|
|
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.
GERMAN GOVERNMENT SEEKS END OF NUCLEAR HEGEMONY. Germany's new center-left government will open talks with nuclear industry leaders within the next year on shutting down nuclear power plants, a party leader announced. Wolfgang Thierse, deputy chairman of Chancellor-elect Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats, told German radio, however, that no decision has been made in coalition talks with the environmentalist Greens on a deadline for the exit from nuclear power. Both parties agree on the goal of ending the use of atomic energy, "whose risks I don't have to describe anymore," Thierse said. He also said industry leaders would be invited to help find a reasonable solution that doesn't cause forced closure of nuclear power plants and damage claims against the government and tax payer. Therese said Germany's 19 nuclear plants could close at different times based on their age and condition. German utilities have already threatened to file multibillion-mark lawsuits against any forced shutdowns. A Frankfurt newspaper reported that two future coalition partners have agreed to enact a law with a time frame for abandoning nuclear energy if the talks with nuclear plant operators fail. (AP, 10/15/98) SE ASIAN NUCLEAR TESTS AWAKEN MANY SENATORS TO NEED FOR CTB. Attempting to overcome Senator Helms's obstruction of the test ban treaty, a new resolution by Senators Specter (R-PA) and Biden (D-DE) calls for hearings and a vote on the treaty this year. (Nucleus, Fall 1998) IN JUNE DOE MADE DECISION TO CONVERT EXCESS PLUTONIUM INTO MOX. Then Energy Secretary Pena said the decision had also been made to build a processing plant at the Savannah River weapons complex in South Carolina, where plutonium would be fabricated into a mixed oxide fuel usable in commercial reactors. The disposal effort is estimated to cost $2.3 billion over 25 years. The plant is expected to produce its first MOX fuel sometime in 2007. (AP, 6/23/98) U.S., RUSSIA SIGN AGREEMENTS TO HELP PRIVATIZE RUSSIA'S NUCLEAR PROGRAM and stop nuclear scientists and plutonium stockpiles from leaving the country. One agreement clears the way for each country to get rid of about 55 tons of plutonium by breaking it down and selling it to Western companies so it cannot used for military purposes. In the second accord the US agreed to invest $30 million over the next five years to generate jobs by bringing private companies and investors to 10 of Russia's leading nuclear research centers. "I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to us all that economic hardship not drive Russian nuclear weapons scientists into places like Iran and North Korea," U.S. Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson said. (Associated Press, 9/23/98) DOMENICI CALLS FOR NEW APPROACH TO PLUTONIUM DISPOSAL. At the end of June, citing recent discussions with top Russian officials, he urged Pesident Clinton to pursue a new plan for disposal of surplus weapons plutonium that would focus on faster dismantlement of classified bomb components, as opposed to burning the material in reactors. While DOE has been moving on an expensive program to convert 3 tons of U.S. surplus plutonium into MOX each year, Domenici said the Russians told him they currently planned to convert only 1.3 tons per year He also learned that Russia would pursue its MOX program only if the West paid for the construction of a MOX fabrication plant in Russia. Rather than near-term MOX use, Domenici said the Russians preferred to save their surplus plutonium for future generatons to use in advanced reactors. (Greenpeace, 7/31/98) MINATOM DISLIKES MOX, SAYS RUSSIAN MINISTER FOR ATOMIC POWER. On Oct. 7, speaking to 8 representatives of international environmental groups in a meeting closed to the press, Adamov said MOX is not an economically effective way to produce electricity, but the U.S. pushes for it as a way to dispose of plutonium. He wants more foreign spent fuel for reprocessing at a price of US $1000 per kilogram and says keeping reprocessing waste in Russia is no problem. (Vladimir Slivyak, Moscow, <ecodefense@glasnet.ru> via <nirsnet@igc.org>) FRANK VON HIPPEL SAYS REPROCESSING PU IS COSTLY AND RISKY PROCESS that could provide terrorists and rogue states with a source of bomb-making material. The nuclear expert says the multi-billion U.S. and European efforts to reprocess spent fuel "are a huge waste of time and resources" that should be abandoned. Instead, he recommends that the U.S. should embark on a complex series of long-term storage agreements. (The Columbus Dispatch, 8/3/98) COMMONWEALTH EDISON HAS ANNOUNCED IT WILL NOT PURSUE MOX and will not use MOX in any of its reactors. (The Nuclear Monitor, 9/98) HOUSE DEM. LEADER DAVID BONIOR ASKS DOE FOR HEARINGS ON MOX SHIPMENTS to Canada through Michigan. The Canadian reactors are widely seen as a fallback for the DOE if it proves overly difficult--either politically or technically--to use MOX fuel in U.S. reactors. Originally planned for fall, the shipment to Chalk River has reportedly been delayed until early 1999. Atomic Energy of Canada is waiting for up to four test shipments each containing 150 grams of plutonium blended with uranium. (The Nuclear Monitor, 9/98) U.K. IS BECOMING THE WORLD'S PLUTONIUM WAREHOUSE. The British stockpile of civil plutonium is likely to double by the year 2010, at which time approximately half of all the separated plutonium in the world will be in the country according to a study by the Oxford Research Group. Britain already has a stockpile of 54 tons of plutonium because BNFL receives spent fuel from reactors around the world for reprocessing and storage. The Oxford group wants more active government policy and greater accountability. (Reuters, 10/6/98) FIRST SPENT FUEL SHIPMENT ARRIVES IN ROKKASHO, JAPAN ON OCT. 1. The transport ship Rokuei Maru carried 8 tons of spent nuclear fuel from a nuclear power plant in Tomioka, Fukushima Prefecture. More than 100 protesters rallied against the shipment. The spent fuel will be used by the government to test the effectiveness of the storage pool at the reprocessing plant of Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd. JNFL, owned mainly by Japan's nine major electric power companies. The Rokkasho plant is Japan's first large-scale commercial nuclear reprocessing plant. (Greenpeace, 10/4/98) NRC PROMOTING U.S. USE OF RADIOACTIVE SCRAP METAL. In April 1998 EPA announced plans to set radiation exposure standards that would for the first time allow the smelting of radioactive scrap metal (RSM) along with regular scrap for the production of consumer goods. In response to public and industry criticism, EPA abandoned this rule making proposal, and the NRC has taken it up. Allowable RSM exposure limits have not yet been approved. (The EPA formally acknowledges that "there is no level below which we can say an exposure poses no risk.") NRC has promised to conduct nationwide public hearings on its proposed RSM radiation exposure standards. Roughly l.6 million tons of radioactively contaminated scrap is currently awaiting disposal in the U.S. Some 45 thousand tons more is produced every year as a result of decommissioning and decontamination work at nuclear power and weapons facilities. The holders of some 10,000 NRC radioactive materials handling licenses also produce RSM. Licensees include pharmaceutical corporations, smoke detector companies, road builders, oil well drillers, universities, corporate and government scientists. (Pathfinder, the Progressive Foundation, fall 1998.) NORM IS OVERWEIGHT GORILLA IN THE RADIOACTIVE ZOO. As naturally occurring radioactive material is recycled into a wide range of consumer goods, it permeates our lives, from food grown with phosphate fertilizers to paper, ceramics, many chemicals, auto parts, paint manufacture, waste incinerators, cement kilns, and much else. EPA says several hundred millions tons of NORM contaminated wastes are generated in the U.S. annually. Members of the industries involved, as well as proposed regs do not appear to distinguish between onsite occupational radiation doses from NORM related operations and industrial and cumulative public exposures from multiple sources in the form of consumer products. Industry's main concern is about NORM disposal costs and liability, and dilution is fairly widely practiced. (Judith Johnsrud, David Wells, 7/25/98) RADIATION FROM SPANISH STEEL MILL CONTAMINATES EUROPE. In late May, high measurements of radioactive cesium-137 in the atmosphere activated alarm systems in France, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Germany, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Greece. A cesium-137 plume was said to have caused the highest nuclear contamination on the continent since the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. Metal smelted at the Acerinox steel mill and at a smelter in Algeciras, southeast of Gibraltar, contained cesium-137 in smelter emissions that drifted across the continent. The scrap metal supposedly had been screened for radioactivity, but according to Spain's Nuclear Security Council, the cesium-137 was in scrap apparatus lined with radiation absorbing material, and so the contamination was not detected. (Pathfinder, the Progressive Foundation, Fall 1998. Rad Waste Dumping, Storage, and Cleanup NEW QUESTIONS RAISED ABOUT YUCCA MOUNTAIN STABILITY. Brian Wernicke at the California Institute of Technology says his research reveals that the earth's crust at Yucca Mt. is deforming much faster than estimated by the Department of Energy. Speaking at a recent conference in Las Vegas, Wernicke said that his research shows the ground in the area could stretch more than 3 feet in less than l,000 years, which would be enough to crush buried nuclear waste canisters and release deadly radiation. Continuation of his research is expected to show whether or not new volcanic activity in the region is likely. (Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force, 5/23/98) COSTS FOR A YUCCA MOUNTAIN DUMP HIGHER THAN EXPECTED. A State of Nevada study overseen by the Peat Marwick national auditing firm concluded that the total cost for a national high level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain would be at least $20 billion more than estimated by DOE. The total price tag would be nearly twice as much as the projected amount to be paid into the Nuclear Waste Fund by the users of nuclear power--thereby making the American taxpayers liable for $16 billion of the $54 billion needed to complete the project. (Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force, 5/23/98) DOE CHOOSES AUSTRALIA'S SYNROC PROCESS TO HELP STORE PLUTONIUM. Developed by Australian nuclear scientists and Lawrence Livermore Lab, the technology produces a ceramic synthetic rock which is used to encase radioactive materials, as opposed to other established glass immobilization methods. (Physicians for Social Responsibility, 8/12/98) CONGRESS APPROVES VERMONT/MAINE/TEXAS COMPACT BY 78-15 VOTE clearing the way for money from the two New England States to begin flowing to Texas for construction of a new "low level" waste dump near Sierra Blanca. Construction of the site remains on hold as two Administrative Law Judges, after months of hearings, recommended that a license for the site be denied, based on seismic and environmental justice concerns. It is widely believed that their decision will be overturned by the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission. Governor George Bush has long backed the compact and the Sierra Blanca site. Dump opponents in both Texas and New England are urging a presidential veto of the bill. (The Nuclear Monitor, 9/98) FAKE ENGINEER OVERSAW ENVIROCARE'S UTAH LOW LEVEL WASTE DUMP according to state regulators. Charles Judd, president of Envirocare, said the company was duped by Allan A. Bargerstock, who claimed to have an engineering degree and possessed a professional engineer's stamp and license number. Regulators found Bargerstock's social security number linked to 40 possible aliases. Envirocare takes contaminated dirt and other waste from as far away as New Jersey and stores it in clay-lined pits 60 miles west of Salt Lake City. Judd said most of the work reviewed by Bargerstock dealt with waste treatment, not storage, and he doesn't expect any problems to arise. (AP, 7/14/98) ENERGY SECRETARY RICHARDSON STYMIED BY CONGRESSMAN RICHARDSON? DOE and the New Mexico Environment Department seem at swords points since the state discovered DOE's first shipment to WIPP would include far more waste than was expected. Susan McMichael, head of the state regulatory effort for WIPP, warned last week that the DOE plans could delay the opening of WIPP by causing a manpower drain on state regulators forced to certify that federal shipments contain no state-regulated chemicals. The state department also raised the possibility that it may sue to stop nuclear shipments to WIPP before the state permit is issued. Meanwhile, DOE says it plans to begin shipments in January as if overlooking the fact that it must still get a federal judge to lift a 1992 court order barring such shipments--which DOE Secretary Richardson filed with other members of Congress when he was a Congressman representing New Mexico's third Congressional District. (Albuquerque Journal 10/7/98) SPENT FUEL SHIPMENTS TO EUROPE'S REPROCESSING PLANTS HALTED by transport and storage problems. The French agency in charge of nuclear safety was late in learning about "loose surface radioactivity"-- sometimes as high as 3,000 times the legal limit--on containers shipped across Europe. Now the French government has banned all shipments of spent fuel to Cap La Hague. Shipments to Britain's THORP reprocessing plant at Sellafield were also suspended, and both the Irish Government and local British authorities are concerned that an accident in THORP storage tanks could pollute Dublin. Britain's smaller reprocessing plant, Dounreay is also shut down. Meanwhile Sellafield's vitrification project--embedding waste in glass logs, is going badly partly because of the unusually rapid corrosion of major pieces of equipment. (The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, September/October, 1998) BRITISH CLOSE CONTROVERSIAL NUCLEAR PLANT AT ASTRONOMICAL COST. The government has announced it would accept no more nuclear material for reprocessing at Dounreay as a first step in closing down. Opened in 1957, the facility has been the scene of controversy over its safety and commercial viability. The closing will take a century and cost about a billion pounds ($1.65 billion). Before the plant can be shut down, however, it must process a shipment of 10 pounds of nuclear material from the former Soviet republic of Georgia, result of an agreement between Prime Minister Blair and President Clinton to keep the material out of the hands of terrorists. Meanwhile, Norway, with support from Sweden and the Irish Republic, is set to demand an immediate halt to all nuclear operations at Dounreay and at a much larger reprocessing complex at Sellafield, opposite the Irish coast, because of a rising threat of polluting the North Sea. (Christian Science Monitor, 6/8/98 NEWFOUND BACTERIA CAN SURVIVE RADIOACTIVITY AND CLEAN UP RAD WASTES produced by U.S. weapons manufacture. Deinococus radiodurans' genes encode an enzyme that partially breaks down toluene and other toxic chemicals and can produce the enzyme even after continuous radiation exposure. (U.S. News, 10/19/98) DEPLETED URANIUM CONTAMINATING THE PANAMA CANAL ZONE? YES! -- In addition to unexploded bombs, nerve gas, and other hazardous debris which, over decades, littered military testing ranges west of the Panama Canal. The U.S. and Panama have not yet reached an agreement on who cleans it up before the Canal is returned to Panamanian rule on Dec. 31, 1999. (New York Times, 10/14/98) Nuclear Power and Reactor Safety NRC LIFTS BAN ON CONNECTICUT NUCLEAR PLANT. Lifting a ban that has idled one of the nation's largest nuclear plants for more than two years, the NRC ruled in June that safety conditions had improved enough at the Millstone Nuclear Power Station for one of its three reactors to be restarted. Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson, the NRC chairwoman who ordered sweeping changes at Millstone, said after the vote, "Employees should be free to raise safety concerns. The one thing that characterized Millstone before this point was its treatment of employees. That was completely unacceptable. There are lessons learned and things we do differently because of that. (New York Times, 6/16/98) MAINE YANKEE NUCLEAR POWER PLANT TO BE TORN DOWN by its architect and builder. Stone and Webster Engineering Corp. of Boston, which built the plant a quarter century ago, has won a $250 million decommissioning contract. The firm also has an option to build a natural gas-fired power station on the site. It would produce l,400 megawatts, or almost twice that of Maine Yankee's output. (UPI, 8/8/98) DUKE POWER APPLIES FOR LICENSE RENEWAL AFTER 25 YEARS of power production, the first utility to do so. The outcome of its initiative could determine the future of nuclear energy in the United States. (New York Times, 7/8/1998) NUKE PLANTS COMPROMISED BY CARELESS INSPECTORS and frequent worker mistakes according to a study released by the Union of Concerned Scientists. Based on the monitoring of 10 nuclear plants from 11/96 to 1/98, the study found that 35% of problems were caused by human error and 44% by faulty procedures. David Lochbaum, the report's author, asserted that the industry is "too old to be experiencing so many preventable safety problems." (Greenwire, 7/5/98) RUSSIA SELLS INDIA TWO COMMERCIAL REACTORS less than three weeks after joining the U.S. in condemning India for testing nuclear weapons. When Secretary of State Albright raised the issue with then Russian Foreign Minister Primakov, he replied that the power plant agreement was not new but rather a reactivation of a deal reached a decade ago by India and what was then the Soviet Union. For that reason, the agreement does not violate Moscow's obligation as a more recent member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group. Health Effects, the Nuclear Scourge DOE TO DEVELOP HEALTH STUDIES PLAN INVOLVING THE MORE THAN 400 workers and neighbors of its plants nationwide who are suffering unexplained immune, neurological and respiratory problems. According to Dr. Paul Seligman, DOE's deputy assistant secretary for health studies, these studies have in the past focused on tryng to evaluate levels of environmental contamination around these sites and to determine whether there is potential for disease. "But now it might be time for something new," he said. (Nashville Tennessean, 10/7/98) $36.5 MILLION AWARDED CANCER STRICKEN NEIGHBORS OF URANIUM plant that fueled submarines during the Cold War. Plant owners were ordered by a jury in mid-September to pay at least $36.5 million in compensatory damages to eight cancer-stricken residents of the small Pennsylvania town of Apollo or their relatives. Atlantic Richfield Co. and Babcock and Wilcox Co. were found negligent in their operation of the now-closed Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp. plant. (Tallahassee Democrat, 9/18/98) NAVAJO LEADERS STRUGGLE TO BLOCK A RENEWAL OF URANIUM MINING in the Church Rock and Gallup areas. At issue are mines proposed by Hydro Resouces Inc., a New Mexico subsidiary of a Texas company, and radioactivity induced health problems among miners in the past. A water leaching method will be used similar to that used by Mobil in a pilot project at Crownpoint in 1979 and 1980, a project that was never able to get groundwater back to its natural condition. Critics fear a catastrophe for the 15,000 people served by the water system in Crownpoint. (Maryknoll Magazine, July/Aug 1998) SOME SCIENTISTS NOW SAY LOW LEVEL RADIATION MAY BE MORE DANGEROUS than previously believed. At a conference on low level radiation exposure they pointed to new evidence that suggests the same amount of radiation spread out over time and emitted in low doses can cause more biological damage than a single blast. (Citizens' Watch, Oct. 1998) PLUTONIUM 1,000 TIMES ABOVE WORLD-WIDE TESTING FALLOUT found in Livermore parks. It is known to come from Livermore Lab. Reports from both a state and federal health agency have recommended follow-up measures addressing both the plutonium in the parks and the plutonium contaminated sludge given to residents as a soil conditioner in the 1960's and 1970's. (Citizens' Watch, July 1998) BUGS SPREADING RADIATION AT HANFORD? Fruit flies, gnats and ants may be spreading radiation at the Hanford nuclear reservation. The worst spot, found Oct. 6., measured 10 - 12 millirads per hour. Standing next to a spot contaminated by radioactive bugs would give a level of exposure equal to a dental X-ray. An iron worker earlier was found to have radiation on one boot and on four socks in his laundry hamper at home. 210 tons of trash have been taken back to the reservation from the Richland city landfill because it is contaminated with radiation, mostly in garbage where flies and ants had been. Efforts are increasing to lure and trap the tiny contaminated bugs that are flying around a 10-acre area near central Hanford's B Plant. About 200 other traps are being scattered around Hanford outside of the 10-acre site. And technicians have been going through the 10-acre site shoulder-to-shoulder with radiation counters to hunt for contaminated spots and insects. (Tri-City Herald, Richland , WA, 10/07/98 et seq.; AP 10/22/98) CHRONIC BERYLLIUM DISEASE AFFLICTING 84 ROCKY FLATS WORKERS found in 1994 study. The result of long term exposure to low levels of beryllium, symptoms include shortness of breath, scarring of lung tissue, and non-cancerous growths in the lungs. 168 cases of sensitization were also discovered. DOE is planning to expand the Rocky Flats beryllium studies to other sites throughout the DOE nuclear weapons complex. (The Advisor, Rocky Flats Citizens Advisory Board, Fall 1998) GREENPEACE FINDS RAD CONTAMINATION AROUND SELLAFIELD 400 times greater than around Chernobyl, from which all the inhabitants have been evacuated. The results of the tests, which were analyzed by the University of Bremen and the Environment Office of Hamburg, have come at a bad time for Sellafield, as the German Social Democratic party negotiates with the Greens over whether to continue sending German spent nuclear fuel to Britain for reprocessing. (The Independent, 10/11/98) MORE BAD NEWS FROM CHERNOBYL Children living immediately downwind of the accident have auto immune thyroid abnormalities at almost seven times the rate of those who lived upwind of the reactor's fallout, reports an international team of researchers in the Sept. 5 Lancet. Girls at least six years old at the time of the accident were more than twice as likely to have the antibodies as were fallout-exposed boys of their age--and almost 10 times as likely as were girls their age from an unexposed town. Some studies have suggested that high estrogen production increases vulnerability to autoimmune disease, a partial explanation of why fallout-exposed girls who before the study had undergone puberty faced the highest rate of the thyroid disease (Science, October 3, 1998). THE CASSINI MISSION - WHY THE EARTH FLYBY MUST BE OMITTED. The most hazardous part of the NASA plan is its return toward earth in August 1999 at a speed of 10 miles per second to use earth's gravity to further increase its speed. At this speed a flight error lasting only about 30 seconds could cause the space ship to enter earth's atmosphere, and the extreme heat of friction could destroy the craft. This is of great concern since to generate electricity the ship contains 72 pounds of radioactive plutonium. It is not the type used for nuclear bombs but is extremely carcinogenic if it enters the lung in fine particles. (NoFlyBy Newsletter No. 6) BRITISH NUCLEAR FUELS INVOLVED IN U.S. NUCLEAR OPERATIONS, including cleanup programs at a number of DOE sites and as part of a consortium bidding on the U.S. plutonium disposition program. Most recently BNFL's buy-out of Westinghouse nuclear operations will give it a major new role at the Savannah River site. Longtime neighbors of BNFL's Sellafield reprocessing facility recently held a briefing for Congressional staff about the proliferation and environmental consequences of the commercial plutonium industry . Also discussed were the potential dangers of the U.S. Department of Energy's plans to fabricate mixed-oxide fuel (MOX) from surplus weapons plutonium. (Physicians for Social Responsibility, 9/25/98) IN DEAL WITH BNFL, DOE AGREES TO $6.9 BILLION TO CONVERT SPENT FUEL into glass at Hanford. The DOE site intends to glassify 54 million gallons of waste buried in 177 underground tanks, a job that could take 30 years and cost $40 to $50 billion. The waste varies in content but includes radioactive sludge and unknown combinations of combinations of bomb making byproducts that have proven unstable. "The process will provide long lasting protection of the Columbia River--which is what the cleanup is really aimed at," said John Wagoner, the Energy Department's Hanford manager. (The Oregonian, 7/22/98) GAO REPORT RAISES SERIOUS QUESTIONS ABOUT THE $6.9 BILLION CONTRACT with British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) to clean up Hanford's most dangerous wastes and warned the agreement carries substantial financial risk for DOE. The report also raised concerns about whether the vitrification technology BNFL has developed will be capable of turning the highly radioactive wastes currently stored in underground tanks at Hanford into glass. (Tri-City Herald Washington DC bureau, 10/14/98) SNAKE RIVER ALLIANCE WANTS TO KNOW WHY. DOE's Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) has given British Nuclear fuels (BNFL) a $1.18 billion private contract to own and operate a plant to treat nuclear waste anywhere from 13 to 30 years. BNFL's primary technologies are crush and burn. A quarter of the waste will be burned; three quarters will be crushed, and the DOE has not yet made clear that the risks of crushing and burning will not cause the project to end up less safe than the pile of waste BNFL will start with. Furthermore, the Alliance charges that if the U.S., which produced the waste, financed the plant, it could be built for 1/3 less. (Snake River Alliance Alert, Summer, 1998) CBS SELLS WESTINGHOUSE TO BRITISH NUCLEAR FUELS & MORRISON KNUDSEN. The latter is a $1.7 billion construction and engineering company based in Boise, Idaho. British Nuclear Fuels, a $2.5 billion company owned by the British Government, is no stranger to American projects. Its American subsidiary, BNFL Inc., operates cleanup and decommissioning contracts at five DOE sites. (New York Times, 6/28/1998) GPU AGREES TO SELL THREE MILE ISLAND UNIT 1 TO AMERGEN ENERGY CO. (owned jointly by Peco Energy Co. and British Energy P.L.C) for $100 million. The Amergen Company was formed last year to acquire and operate nuclear power plants in the United States. Amergen will not purchase Three Mile Island Unit 2, which has not been used since the March 28, 1979, accident. (New York Times, 7/18/98) Nuclear Waste Issues Broadly Considered DRAFT RESOLUTION ON LINKS BETWEEN NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND NUCLEAR WAR by European Affiliates of International Physicians for Prevention Of Nuclear War. Bearing in mind that:
Be it resolved that IPPNW will work towards the following goals:
This draft resolution, worked out by participants at the IPPNW workshop in Basle, Switzerland on Sept. 4-5, will be introduced to the IPPNW World Congress in December 1998. SUBCRITIAL PROJECT BAGPIPE CONDUCTED SEPT. 26 AT NEVADA TEST SITE. It was the fourth experiment of the Stockpile Stewardship Program to determine the reliability of the nation's nuclear weapons. DOE reports it was conducted in horizontal tunnels about 960 feet underground and remained subcritical. Japanese mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki said the tests will impede nuclear disarmament. (Tallahassee Democrat, 9/28/98) STUDY FINDS FUSION RESEARCH VIOLATES TEST BAN TREATY according to a recent report from the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER). The study argues that fusion research planned for the $2.2 billion facility currently being built in Livermore, California would help scientists design new nuclear weapons and could lead to the development of pure fusion weapons which would be fueled by deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen that is common in sea water. IEER finds that experiments at Livermore will include minute thermonuclear explosions. The CTBT prohibits all nuclear explosions, no matter how small. (Bombs Away, Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, Fall 1998) WILL COMMERCIAL REACTORS BE USED TO MAKE TRITIUM FOR H-BOMBS? House and Senate conferees decided not to incorporate the Markey-Graham amendment in the FY 1999 Defense Authorization bill. That amendment would have banned the use of commercial reactors to produce tritium for nuclear weapons, thus implicitly requiring accelerator production, the only other candidate. The conferees also decided to prohibit DOE from spending any money next year to implement its decision to build a new facility for making tritium. Choosing the use of commercial reactors would cause a breach with the nation's traditional separation of military and civilian nuclear programs. (Physicians for Social Responsibility, 9/2/98) RUSSIA SELLS INDIA TWO COMMERCIAL REACTORS less than three weeks after joining the U.S. in condemning India for testing nuclear weapons. When Secretary of State Albright raised the issue with then Russian Foreign Minister Primakov, he replied that the power plant agreement was not new but rather a reactivation of a deal reached a decade ago by India and what was then the Soviet Union. For that reason, the agreement does not violate Moscow's obligation as a more recent member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group. INDIANS FORM "MIND" MOVEMENT FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT. They say the tests were a complete departure from a settled national consensus which had been in favor of elimination of all nuclear weapons; there was also a national consensus that in the absence of any tangible movement towards global disarmament, India must keep its nuclear option open, but MIND movement members are deeply and firmly committed to universal nuclear disarmament. (NGO Indians News and Views, July 1998) OPPOSITION AT HOME STALLS INDIAN/PAKISTANI FOLLOW THROUGH on stated willingness to sign the CTB. Restive publics demand lifting of sanctions in return. Some Indian officials say their country needs freedom to test in order to develop a deterrent against Pakistan and China; others say India should not sign until the five declared nuclear powers agree to move decisively toward global disarmament. A spokesman for a non-profit research group in New Delhi says it's not clear what the U.S. can offer because the President has been weakened and Congress is hostile. (New York Times, 9/30/98) UNIVERSITY AND DOE CONTRACTOR CONDUCTING INTRUSIVE STUDY OF POTENTIAL CRITICS. Participants from the University of New Mexico and Booze, Allen and Hamilton, a consulting firm, are asking how citizen and organized groups communicate concerns about spent nuclear fuel policy to public officials, their sources of funding, participation in or provision of training for public protests and finishing with a battery of inappropriate questions: a. Could you send us any information on your organization? (Susan Gordon, Director, Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, 10/7/98) Up to Top |
