORWAY PLEDGE $1 MILLION FOR PRELIMINARY EFFORT TO HELP RUSSIA DISPOSE OF NUKE subs, reactors and other n. waste dumped into the Barents and Kara Seas. A joint effort backed by Sec. William J. Perry and the Norwegian Defense Minister, Jorgen Kosmo, the project could evolve into a major clean-up. (NYT 10/08/96) The Murmansk region, home to l.4 million people, has 18% of the world's reactors, the greatest concentration in the world according to Bellona, the Norwegian environmental organization. Radioactivity dumped into the 56,000 square mile region constitutes approximately two-thirds of all radioactive waste ever dumped in world oceans. Its nuclear development is owed to its location, 125 miles north of the Arctic Circle yet ice free because the Barents Sea is the terminus of the Gulf Stream. (Wash. Post, 10/19/96) WORLD BANK EXPERTS CALL FOR SHUT-DOWN OF "HIGHER RISK" RUSSIAN NUCLEAR PLANTS and the retrofitting of less dangerous ones. Nuclear power- plant employees have not been paid wages in months. Last summer employees at the Leningrad Atomic Power Station went on a hunger strike and refused to leave the plant's building until they were paid $5.5 million in back wages. The head of the Russian Federal Committee for Nuclear and Radiation Safety has warned that accidents at the plants could occur because of delays in wage payments. Russia's nine nuclear power plants have twenty-nine operating reactors, including eleven Chernobyl-type reactors. PROFIT MOTIVE CLOUDING EFFORT TO BUY ENRICHED URANIUM FROM RUSSIA? In 1993 the US arranged, through the federally owned US Enrichment Corporation, to buy 500 tons of Russia's stocks of highly enriched uranium, blended down to reactor grade, to keep it out of the hands of terrorists or rogue nations. US Enrichment borrows from the Federal treasury to pay for the purchase, sells to US nuclear utilities, and pays back the Feds. However, the Russian fuel competes with fuel that the U.S.E.C. itself makes from American uranium, and this year it turned down enough Russian uranium to build 400 Hiroshima size bombs. That decision was reversed after New Mexico's Senator Domenici charged the U.S.E.C. with acting directly contrary to national-security interests. Others have pointed out that U.S.E.C. is scheduled to be privatized as early as this winter and that private ownership might tip the balance even further toward raising profits and away from stopping nuclear proliferation. (NYT, 11/07/96 TAIWANESE GROUP CAMPAIGNS AGAINST CONSTRUCTION OF FOURTH NUCLEAR POWER PLANT. The protesters assert that the day before accepting a bid from the General Electric Company for construction of a new power plant (two reactors), the parliamentary Legislative Yuan passed a resolution to abolish all nuclear power plant construction. The Executive Yuan claims that this resolution will be voided by the Legislative Yuan, permitting construction to go forward. The protesters charge that of three nuclear power plants (six reactors) built in Taiwan, the two built by GE have damaged the environment and caused suffering among an ethnic minority living on Orchid Island, where nuclear waste has been dumped. CHINA ACCUSED OF CONCEALING SALE TO PAKISTAN OF MAGNETS with nuclear weapon applications. A.M. Rosenthal, NYT columnist and former editor, writes that early this year the White House and State Department found China had made such a sale but did not pursue the matter when the Chinese promised never to do it again. Then on August 30, apparently prompted by a CIA memo, State protested to the Chinese that in fact they had once again sold magnets to a Pakistani plant not subject to "international safeguards." Since then no U.S. action. State says Administration needs more intelligence--or that the sale took place a year ago so the Chinese promise was not broken and the CIA memo was outdated. (NYT, 10/11/96) NORTH KOREA THREATENS NUCLEAR PROGRAM RESTART if U.S. delays building two safer, light-water reactors. Impeding fulfillment of the 1994 deal, in which North Korea agreed to freeze and eventually dismantle its Soviet-designed, weapons useful reactors, are South Korean suspicions aroused by the North Korean submarine infiltration into South Korea in September. (Tallahassee Democrat, 11/16/96) Up to Top |
