Press Pieces

The next scheduled update of this page is Monday, November 24, 2008.

The following are a few recent news items that involve radiation or radioactivity in some form or another.  They are unedited articles or excerpts.  Because very few (if any) have been through any form of scientific review, their technical validity and accuracy should not be taken for granted.  Please give Integrated Environmental Management, Inc. (IEM) a call if you would like some additional insights. (You may wish to press your "reload" button to be sure you are seeing the most current collection.)

November 21, 2008 - New York Times - Protecting home from silent threat - The cost of heating a home is expected to be higher than ever this winter, so this is a good time to batten down the hatches by caulking, sealing and weather-stripping every cold air entry point. But homeowner beware: the quick fix could create a more serious set of problems, because the better you are at sealing icy air out, the more likely you are to keep potentially harmful gases like radon sealed in. Radon is a naturally occurring radioactive gas that can't be seen, smelled or tasted. "It is a classic carcinogen," said Philip Jalbert, the radon team leader for the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington. "We estimate that about 20,000 people die from radon-induced lung cancer every year," making it the country's second-highest cause of lung cancer, behind smoking. The gas can infiltrate a house by seeping up from the soil and through cracks and other openings in a basement floor or crawl space, Jalbert said. Covering all such cracks lessens the potential for a problem but does not do away with it altogether, as new cracks occur all the time.

November 21, 2008 - Australian Broadcasting Corporation - Mine workers' uranium exposure not dangerous: WorkSafe - Northern Territory WorkSafe says it does not expect to see any negative health outcomes as a result of a uranium contamination at the Ranger mine, near Jabiru. Mining company ERA says some workers were exposed to uranium when they were cleaning up a yellowcake spill three weeks ago. WorkSafe executive director Laurene Hull says 15 people were working during the time of the contamination, but only six workers have been tested. "We can advise that all the test results for those workers indicate that they were exposed, but at levels far below the international standard for exposure to radiation," she said. "So in this case we don't expect there will be any negative health outcomes from that exposure."

November 21, 2008 - Vineland Daily Journal - Shieldalloy hearings wrap up - Federal officials wrapped up Thursday an unusual two days of on-site public hearings at Shieldalloy Metallurgical Corp.'s closed facility here. Shieldalloy is pursuing U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission permission to "decommission" the already closed facility. The review process involves a steady back and forth of questions and answers. This week's back-to-back hearings were meant to allow NRC and Shieldalloy staffs to ask each other questions about technical and language issues. "We don't always say what we mean and what we say sometimes is interpreted differently," said Jack Hayes, project manager for the NRC. The meetings allowed civilians attending to make statements, but without a guarantee of getting responses. Nevertheless, commission and company officials did speak with several residents. NRC official Kenneth Kline said the cost of keeping the waste on site is $8,060,930.  Hayes said the NRC has not decided if groundwater needs to be monitored for safety. "The Cohansey (aquifer) is your source," he said. "We understand that." The NRC expects to have initial results on leaching tests in December, Hayes told an attorney for Gloucester County.  "Then we're going to decide what the second set of samples should be," Hayes said. Testing should be done late in the first quarter of 2009, he said. Hayes said the commission then will seek data on calculating exposure. Forty-five days after receiving it, the information will be provided to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. Hayes said a revised closing plan should be in to his office in summer 2009.

November 21, 2008 - Medical News Today - Survival Of Melanoma Cells Promoted By Gene Required For Radiation-Induced Protective Pigmentation - Scientists have new insight into the response of human skin to radiation and what drives the most aggressive and deadly form of skin cancer. The research, published by Cell Press in the November 21st issue of the journal Molecular Cell, may be useful in the design of new strategies for prevention of malignant melanoma. The process of tanning involves synthesis of the pigment melanin by skin cells known as melanocytes. The melanin is dispersed to neighboring skin cells, known as keratinocytes, and acts as a natural sunscreen that provides some protection against the ultraviolet (UV) radiation in sunlight. UV radiation induces melanin production in melanocytes via activation of p53 in keratinocytes and subsequent activation of proopiomelanocortin/melanocyte-stimulating hormone (POMC/MSH). POMC/MSH initiates a series of signals leading to activation of genes controlling pigment production in melanocytes.

November 21, 2008 - Brattleboro Reformer - Engineers find more cracks in VY steam dryer - During a recheck of the results of Vermont Yankee's steam dryer inspection, engineers found that the number of additional hairline cracks in the dryer was actually 18, and not 16, as previously reported. "These two additional ones were also likely created in the early years of plant operations and are not a result of metal fatigue that had been seen in some other boiling water reactors that had been through a power uprate," stated Rob Williams, spokesman for Yankee, in an e-mail to the media. The steam dryer inspection was conducted during a recent refueling outage at the nuclear power plant in Vernon. The inspection was the second of three required by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission following the approval of a 20 percent power uprate. In addition to the dryer inspection, Yankee technicians conducted more than 5,000 tasks including inspections and parts replacements.

November 21, 2008 - Your Nuclear News - New site for proposed Alta. nuclear power plant weighed - Bruce Power is looking at an alternative site for a proposed nuclear power plant in northwestern Alberta. The new site is located about 30 km north of the Town of Peace River. Bruce Power is still considering the original Lac Cardinal site about 30 km west of the town. The company, which is a joint venture of uranium giant Cameco Corp. and TransCanada Corp., said it plans to study both areas before making a final decision early next year. Once the site is chosen, Bruce Power would begin a preliminary design of the plant before presenting its plan to Alberta regulators and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. Bruce Power operates six Candu reactors at its electricity generating stations about 250 km northwest of Toronto.

November 21, 2008 - Paducah Sun - Beshear Calls for Nuclear and Clean Power: Promoting Coal-to-Liquid Technology and Lifting Bans Will Keep Jobs in, and Bring New Ones to, the Region - Western Kentucky would benefit from a comprehensive energy policy that includes consideration of nuclear power plants, nuclear recycling facilities and coal-to-liquid fuel plants, Gov. Steve Beshear said Thursday. Beshear released a 144-page plan that he hopes to begin implementing next year when the General Assembly meets. It will take several years to carry out some parts of the plan because of the potential cost, Beshear said in a phone interview. He said the plan would help make Kentucky a leader in the national effort to reduce energy dependence on foreign countries, many of which are enemies of the United States. "It also has an economic development benefit," Beshear said. "If we are successful in carrying it out, 40,000 new jobs would be created by 2025." He said one of the early goals would be to lift the state's 1979 ban on building new nuclear power plants. "It is time to have conversations about the role that nuclear power should play in the future," Beshear said. "It already is part of our strategy nationally because we produce 20 percent of our electricity by nuclear energy."

November 21, 2008 - Las Vegas Review-Journal - After talking with Obama, Reid says Yucca project will suffer a slow and painful death - President-elect Barack Obama and Sen. Harry Reid have held several discussions about the Yucca Mountain Project since the election, with Reid saying this week the nuclear waste burial plan will “bleed real hard” before being halted. Reid said the most recent conversation — covering the waste repository program and other issues — took place Tuesday. He declined to give details, but hinted that the plan to bury 77,000 tons of highly radioactive material in Nevada could die a slow and painful death. “Yucca Mountain is history, OK?” Reid said in an interview Wednesday. “Just watch, we’ll see what happens real soon, just watch. You will see it bleed real hard in the next year.” Supporters and critics of the proposed Nevada nuclear waste repository have been waiting for signals as to how Obama might proceed on nuclear waste issues. One of the tea leaves is Reid, the Senate majority leader and the leading congressional opponent of the Yucca project that is unpopular among many Nevadans and most of the state’s elected leaders. Other signals, observers say, will be who Obama selects to run the Department of Energy and carry out his policies, and how much money he proposes to spend on the project in the coming year. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission started in September to review an 8,600-page DOE application for a repository construction license.

November 21, 2008 - Ukranian Journal - Zaporizhia nuclear plant may cease operation due to lack of demand - Zaporizhia regional administration head Oleksandr Starukh has confirmed earlier reports suggesting that several units at the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant could be stopped because of a significant decline in power consumption by regional industrial enterprises. "If there is not enough demand for power, the nuclear power plant’s facilities should be stopped. This is not news to us," Starukh said at a news briefing in Zaporizhia.

November 21, 2008 - New York Daily News - Nuke attack risk to rise, spies warn - The world of tomorrow may be a smoldering, radioactive ruin, America's spy agencies predicted in a boom-and-doom report released Thursday. Access to new technologies and new "options for limited strikes" will likely increase the chances nuclear weapons will be used in the next two decades, the intelligence community concluded. "The risk of nuclear weapon use over the next 20 years, although remaining very low, is likely to be greater than it is today," said the National Intelligence Council, distilling views of 16 spy agencies within the Directorate of National Intelligence. The Global Trends 2025 report said one of our greatest concerns is that a terror group will acquire or employ a loose nuke - though that's less likely than if they get their claws on biological agents to kill innocents. One scary scenario is that Iran will succeed in building a doomsday bomb, which will spark a Middle East arms race between Tehran's Shia Muslim regime and Sunni Arab states such as Saudi Arabia, the findings show. "The spread of nuclear technologies and expertise is generating concerns about the potential emergence of new nuclear weapon states and the acquisition of nuclear materials by terrorist groups," the council said.

November 21, 2008 - Reuters - Obama seen helping put atom test ban pact in force - The election of Barack Obama as U.S. president has given crucial impetus toward implementing the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty more than a decade after it was negotiated, pact officials said on Wednesday. The global treaty, which prohibits all nuclear explosions, cannot enter into force before it is ratified by all 44 states listed in an annex that took part in the 1996 negotiations and have nuclear power or research reactors. Nine of the 44 have not ratified the pact -- Iran, Israel, North Korea, Indonesia, Egypt, India, Pakistan, China and the United States, where the administration of outgoing President George W. Bush was wary of multilateral commitments restraining its security options.

November 21, 2008 - Asbury Park Press - Women oppose relicensing plant - The League of Women Voters of Ocean County has voted to oppose the relicensing of the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in Lacey. Blanche R. Krubner, the organization's president, appeared before the Ocean County Board of Freeholders on Wednesday to express safety concerns over the oldest operating commercial nuclear reactor in the country. She called on the freeholders to also be more vocal about its future. At immediate issue for the League is whether a corroded steel radiation barrier is safe enough for the plant to resume operation and continue operating until its next scheduled inspection in 2012. Officials for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission contend it is. "We have voted that we are opposed to the relicensing of Oyster Creek, and this past Saturday, at our meeting, we also voted that we want the plant to remain shut down and not to start refueling until the Sandia (National Laboratories in New Mexico) labs have sent back their analysis," Krubner said. AmerGen, the company that operates the plant, is seeking a 20-year license renewal from the NRC. Its license will expire in April, but the plant can continue operating if the NRC is still reviewing its license renewal application then. Garry Black, 48, of Jackson rose during the comment portion of the meeting to express his conditional support for Oyster Creek.

November 21, 2008 - Knoxville News-Sentinel - Cleanup project moving forward; Potential $14.5 billion plan for Oak Ridge could take 25 years - The U.S. Department of Energy has given its preliminary blessing to a massive Oak Ridge cleanup campaign that could cost as much as $14.5 billion and take 25 years to complete. The DOE announced Wednesday that Jim Rispoli, the assistant secretary for environmental management, had signed papers for Critical Decision-1 - a major step that moves the project forward and sets the stage for seeking congressional appropriations for the work. The Oak Ridge proposal, known officially as the Integrated Facilities Disposition Program, would demolish more than 400 contaminated buildings at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant. The program also would focus on fixing polluted groundwater at the sites and reducing environmental damage done by 60 years of nuclear operations.

November 21, 2008 - Victoria Advocate - A nuclear plant would mean big things for Victoria - Building a nuclear plant in Victoria County would mean big things for the community, Texas economist Ray Perryman said. "This really is a game changer for a community this size," said Perryman, president and CEO of The Perryman Group, a Waco economic and financial analysis firm. Perryman spoke Thursday at the Victoria Economic Development Corporation's annual membership meeting about the impact the proposed nuclear plant would have on Victoria and about the nation's economic situation. The Exelon Nuclear plant would offer diversity to Victoria's strongly petrochemical-based community, Perryman said, and would bring stability. The petrochemical industry sees its shares of ups and downs, he explained, and having a different type of plant - one that didn't follow that same cycle - would make those "downs" not so bad.

November 21, 2008 - Cibola County Beacon - 'I'm for Uranium' - 'I'm for Uranium' signs were distributed at Wednesday evenings City Council workshop in Grants. Councilman Fred Rodarte, left, and Grants Mainstreet Interim Director Randy Hoffman, examine a sign just after the workshop ended. The signs were created and provided free of charge by a grassroots group recently formed in Cibola County. If interested, you can pick one up at the Grants/Cibola County Chamber of Commerce on Iron Avenue. "We signed a resolution in support of uranium mining last year and I think we ought to show our support by posting these up in our yards,” Councilman Walter Jaramillo said. For more information about the grassroots group call Star Gonzales, director of Economic Development, at 287-4820. A public hearing related to uranium mining was held yesterday for Neutron Energy to do 'confirmatory drilling' in the Marquez Ranch Land Grant near Seboyeta. See Tuesday's Beacon for a full article.

November 21, 2008 - Tri-City Herald - GAO investigating compensation for ill nuclear workers - The Government Accountability Office is investigating a program to compensate ill nuclear workers, including those at Hanford, and should have some preliminary findings to share with congressional leaders this spring. Sixteen senators and representatives, including Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, both D-Wash., called for the review to identify the source of problems they say they hear about from constituents. "For too long, sick Hanford workers have had to struggle to get the compensation they deserve," Murray said in a statement. "Whether they have been forced to wait for years, have had critical information ignored or have been wrongly denied compensation, Hanford workers have had to fight a system designed to help them." The program's Part B offers compensation of $150,000 and medical reimbursement for workers who likely developed cancer because of workplace exposure to radiation or a lung disease because of exposure to the metal beryllium. Part E pays up to $250,000 for wage loss and impairment caused by exposure to toxic substances, which could include radiation, chemicals, solvents, acids and metals. If workers have died, survivors may be eligible for compensation. "This investigation will provide us with the information we need to fix a broken system," Murray said.

November 21, 2008 - Lincoln County Record - County Seeks to Become an Interested Governmental Participant on the Yucca Mountain License - Attorney Barry Newman, of Carter, Ledger and Milburn, a legal firm in Washington D.C., visited the Lincoln County Commission meeting November 17. The firm has been retained for some time to represent Lincoln County interests in the licensing proceedings regarding the proposed Department of Energy Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository. Newman suggested two options the County might pursue now in the process. One is to file their own list of contentions and go to litigation, and the other is to become an “Interested Governmental Participant” and join with other groups who are also filing contentions regarding Yucca Mountain. The Lincoln County Nuclear Oversight Program spent a lot of time and effort developing a long list of contentions that were submitted to the Department of Energy (DOE) regarding the rail transportation of nuclear waste shipments through Lincoln County. Subsequently these were pretty much ignored, or deemed of not enough significance, to pay much attention to.

November 19-20, 2008 - Webmuenster on out-of-town assignment.

November 18, 2008 - ANI - Terrestrial gamma rays in Earths upper atmosphere linked to lightning - Scientists have theorized that massive energy releases known as terrestrial gamma rays, which occur every day in the upper reaches of Earths atmosphere, are linked to lightning and result when high-energy electrons are accelerated upward over thunderstorms. Though massive energy releases occur every day in the upper reaches of Earths atmosphere, unlike the well-known flashes of light and peals of thunder familiar to Earth-dwellers, these energy releases are channeled upward and can be detected only from space. Our atmosphere protects us from the effects of this radiation, but the mechanisms at work can impact Earths upper atmosphere and its space environment. A new nano satellite mission, called Firefly, sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and led by NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center, will explore the relationship between lightning and these sudden bursts, called Terrestrial Gamma Ray Flashes (TGFs).

November 18, 2008 - Daily NK - Be Careful, the Leaflets Are Radioactive - The North Korean authorities spread a rumor saying that the leaflets sent from South Korea by NGOs were radioactive and would make people go blind, according to the 5th edition of “NK In & Out,” a biweekly newsletter issued by the Network for North Korean Democracy and Human Rights (NKnet). North Korea has been threatening that if South Korea continues to send out the leaflets, then North Korea will cut off all bilateral ties. Now it seems as though the North Korean authorities are attempting to control the leaflets within the country. “NK In & Out” reports that the North Korean authorities have dispatched the army, the People’s Safety Agency and army reserve personnel to collect leaflets dropped near the DMZ. Additionally, during People’s Unit meetings, North Koreans are being encouraged to report any leaflets and taught how to act when they find those leaflets. They are taught that those who read the contents of the leaflets or share them will be punished for collaborating with the anti-Korean activities of the enemy.

November 18, 2008 - PRNewswire (11/17/08) - Largest Study of Granite Countertops Finds No Stones That Pose Health Threat - The most comprehensive scientific study of health threats from granite countertops did not find a single stone slab that poses a health risk. Quantities of radon and radiation emitted by stones included in the analysis all fell well below average background levels commonly found in the United States. The scientists conducted more than 400 tests of 115 different varieties of granite countertops, including stones cited in media reports as being potentially problematic. The stones tested include types of granite that comprise approximately 80 percent of the annual U.S. market share for granite countertops, based on the most recent market data available. The study specifically included types of granite most commonly used in countertops in the United States and more exotic stones that represent a tiny share of the market. The study found: -- Not one stone slab contributed to radon levels that even reached the average U.S. outdoor radon concentration of 0.4 picocuries per liter -- one-tenth the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency level for remedial action within a home. The stone slabs found to emit at higher levels -- though still well below average outdoor background levels -- represent a tiny share of the U.S. market for granite countertops, less than 1 percent of sales. -- Not a single stone emitted radiation levels that even approached a radiation dose of 0.3 milliSievert per year (mSv/year), the level determined by the European Commission to be negligible for human health risk; the U.S. has no such standard. However, this European standard is just 30 percent of the 1 milliSievert per year annual dose limit recommended for the general public by the National Council for Radiation Protection & Measurements.

November 18, 2008 - Toronto Star - 'Atomic veteran' seeks cash, apology from government - He is known as an "atomic veteran" and said his last wish would be to thank the federal government for something he believes it has not yet done. Bren Keetch, 70, remembers being loaded into trucks with other recruits and taken from the Petawawa military base to the Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. plant in Chalk River, Ont., to clean up after a nuclear reactor accident in 1958. "We were dressed in calf-high rubber boots, wearing a pair of coveralls, woollen mittens and a First World War gas mask," he said. "That was our protective equipment when we were in nuclear wastewater over our boots and mopping up the spill." The Conservative government announced on the campaign trail in September a package to compensate about 700 Canadian veterans or their families for their exposure to nuclear testing by the Americans and British during the Cold War. An additional 200 veterans who, like Keetch, were deployed to decontaminate the Chalk River plant after two accidents in 1952 and 1958 are also eligible for the one-time only payment of $24,000. The "atomic veterans" had been pressuring successive governments to compensate them for decades, many of them applying to – but not qualifying for – money awarded to veterans exposed to the infamous Agent Orange tests. The new package emerged from a report commissioned in 2006 by former defence minister Gordon O'Connor that identified about 900 atomic veterans.

November 18, 2008 - Ventura County Star - Agency wants lab site tested; Radiation levels at Santa Susana questioned - While certain that a streak of white substance found in the hillsides of a Runkle Canyon site is not a contaminant, the Department of Toxic Substances Control says it needs more testing to explain the variation in radiation levels found at the Simi Valley site since 1998. Runkle Canyon, near a former rocket engine test site known as the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, has been the subject of controversy over possible ground contamination. In a Simi Valley City Council meeting Monday night, Norman Riley, the department's Field Laboratory project director, said additional testing and a response plan by a housing developer is expected in the next few weeks. By spring, Riley said the developer should have carried out the plan. At the request of the city, the developer, Runkle Canyon LLC, has halted plans to build a housing development at the southern end of Sequoia Avenue until all state and federal agencies agree that the area is free of health hazards, city officials said.

November 18, 2008 - lightsources.org - Elettra Laboratory: a new imaging technique for breast cancer diagnosis - More than 50 women have already undergone a Synchrotron Radiation Mammography at Elettra Laboratory, in Trieste. After validating this method in pre-clinical research, carried out on test objects and biological tissue specimens, the clinical trial on patients has led to positive results, confirming that this is an excellent method to supply high quality diagnostic images reducing, at the same time, the delivered radiation doses. The patients selection follows a recruitment protocol approved by the Hospital Ethics committee, and it is focused on cases where conventional techniques (X-ray mammography and echography) gave uncertain diagnosis; in these cases the only alternatives would be a biopsy, or a follow-up examination after six months. The patients volunteer themselves to undergo the Synchrotron Radiation Mammography and meet a staff of radiologists, physicists and technicians at the Elettra Laboratory, where a Radiological Unit was set up at the SYRMEP (SYnchrotron Radiation for MEdical Physics) beamline.

November 18, 2008 - Des Moines Register - Nuclear energy is clean and efficient - President-elect Barack Obama needs to include nuclear energy in his plans to address our energy needs. While he says he supports the use of nuclear power, his comments that we should not build new plants until we solve the waste problem require a political solution. Scientifically we know how to have less waste and treat what waste there is. The weapons proliferation fears of the 1970s created the political barrier to executing this strategy. The volume of nuclear waste is more than a million times smaller than the waste from burning coal and has been stored at plants across the country since the beginning of U.S. nuclear power in 1958. The volume of waste produced since then in its current form would cover one football field to a depth of 20 feet - not a huge problem. What is not so easily solved is our need for more electricity, which the Department of Energy predicts will grow by 25 percent by 2030. That much power cannot be effectively produced with alternatives because we just cannot build that many windmills (that produce power only when there is the right amount of wind) and certainly not with fossil fuels (that we are trying to avoid because of climate change and air pollution).

November 18, 2008 - Tri-City Herald - NRC OKs nuke plant's safety shield; Drywell liner good for 4 years - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission released a report that concludes that there are no significant conditions that would affect safety and the operation of Oyster Creek Generating Station's drywell liner until its next examination in four years. The drywell shell is an important mechanism of the nuclear power plant's cooling system. The steel container surrounds the reactor and is supposed to contain radioactivity in the event of a nuclear accident. NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said Monday that a preliminary notification report issued on the agency's inspection has shown that the crucial drywell liner is operational. "The thing is leaking," said Janet Tauro of Brick, a plant opponent. "The drywell is leaking. They have ongoing leaks. They have ongoing corrosion. That's what that proves, and they have not gotten to the bottom of it, and they have not corrected it." Oyster Creek spokesman David Benson said, "We know that there's no way for the water to be in there while we're operating, none at all, so the only time it could happen" is during a refueling outage. "We'll make any repairs to stop that water from getting in there that we need to make," Benson said.

November 18, 2008 - Tri-City Herald - Reusing commercial nuclear fuel debated - Speakers were split on whether the nation needs to get a faster jump on reusing spent commercial nuclear fuel or drop plans to reprocess it during comments at a public hearing Monday evening in Pasco. About 120 people came to the hearing on a new draft environmental study for the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, or GNEP, that considered whether fuel should be used more than the one time now allowed in the United States. The draft study favored reprocessing fuel to use multiple times, but did not pick a preferred way of doing that. It also did not look at specific sites for reprocessing fuel, as expected when 300 people attended a meeting on GNEP in Pasco last spring and Tri-City residents promoted a new production mission for Hanford. Any plans for specific facilities and their sites would be covered in possible future studies. Hanford still would be an ideal site for reprocessing used commercial reactor fuel for reuse, said several speakers at Monday's hearing.

November 18, 2008 - New Haven Register - Madison knew about uranium in water for 2 years - Town and state health officials have known for two years that water in the area near Kathleen H. Ryerson Elementary School and Dr. Robert H. Brown Middle School contained higher than normal levels of uranium, officials said Monday. School district officials Monday disabled all water fountains at the two schools and supplied bottled water for drinking and cooking after the schools’ water supplies tested positive for elevated uranium levels. Town Department of Public Health Director John Bowers received a letter about high uranium levels in the Legend Hill residential community from the state’s Public Health Department in October 2006, he told the crowd at Monday night’s meeting at Brown. Bowers said he acted in accordance with all state and federal laws, but told no one else in town government and made no public announcement about the letter. Uranium levels have likely been high in the area, and in the school’s water system, since wells were drilled decades ago, said Darrell Smith, chief of the state Department of the Public Health Drinking Water Section.

November 18, 2008 - Reuters - General Dynamics wins big U.S. Navy submarine deal - Falls Church, Virginia-based General Dynamics Co (GD.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) has won a contract to support U.S. active nuclear submarines valued at $1.79 billion if all options are exercised, the U.S. Navy said on Monday. The Navy said the first part of the contract with the company's Electric Boat shipyard in Groton, Connecticut, was worth $285 million. Work would be completed by October 2009. The contract was included in the Defense Department's daily digest of big arms deals. The Navy said the contract covered design work, planning yard, engineering and technical support for active nuclear submarines.

November 18, 2008 - Newsday - Nuke plant, anyone? LIPA must find uses for Shoreham - Among Long Island's many challenges is the question of what to do with its $6-billion mausoleum. That's the only way to describe the abandoned nuclear power plant in Shoreham for which we are all still paying, like a perpetual maintenance plan for a gravesite. It's time to resurrect the 240-foot tower and the 580 waterfront acres surrounding it. The only thing it can't be is a functional nuclear plant; state law specifically prohibits it. The same 1998 law that gave the Long Island Power Authority title to the property, however, also mandated that it be reused. LIPA chief Kevin Law is right to make redeveloping Shoreham a priority. Looking beyond LIPA's energy consultants, Law is seeking bids from firms with land use experience and more. For years, there has been talk of a ferry terminal; a channel already there might make it ideal for cargo shipping, or it could be a center for the design or manufacture of alternative energy technology. And since it would be too expensive to demolish the iconic cooling tower, Long Island needs imaginative uses for it too. What about a "Top of the Tower" restaurant with great views of the Sound? The reviews would be glowing.

November 18, 2008 - Knoxville News-Sentinel - ORAU waiting on word from NIOSH - I asked Ron Townsend, the president of Oak Ridge Associated Universities, what he'd heard from NIOSH regarding the contract competition for dose reconstruction. He said he'd been told, "Be patient," but otherwise had received nothing definitive on when a contract announcement will be made. ORAU's contract with NIOSH has been extended double-digit times since it initially expired in September 2007, and NIOSH reportedly is still evaluating the bids and figuring out how to proceed with the contract offering. Townsend confirmed that ORAU rebid in partnership with the same team members, MJW Corp. and Dale Moeller & Associates. He said about 100 people, most of them health physicists, are working on the dose reconstructions. That's down from a peak of about 300, he said. The work supports claim decisions under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program. The ORAU chief said he's confident that the team will win a new contract, based on their work to date. "We're the zero-risk option," he said.

November 18, 2008 - Mesquite News - Citizens Coffee Goes Nuclear - The City of Mesquite Citizens Coffee will be held on Friday, Nov. 21 at 7:30 a.m. This is one week earlier due to the Thanksgiving holiday. The speaker is Irene Navis, Clark County Planning Manager for the Nuclear Waste Program. The United States Department of Energy originally developed the concept of transporting nuclear waste from around the country to Yucca Mountain 100 miles from Las Vegas. In recent years there has been speculation of waste also being imported from other countries as well. In addition to becoming a clearing house for the world’s nuclear waste, the DOE plan calls for some of the waste to be chemically treated at Yucca Mountain and then shipped back to its original source to be reused. Ms. Navis will speak to the residents of Mesquite, providing an update of Clark County’s role and impact assessment work as it relates to the Yucca Mountain Project. Please attend this informative discussion and learn more about Yucca Mountain and the potential impacts to Nevada residents.

November 18, 2008 - KPVI 6 - DOE Hosts Public Hearings - DOE hosts public hearings in Idaho Falls and around the nation to gather comments on its Draft Global Nuclear Energy Partnership Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement. To help supply consistent, large quantities of carbon-free nuclear power for the nation's energy future, the U.S. Department of Energy prefers to recycle nuclear fuel when generating commercial electricity with reactors, instead the current practice of using nuclear fuel only once. For an opportunity to learn more about why the DOE prefers nuclear fuel recycling, and to hear about all of the recycling (closed fuel cycle) and non-recycling (open fuel cycle) alternatives that are under consideration, the public is invited to attend a hearing in Idaho Falls Thursday night Nov. 20 on the DOE's Draft Global Nuclear Energy Partnership Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement document. It's an opportunity for the public to make comments about how the DOE should further study the nation's nuclear fuel cycle options.

November 18, 2008 - San Francisco Bay Independent Media Center - United States to become international nucler waste dump! - URGENT ACTION ALERT! Condemned by health and environmental groups across the country, GNEP means foreign nuclear waste imported and "reprocessed" in the USA. This is a national issue! We need a big national outcry!!! Washington, Oregon, Idaho, New Mexico, Ohio, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, South Carolina, and all our sister states! Cold War nuclear sites are thirty years behind on clean-up! NO foreign waste! In the dying throes of the Bush administration, one last environmental disaster is being foisted on the public. With GNEP, the Pacific Northwest, Hanford Nuclear Reservation and Idaho Falls, the Southwest and sites in the Eastern USA could all get a lot more nuclear waste (both from within and outside the country) and dirty nuclear waste ‘reprocessing’ plants, “recycling” reactors, and “advanced fuel cycle research facilities”—all verbal green-washings of very dirty processes. The Department of Energy (DOE) is holding public hearings on GNEP in November through early December, 2008, final hearing on December 9 in Washington DC in a rush to push this awful idea in under the wire.

November 18, 2008 - KVVU 5 - Gibbons Wants $64K From Ex-Yucca Chief; Former Official Approved Raise Without Consent - Outgoing nuclear projects director Bob Loux needs to return $64,000, according to Gov. Jim Gibbons. Loux headed the state Nuclear Projects Agency since its creation in the 1980s. The group was intended to fight federal efforts to open a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain. Loux was asked to step down by Gibbons after approving raises in his own pay and that of his staff without authorization. Gibbons asked state Controller Kim Wallin to start to recoup the money from Loux. A two-member panel of the state Ethics Commission said there's enough evidence to show that Loux violated seven ethical standards in giving himself and his staff pay raises. The panel sent the case to the full commission for a hearing on the complaint filed against Loux by Assembly Minority Leader Heidi Gansert, R-Reno. The hearing is tentatively set for Jan. 8.

November 17, 2008 - Chicago Tribune - Accelerator decision would advance Chicago-area economy as well as science - A billion-dollar local economic boost is riding on the decision of where to locate a $550 million, federally funded science facility. The Department of Energy will choose by January whether to build this scientific plum, an accelerator to create rare isotopes, at Argonne National Laboratory near Lemont or at Michigan State University, which also seeks the scientific prestige and economic lift that comes with it. Scientists and administrators from the University of Chicago and Argonne traveled to Washington, D.C., last month to pitch their case, and then a delegation from the Energy Department came to Argonne to look it over as a proposed site. As financial markets have melted and the general economy has gone into decline, landing the new machine, called FRIB, for facility for rare isotope beams, would provide significant benefits. If Argonne wins, the University of Chicago estimates that during the eight-year construction period FRIB would put $250 million into the pockets of Illinois residents, with the total local economic impact exceeding $1 billion. Once completed, the accelerator would bring 290 new jobs and an economic impact of $80 million a year, university officials estimate.

November 17, 2008 - Reno Gazette-Journal - UNR to study recycling nuclear fuel - Recycling spent nuclear fuel is the focus of a University of Nevada, Reno research project aimed at creating an alternative to storing it for millions of years in a facility such as Yucca Mountain. The U. S. Department of Energy granted $2.7 million for the project and another project in the College of Engineering's Center for Materials Research. Mano Misra, director of the Center for Materials Research, said that the project will take the nuclear spent fuels from commercial reactors, which is almost 95 percent uranium, and subject it to a high temperature. This is part of a process that removes the toxic products and then returns the uranium back to the reactor to be used again. Misra said this will reduce the demand of mining and processing of uranium from the ore.

November 17, 2008 - Associated Press - Repairs to Swiss particle collider will cost $25M - The scientific organization CERN says repairs caused by an electrical fault in the world's largest atom smasher will cost 25-35 million Swiss francs ($21-29 million). Spokesman James Gillies says the work on the Large Hadron Collider will be covered by the budget of the European Organization for Nuclear Research. Gillies says 15 million francs ($13 million) is the price tag for repairing the machine and preventing a recurrence. Confirming a report in the Swiss newspaper Sonntag, Gillies said Monday the remaining money will be used to replace the spare parts. An electrical arc on Sept. 19 shut down the particle collider only nine days after the $10 billion machine started up with great fanfare on the Swiss-French border.

November 17, 2008 - News Medical - Proton therapy may reduce serious side effect of lung cancer treatment - Patients with locally advanced lung cancer who receive chemotherapy and proton therapy, a specialized form a radiation therapy only available in a few centers in the United States, have fewer instances of a serious side effect called bone marrow toxicity than patients who receive chemotherapy and another type of radiation therapy called intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT), according to a study presented at the 2008 Chicago Multidisciplinary Symposium in Thoracic Oncology, sponsored by ASTRO, ASCO, IASLC and the University of Chicago. The standard of care for patients with locally advanced non-small-cell lung cancer is chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Unfortunately, these aggressive treatments can put patients at risk of a serious side effect called bone marrow toxicity that can lead to delayed or missed treatments, hospitalizations and growth problems. To try to alleviate this side effect, doctors at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center examined 142 patients with locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer. Of those, 75 patients received chemotherapy plus a type of targeted photon (X-ray) radiation therapy called intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT). The remaining 67 patients received chemotherapy and proton beam therapy. Proton beam therapy is a type of external beam therapy that uses protons rather than photons to kill fast growing cancer cells.

November 17, 2008 - Innovations Report - An all-in-one chip - Terahertz (THz) radiation is currently attracting considerable interest for imaging and sensing applications, because it has the potential to supersede x-rays that are more damaging. THz radiation, however, has very low energy, which makes it challenging to detect. Now Yukio Kawano and Koji Ishibashi from the RIKEN Advanced Science Institute in Wako have succeeded in developing a high-resolution and high-sensitivity THz detector on a chip. THz radiation offers several advantages over x-rays. As the energy of light is very low, THz radiation is less damaging to materials. Similarly, THz radiation is strongly absorbed by water, which means that soft tissue of the human body can be imaged by THz rays. For these reasons, THz imaging and detection is in strong demand in fields as broad-ranging as biosensing and food inspection.

November 17, 2008 - Salt Lake Tribune - Critics: Proposed nuke plant all wet; save H2O for public - Critics hope that, without water plans for Utah's first nuclear power plant will evaporate. To that end, they recently filed formal protests with the State Engineer's Office aimed at stopping the Kane County Water Conservancy District from preserving its right to 29,600 acre-feet of water already under lease by the reactor's developers. Utah law puts the public's needs first, giving communities extra flexibility to ensure any future needs of their residents. "We don't see that [nuclear reactor] as a legitimate public use that benefits Utah," said Christopher Thomas, of the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah, one of the organizations trying to derail the plant. "We could be using our land and water in better ways." Aaron Tilton, chief executive officer of Transition Power Development LLC, the company behind the 1,500-megawatt nuclear station, is paying the water district $100,000 a year to lease the water right. His company also has promised $500,000 a year after five years, and $1 million a year once the plant comes online. "We haven't even paid much attention to it," Tilton said, noting that he hasn't seen the protests. Mike Noel, the water district's administrator, isn't worried either. "I believe the protests do not have any merit," he said, noting that such challenges are common with water rights.

November 17, 2008 - Occupational Safety & Health - Report Focuses on Nuclear Plant Accident Response - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission released a publication that provides new insights into how best to protect the public during a nuclear power plant accident. The publication is based on the results of focus groups and telephone surveys conducted in the Emergency Planning Zones (EPZs) around reactor sites. The data will help the NRC review its regulations and guidance related to emergency preparedness and determine if changes need to be considered to existing protective action strategies. Focus groups were used in 2007 to collect information that guided the development of the phone survey. The phone survey was administered in 2008 by Sandia National Laboratories, under contract to the NRC, to approximately 2,500 households randomly selected in order to obtain 800 completed, anonymous surveys.

November 17, 2008 - Rutland Herald - Yankee containment won't contain - In 1992 the owners of Vermont Yankee acknowledged a high probability of its Mark I containment rupturing when needed to protect the public in a severe accident. The remedy: Vermont Yankee accepted a recommendation from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and installed an automatically operated hardened vent system to prevent high pressure during an accident from destroying the containment. But the automatic vent could itself be the path for the release of radioactive fission products. In 1998 the owners of Vermont Yankee recognized deficiencies and wrote a letter to the NRC announcing that they had closed off access to the automatic vent. The owners implemented no other fix. The flaws in the Mark I containment Vermont Yankee acknowledged by implementing the automatic vent remain to this day. No inspection program can address this known problem. The defective containment is inherent in the obsolete design of Vermont Yankee, one of the oldest nuclear plants operating today. Thus, we have (1) the owners of Vermont Yankee acknowledging a seriously defective containment; (2) The owners installing a "fix;" (3) the owners telling the NRC that the "fix" they installed does not work; (4) no other fix in place; and (5) the public facing Chernobyl-like consequences in the event of a severe accident because of the known defect in the containment. Fortunately our legislature has a say. It should say "no" to operation after the license expires in 2012. JAMES MARC LEAS, Burlington.

November 17, 2008 - AAP - Nuclear Waste Dump Act will be Repealed, Chief Minister - Chief Minister Paul Henderson says he's confident the Federal Government will repeal legislation which paves the way for a nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory. But environmentalists and Aborigines remain sceptical Labor will make good its election promise after almost 12 months in power and no action. A Senate committee is holding hearings for two days this week in Alice Springs on the future of the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act. The controversial law was passed by the Howard Government in 2006 amid challenges from the NT Government, indigenous owners and green groups. Three defence sites in the NT were being considered by the Liberals, including Harts Range and Mt Everard near Alice Springs and Fishers Ridge near Katherine. Muckaty Station, about 120km north of Tennant Creek, was nominated by the Northern Land Council (NLC) and is regarded as the most likely site for selection. Speaking in Darwin on Monday, Mr Henderson said he had every confidence his federal colleagues would live up to their promise to repeal the Act. "That was an election commitment from the Prime Minister and I expect them to honour that commitment," he told reporters.

Novemberm 17, 2008 - Ottawa Citizen - Scientists tout alternative to Chalk River isotopes; Intense light beams seen as key to making material for nuclear medicine - Scientists believe they have hit on "a uniquely Canadian solution" to the world's medical isotope woes. They say intense beams of light should be able to generate isotopes for nuclear medicine, and eliminate the security risks associated with making the medicines with weapons-grade uranium at the aging nuclear reactor in Chalk River, Ont. A national task force report to be released today says creating isotopes using light beams from "photo-fission" accelerators could also help salvage Canada's reputation in the nuclear world after several misadventures. The 58-page report, obtained by Canwest News Service, recommends the federal government back a "strong and focused" research program to "support proof-of-principle demonstrations."

November 17, 2008 - Environmental Protection - Gel Product Traps Radioactive Contamination - CBI Polymers, a division of Cellular Bioengineering Inc. on Nov. 7 announced the launch of its DeconGel™ 1101 product. The product is the most effective radiological decontamination solution available to industries worldwide ranging from nuclear power utilities, decommissioning and decontamination sites, hospital facilities, and research laboratories, according to a press release from the company. DeconGel™ decontaminates a broad range of surfaces and contaminants. Its binding properties allow it to trap and encapsulate a wide spectrum of radioisotopes on different substrates in a simple, no-preparation process allowing easy and safe disposal without the use of water or cleaning agents. It has been in beta testing for the past year and has secured more than 30 customers around the world, including Ontario Power Generation, Washington Savannah River Company, Sandia National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Colorado State University, and Tripler Army Medical Center.

November 17, 2008 - Hartford Courant - High Uranium Found In Madison Schools' Water - Unusually high levels of uranium found in the well water of two schools has forced officials to shut off drinking fountains and provide students with bottled water. School officials said they have been told the contamination is not harmful. "The state toxicologist said it shouldn't be a great concern; it's a non-problem as far as they are concerned," School Board Chairman Robert Hale said. Hale said the Robert H. Brown Middle School and Kathleen Ryerson Elementary School off Route 79 have been supplied with bottled water, which the schools will use for drinking and cooking until a solution can be found. The town tested the water after school officials received anonymous tips Oct. 28 that uranium had been found in the groundwater under nearby homes, Hale said.

November 17, 2008 - The Gisborne Herald - Nuclear power is worth considering - Just been to France. Found that electricity prices are now less than half of ours here in NZ. Why? Because while they have embraced nuclear power we've been rabbiting on about the dangers involved in anything remotely nuclear. We have growing fuel poverty here. This is the inevitable consequence of pandering to the Luddites who call themselves "environmentalists" while seeking to replace our countryside with an industrial wilderness of windmills. I thought windmills were great to play with when I was a kid. But they were useless when there was no wind. Alec Triciti.

November 17, 2008 - Associated Press - Utilities plan future without Vermont Yankee - Vermont’s two largest electric utilities are preparing for the future without Vermont Yankee if the nuclear power plant fails to get approval to extend its operating license or to reach a contract agreement with the companies. Central Vermont Public Service Corp. and Green Mountain Power announced Friday that they are seeking bids for energy sources other than Vermont Yankee, a move they described as prudent. “We’re looking at what options are there, even though it is entirely possible that Vermont Yankee will be relicensed,” said GMP spokeswoman Dotty Schnure. CVPS, GMP and Vermont Electric Cooperative are considering new sources of about 100 megawatts of energy. One megawatt powers about 500 average homes in Vermont, Schnure said. The three utilities, which have contracts with Hydro-Quebec and Vermont Yankee, whose operating license expires in 2012, said they are looking through the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada for these new sources. “The goal is to diversify our portfolio instead of having a heavy reliance on these two energy sources,” said CVPS spokesman Steve Costello. “The plan is to continue to expand to a variety of different power sources.”

November 17, 2008 - Knoxville News-Sentinel - Y-12's HEU inventory, circa 1993 - One of the more celebrated, yet controversial aspects of Hazel O'Leary's tenure (1993-97)as Energy Secretary was her "Openness Initiative." She ordered the declassification and release of numerous documents, particularly those pertaining to the government's human radiation experiments, and she opened up much of the Cold War work for public viewing. Her efforts were applauded by many, but generally abhorred by the agency's security establishment. At the end of 1993, the O'Leary DOE released a one-day accounting sheet of the stockpile of weapons-usable uranium stored at Y-12 in Oak Ridge. On Dec. 31, 1993, DOE issued a press release, "Declassification of today's highly enriched uranium inventory at the Y-12 Plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee." HEU was (and is) defined as having an enrichment above 20 percent in U-235, the fissionable isotope. According to this one-day snapshot, Y-12's total inventory of HEU was 168.9 metric tons. The plant at the time also had about 3 metric tons of low-enriched uranium (with assays above .7 percent and less than 20 percent). "The highly enriched uranium is stored in various forms: 147.9 metric tons of metal; 18.8 metric tons of oxide; and 2.2 metric tons in other forms," the DOE press release said.

November 17, 2008 - Lawrence Journal-World & News - Nuclear reaction; Cast, crew of ‘The Day After’ reunite for 25th anniversary of film shot in Lawrence, KC - A group of "nuclear holocaust survivors" discuss their predicament in the midst of a severely damaged downtown Lawrence during the filming of "The Day After" in Lawrence in September, 1982. The photo looks south toward the Eldridge Hotel, background right. Twenty-five years ago, terrorism was a footnote, the economy was thriving, and America was overwhelmingly comfortable with its current president. Still, a sense of fear and impending doom blanketed the nation due to the escalating nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union. So when a TV movie aired Nov. 20, 1983, the program became one of the most watched and controversial events of the decade. ABC’s “The Day After” — billed as a “starkly realistic drama of nuclear confrontation and its devastating effect on a group of average American citizens” — was viewed by half the adult population of the U.S. (nearly 100 million viewers), which was the largest audience for a made-for-TV movie up to that time. It was all the more surprising considering the film was both situated and predominantly shot in Lawrence. “We tend to think that with the ending of the Cold War, the nuclear danger has receded; if anything, it has grown worse, with atomic weapons no longer under control of stable governments,” says “The Day After” director Nicholas Meyer.

November 17, 2008 - Salt Lake Tribune - Proposed Emery County Nuclear plant challenged - Pro: Developers of a planned nuclear power plant have secured more than 50,000 acre feet of water for the project. They say nuclear power is a sensible part of Utah and the nation's energy future. Con: Critics have filed protests with the state against water rights leased by the plant developers. They claim the project is an illegitimate use of public water. Translation: 50,000 acre feet would be enough water to supply the needs of between 50,000 and 100,000 Utah households. Critics hope that, without water, plans for Utah's first nuclear power plant will evaporate. To that end, they recently filed formal protests with the State Engineer's office aimed at stopping the Kane County Water Conservancy District from preserving its right to 29,600 acre-feet of water already under lease by the reactor's developers. Utah law puts the public's needs first, giving communities extra flexibility to ensure any future needs of their residents. "We don't see that [nuclear reactor] as a legitimate public use that benefits Utah," said Christopher Thomas, of the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah, one of the organizations trying to derail the plant. "We could be using our land and water in better ways." Aaron Tilton, chief executive officer of Transition Power Development LLC, the company behind the 1,500 megawatt nuclear station, is paying the water district $100,000 a year to lease the water right. His company also has promised $500,000 a year after five years, and $1 million a year once the plant comes online.

November 17, 2008 - Las Vegas Sun - Legacy of nuclear age left to next president - This fall, the British government released transcripts of Cold War era tapes it planned to broadcast if the nation came under attack. “There is nothing to be gained by trying to get away,” the pages read. “This country has been attacked by nuclear weapons.” Survivors are urged to save toilet water for drinking, to hoard enough food to last for several weeks, and to avoid leaving fallout rooms “for a moment longer than necessary.” It’s inexplicable that we find ourselves climbing back atop the nuclear knife 60 years after the atomic bomb changed the world in an instant. In the past year, Russia returned to flying strategic bomber routes over the Pacific, suggested placing missile defense systems in Cuba, and floated the idea of stationing bombers in Havana. A road map for North Korean disarmament has been plagued by disruptions and false starts. Many of the academics and journalists closest to the Iranian issue concede that we’ve likely passed the threshold for stemming the tide, the program having become too political, now occupying an Apollo-like role in the collective national identity.

November 14, 2008 - WCCO - Radon In Granite Countertops? - Granite is the rock of choice for many homeowners. It's durable, virtually scratch resistant and never fades, but there's a side of this stone you may not know. "We found some materials that had radon-generating potential," said Dr. Daniel Steck, a physics professor at St. John's University. Steck heads the Minnesota Radon Project and has been running radon tests for years. Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer. It's a naturally occurring gas found in rock, soil and water. So it only makes sense you might find it in granite. Granite, like other kinds of rocks and soils, contains some naturally occurring radioactive elements. Steck first tested granite for radon in the 1980s. Back then, the stone came from North American quarries and tests showed little or no radon. So Steck was skeptical when new reports surfaced earlier this year claiming researchers were finding more radon in the rock. "Until I got some samples from one of the granite top manufacturers and measured them," he said. "These days there seems to be much more imported granite present than there was 20 years ago." This time some of the stone samples came from overseas. He tested stones from Africa and Brazil. "The stuff, the hot stuff that I have, is about 10 to 50 times hotter than the stuff I measured in '88," he said.

November 14, 2008 - Aiken Standard - SRS salt waste disposal unit starts construction - Construction is under way on a new style disposal unit for salt waste materials at the U.S. Department of Energy's Saltstone Facility at the Savannah River Site. When construction and testing are complete, it will provide additional disposal capacity to disposition the site's low-level radioactive salt waste. A total of 36 million gallons of liquid nuclear waste, in the forms of salt and sludge, are stored in 49 underground carbon-steel tanks.The liquid waste contract is managed by a team of contractors led by Washington Savannah River Company, a subsidiary of URS Washington Division. Ground-breaking ceremonies for the disposal unit were held this week with DOE and WSRC officials. "Through our nearly 20 years of Saltstone operation, we have learned a great deal about safe waste disposal," said Steve Piccolo, WSRC president. "While the other two disposal units have done a good job of allowing us to disposition this waste, the new facility takes additional steps to further enhance the safety of the environment, workers and the public." This design has been used in industrial applications for 20 years. However, the new disposal unit, known as Vault 2, has many enhanced design features that will improve the facility's ability to safely dispose of the waste in accordance with a South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control permit.

November 14, 2080 - Biloxi Sun-Herald - Radon testing homes could save lives - Breathing radon gas mixed with the air in our homes is the second leading cause of lung cancer in the United States, second only to cigarette smoke. Radon is a significant contaminant that affects indoor air quality worldwide. Radon gas from natural sources can accumulate in buildings, especially in confined areas such basements, and reportedly causes 21,000 lung cancer deaths per year in the United States. Radon is a radioactive gas found in nature. It has no color, odor or taste and is chemically inert. Its source is natural uranium in the earth. As the uranium molecule slowly decays, it forms lead and radon gas as byproducts. Being a gas, radon moves upward out of the soil and into the atmosphere. Uranium is found in most soils and in granite. There is no safe level of radon, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

November 14, 2008 - Bennington Banner - Nuclear power's prohibitive costs - As industry lobbyists and campaigning politicians are busily pushing nuclear power as "a clean safe alternative" to fossil fuels, a landmark article by Lester R. Brown of the Earth Policy Institute shows conclusively that nuclear power is a "bad deal" any way you look at it. Amory Lovins and Imran Sheikh, in a recent analysis, 'The Nuclear Illusion," sets the cost of electricity from a new nuclear power plant at 14 cents per kilowatt hour, while the cost of electricity from a wind farm is half that. Why the huge difference? In addition to fuel costs, capital operations, transmission and distribution expenses, nuclear power must also pay for waste disposal, insurance against accidents, and plant decommissioning. The U.S. leads the world in nuclear power generation, with 104 reactors producing 101,000 megawatts, compared to second-ranked France which produces 63,000 megawatts. The estimated cost of constructing a permanent, safe waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, ballooned from $58 billion in 2001 to $96 billion by 2008, and this repository could not be completed before 2017, meaning that high-level nuclear waste must be stored at reactor sites at least until then. The cost of uranium is also escalating rapidly because of increased costs of finding and mining lower grade ores. For instance, uranium which cost $10 per pound in 2000, now costs $60 per pound. The risks of catastrophic nuclear accidents are increasing because of the aging of the reactors.

November 14, 2008 - Barents Observer - Russia’s nuclear industry looks towards Arctic shelf - The Russian nuclear industry sees the Arctic shelf as its new prospective market. It now suggests the construction of nuclear-powered underwater drilling ships, as well as using nuclear-powered icebreakers and floating nuclear power plants in the development of offshore hydrocarbon projects. A new report from the Bellona Foundation concludes that the Russian nuclear industry is pushing for the use of nuclear technology on the shelf. The report named "From Polar to Nuclear? ‘Nuclearification’ of the Russian offshore oil and gas industry" was presented at a recent hearing in the European Parliament, Bellona.org reports. Author Vladislav Larin writes that Russian research centres are working on designs to apply nuclear energy in developing oil and gas fields in the Russian Arctic. The Arctic plans of the Russian nuclear industry are not all new, however. According to Bellona, the collapse of the Soviet Union and subsequent economic crisis forced the nuclear industry to go alternative. In the transition period which followed the collapse, some two hundred nuclear-powered vessels were pulled out of service. Russia and the Russian army were in desperate need of cash. In those turbulent times, the idea of converting nuclear powered submarines into cargo vessels to ship goods under the Arctic ice was hatched, report author Larin writes.

November 14, 2008 - Rutland Herald - New Yankee discoveries raise doubts about NRC - The discovery of more degraded wooden support beams in Vermont Yankee's cooling towers — this time in the reactor's only safety dedicated cell — raised questions Thursday about how thorough a special Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspection was this summer. Workers at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant had to immediately replace five deteriorated major support columns in the one safety-related cell of the reactor's two cooling towers during the plant's recent refueling outage, according to the NRC. The degraded columns, which are about 40 feet tall, were discovered after Entergy Nuclear started its gradual overhaul of the two cooling towers, replacing the wood with fiberglass. The overhaul is expected to take a couple of years. Entergy Nuclear spokesman Robert Williams said the columns were bowed and cracked. "All could have been deemed acceptable for continued service, but we conservatively chose to replace them rather than wait until the next refueling outage," Williams wrote in an e-mail. He noted that two 2-by-4-inch "transverse" timbers were also replaced.

November 14, 2008 - Northumberland Today - Broadcast 'blatantly inaccurate' Port Hope charges - The Municipality of Port Hope has already submitted a complaint to the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council regarding the CTVW-FIVEsegment on Port Hope entitled What Lies Beneath. And the municipality is gathering facts that will determine whether "to go to a higher level," said CAO Carl Cannon yesterday. In a letter to Robert Hurst, president of CTV News, Mayor Linda Thompson points out "blatantly inaccurate information" in the piece and states "the segment should be removed from your website and from future airings." (The full text of the mayor's letter can be found on the editorial page of today'sCobourg Daily Star). Mr. Cannon said the municipality and other agencies, including Cameco Corp. and the Port Hope Area Initiative, are currently creating a "summary of errors and omissions," in the piece and, when that is done, further action may be taken. Mr. Cannon pointed out that the mayor made every effort before the broadcast was aired to ensure that it would present a full and factual account of Port Hope's history and plans for the future regarding uranium and low-level radioactive waste. "She offered to line up people for [CTV] to interview," said the CAO, "but it was like talking to a wall." Representatives of the Port Hope Area Initiative, Health Canada, the Port Hope and District Chamber of Commerce, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and others should have been included to make the segment balanced, the mayor had suggested.

November 14, 2008 - Spiegel Online - Power Company Gives Consumers the Nuclear Option - A new offer from German power company RWE allows consumers for the first time to select a zero-carbon energy scheme fueled mostly by nuclear sources. But as Germany erupts in anti-nuclear protests, the company may be courting a backlash. Germany's nascent nuclear renaissance is going commercial. Earlier this week, on the same day that police clashed with thousands of protesters trying to block a delivery of nuclear waste headed for a radioactive dump near the northern German town of Gorleben, a power company released a new energy product designed to capture the business of what it claims is a growing community of pro-nuclear consumers. German consumers of electricity will now be able to choose a "Pro-Climate" package heavy on atomic energy. "Pro-Climate Power" is the name of the new electricity service available from RWE, one of Europe's largest electricity providers and based in the western German town of Essen. The service provides consumers with an electricity cocktail that derives 68 percent of its power from nuclear sources and 32 percent from hydroelectric energy sources. Although the plan is slightly more expensive than traditional packages, RWE is betting that consumers concerned about global warming will be willing to spend a little more to shrink their carbon footprint.

November 14, 2008 - Brattleboro Reformer - Vt. legislators seek radiation rule review - Vermont lawmakers want the state Department of Health to rewrite a rule about how radiation from Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant is measured. Lawmakers say changes made to the rule never went through a formal rule-making process. On Wednesday a special legislative panel voted unanimously to declare part of the rule was unclear. The change in the way the Department of Health measures radiation was especially disturbing to Rep. Sarah Edwards, P-Brattleboro, and Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin, D-Putney. "Safety is our top concern," said Shumlin. "And there have been tremendous concerns about the way this decision was arrived at." Edwards said the Department of Health violated state law when it instituted the new measurement system and its important that the change goes back through the public hearing process. "This issue was arising when it was germane to the legislative work around the uprate hearings in 2004," she said. "But it did not come to the Natural Resources and Energy Committee though it should have." While the Department of Health did do a presentation in Brattleboro in 2004, said Edwards, "It did not follow through on the public process."

November 14, 2008 - Miami Herald - FPL customers pay for others' mistakes - If a bad employee makes a costly error -- whether intentional or not -- there isn't much mystery about who will pay for the damage. The company pays, of course, and if the owners are smart, they will rigorously review their hiring and management practices. With Florida Power & Light, this isn't always the case. The Public Service Commission said customers -- not FPL -- should pay for costs the company incurred when an angry worker drilled a hole in a pipe at the Turkey Point nuclear plant two years ago. Fortunately, the Office of Public Counsel, which represents utility customers, challenged the decision in hearings this week. The PSC should reverse its ruling. Fairness demands it. Public Counsel lawyer Stephen Burgess says customers should be reimbursed nearly $6.2 million, plus interest. Other than Mr. Burgess, no one else in the case has stood up for FPL customers' interests. A string of decisions by the PSC, FPL, FBI, U.S. attorney's Office and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission all ended up excusing those involved in the incident while leaving FPL customers stuck with the bill, even though they had nothing to do with what happened.

November 14, 2008 - USNRC Press Release (11/13/08) - NRC publishes survey results on nuclear accident response strategies to protect the public - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission released today a publication that provides new insights into how best to protect the public during a nuclear power plant accident. The publication is based on the results of focus groups and telephone surveys conducted in the Emergency Planning Zones (EPZs) around reactor sites. The data will help the NRC review its regulations and guidance related to emergency preparedness and determine if changes need to be considered to existing protective action strategies. Focus groups were used in 2007 to collect information that guided the development of the phone survey. The phone survey was administered in 2008 by Sandia National Laboratories, under contract to the NRC, to approximately 2,500 households randomly selected in order to obtain 800 completed, anonymous surveys. The surveys found that a majority of the residents living within the EPZs of nuclear power plants: Were generally well informed about what to do in a nuclear power plant emergency; Remembered receiving emergency response information from the nuclear power plant and kept it readily accessible; Recalled receiving information about evacuation and sheltering; Agreed they would evacuate, shelter-in-place or monitor for more information, if directed to do so; and Agreed they would support a staged evacuation, during which some residents would shelter while others would evacuate.

November 14, 2008 - ITWeb - Sandbridge develops cellphone processor - Sandbridge Technologies has developed a software-based, reprogrammable baseband processor for mobile phones, called the SB3500, for mobile phone manufacturers throughout the world, reports ZDnet. This means phone manufacturers will be able to pack multiple technologies and functions onto a single chip. Because the chip is software programmable, the phone-makers themselves will be able to determine which technologies to support on the chip. This should help manufacturers reduce the number of chips needed in a phone, which will ultimately reduce hardware costs and technical complexity in the devices.

November 14, 2008 - Daily Cardinal - Developing more nuclear plants in U.S. necessary, overdue - This past Friday the University played host to the first ever Energy Hub conference. Energy Hub’s mission is “to foster an environment at Wisconsin that encourages collaboration, communication and innovation on modern energy technology and policy.” Friday’s conference focused on issues concerning the energy industry and our energy needs for today and in the future. This unique venue gathered internationally recognized speakers, industry representatives and students and gave each other opportunities to learn, interact and make contacts with each other. Dr. Patrick Moore, of Greenpeace International fame, gave an informative, provocative and entertaining talk on the need to support nuclear power. This issue has particular resonance in Wisconsin because of (1) our current state moratorium on new nuclear power projects and (2) President-elect Barack Obama’s support of nuclear power as “one component of our energy mix”. Recently, the Wisconsin State Journal ran an op-ed piece in support of lifting the ban. However, there is still public opposition to nuclear power, mainly from pro-environmental groups, like Greenpeace and The Sierra Club—providing an interesting backdrop for the talk of Dr. Moore, who is considered a ‘sensible environmentalist.’

November 14, 2008 - Gallup Independent - ‘Poison Wind’ presents oral history of uranium victims - It has been nearly two years to the day that Jenny Pond first came up for the idea of “Poison Wind,” an oral history on the effects uranium mining has had on indigenous people of the Southwest. Co-produced by Pond and Navajo filmmaker Norman Patrick Brown, the documentary was screened last Saturday as the official selection of the 33rd Annual American Indian Film Institute Film Festival in San Francisco. It has aired in New Mexico, Texas and Colorado and twice in German, including Oct. 26 at the Nuclear-Free Future Award ceremony in Munich along with the acclaimed documentary, “The Return of Navajo Boy,” by Jeff Spitz of Chicago. “Poison Wind” will be shown Saturday at Northern Arizona University’s Cline Library Hall in Flagstaff. Pond said she was inspired to make the film when she and her husband went down to the village of Supai to spend the weekend in the Grand Canyon for his 60th birthday. Supai, the tribal center for the Havasupai Tribe, is located in Havasu Canyon, a southwestern branch of the Grand Canyon accessible only by foot, horseback, or helicopter. “At the end of the weekend we were waiting for the helicopter to take us out with a group of other people. I walked off in the middle of the village and as I was standing there, a man walked up to me and he said, ‘What do you do?’ “I said, ‘You mean for a living?’ He said yes. And I said, ‘Well, if I’m lucky I work in film and TV.’ He said, ‘I had a feeling I should speak with you. Did you know that there are leases being sold for uranium mining here at the Grand Canyon?’

November 14, 2008 - Idaho Statesman - Nuclear power is the wrong choice for Idaho's future - Focusing our efforts on nuclear power distracts us from concentrating on energy efficiency and renewable energy - alternatives that provide the safest, cleanest and most dependable means to securing our energy future. We have the ability to meet our energy needs and have a clean and healthy state without nuclear power. If Idaho's leaders scrutinized the drawbacks of nuclear reactors and contrasted those drawbacks with the benefits of energy efficiency, conservation and renewables, Idaho wouldn't be so quick to jump on the nuclear band wagon. Idaho is well-positioned for solar, biomass, geothermal and wind energy. Ranked 13th in the nation for potential wind generation, Idaho has an opportunity to be a national leader in energy efficiency and renewable energy. So why isn't nuclear power a responsible choice? Let's start with the fact that nuclear power plants require vast sums of water that Idaho simply can't afford to divert - at least not without further jeopardizing existing water uses and the environmental health of our waterways. How much will be consumed and not returned for our river system? No one seems to know, but estimates of the amount of water that a nuclear plant will consume are simply huge - 25,000 acre-feet of water annually, more than one-fourth of the water stored in Lucky Peak Reservoir.

November 14, 2008 - KRNV 4 - Former head of nuclear project to go before ethics panel - The former head of nuclear project at Yucca Mountain will go before an ethics committee in January. In a closed door meeting today, the State Ethics Commission ruled that a full panel will determine if Bob Loux is in violation of an unlawful act when he allegedly gave salary increases to himself and staff. If they find they deem that he is, he will be fined on all counts. Loux resigned from the Nuclear Project Commission in September after some persuading from the governor but he remains on the job until his position has been filled.

November 13, 2008 - RN&R - Nuke folks worry - The nuclear energy industry is fretting over the next president’s stand on the proposed federal dump for high level nuclear wastes at Yucca Mountain. “I’m a little worried about his position on nuclear power,” American Electric Power Co. CEO Michael Morris told Bloomberg News. Obama has described the Yucca project as outmoded and called for “exploring new alternatives for safe, long-term solutions based on sound science.” Obama could withdraw the license application for the project that is now pending before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. In the conservative American Spectator, William Tucker wrote this week, “Obama … opposes Yucca Mountain, which is a shibboleth among opposition groups. Ironically, Yucca Mountain only became necessary when Jimmy Carter canceled nuclear fuel reprocessing in 1977, creating the so-called problem of ‘nuclear waste.’ France has pursued reprocessing and stores all its high-level waste from 40 years of producing 75 percent of its electricity in one room at Le Havre. Rather than heeding this example, however, the Obama Administration is much more likely to do exactly what California did during the 1980s and 1990s—stall both coal and nuclear construction while adopting huge subsidies and mandates for ‘renewable energy.’ Within a decade we could find ourselves where California was in 2000—saddled with huge quantities of expensive ‘alternate’ energy while not having enough electricity to run its traffic lights.” Tucker neglected to report that reprocessing is extremely expensive.

November 13, 2008 - Your Nuclear News - Duke Energy Signs Used Fuel Contract for Proposed Lee Nuclear Station - Duke Energy has signed a contract with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for the disposal of used nuclear fuel generated at its proposed William States Lee III Nuclear Station. The contract provides for the DOEs acceptance and permanent disposal of all fuel from the station. For this service, the company will pay a $1 per megawatt-hour fee for electricity generated and sold from Lee Nuclear. This is consistent with the existing used fuel disposal contract fee for Duke Energys operating nuclear fleet. ""The execution of this contract with the Department of Energy reinforces the federal governments responsibilities under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and is a vital step in supporting the timely licensing of Lee Nuclear Station,"" said Dhiaa Jamil, Duke Energy chief nuclear officer. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 assigns responsibility to the DOE for permanent disposal of used fuel from nuclear power plants. It also specifies the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission cannot issue a license for a new nuclear power plant unless the applicant enters into a used fuel disposal contract with the DOE or is in good faith negotiating a contract.

November 13, 2008 - Ann Arbor Business Review - University of Michigan's nuclear science program sees historic increase - As the damaged reputation of nuclear power plants improves and the nation's hunger for carbon-free energy grows, the University of Michigan's Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences program has seen an increase in enrollment to historic numbers. Just this fall, 39 new graduate students enrolled in the program and undergraduate enrollment jumped 21 percent, to 120 students. There were just 26 undergraduates in NERS in 1996 and 1997. That's good news for the field as a generation of engineers begin to retire and the nation and the world prepares for an expected swell of new nuclear power plants. Undergraduate enrollment is at an all-time high, said Bill Martin, professor and chair of NERS. "They are seeing that nuclear has a future," he said. He expects enrollment to climb for at least the next couple of years.

November 13, 2008 - The Financial - Global Nuclear Fuel and GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy Save 25 Mln Gallons of Water, Reduce CO2 Emissions - Global Nuclear Fuel (GNF), a joint venture of GE, Toshiba and Hitachi, spearheaded wastewater plant changes that drove down water usage site-wide at its Wilmington, N.C., headquarters. The result: a reduction in water usage by 25 million gallons annually at the facility, which includes GNF’s US-based fuel manufacturing operations. The plant has been working to optimize its operations and contribute towards GE’s overall ecomagination commitment to reduce its water footprint 20% by 2012. GNF’s new energy efficient wastewater system avoids nearly 80 tons per year of CO2 emissions, and realizes annual savings of $160,000 in water and energy use charges. According to GE, the water savings at the GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) site were a result of reusing wastewater effluent with ecomagination offering ZeeWeed® membrane bioreactor (MBR) technology as a make-up water source to operate cooling towers, which would otherwise withdraw raw water obtained from local groundwater wells to accomplish the same. MBR combines ultrafiltration with biological treatment to produce a high-quality wastewater effluent that meets or exceeds some of the most stringent wastewater discharge and/or reuse standards. Its operation requires less chemical use, produces less residual waste, and has a much smaller physical footprint than conventional reuse systems.

November 13, 2008 - Burlington Free Press - Panel wants new radiological health rule - The Department of Health should rewrite a 1977 radiological health rule it uses to monitor radiation releases from the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant and make sure the public has an opportunity to comment, a legislative oversight committee concluded Wednesday. Critics of the nuclear plant have said the Health Department had re-interpreted the emission measurement rule over the years, allowing radiation at the edge of the plant’s property to violate state standards. Health Department officials have countered there’s science behind their measurement practices. “It has very significant consequences how this rule is interpreted and whether Vermont Yankee has violated emission limits,” said Rep. Richard Marek, D-Newfane, chairman of the Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules. In an unusual step, the committee voted unanimously to declare that a section of the 31-year-old rule was unclear — in violation of the state’s administrative procedures act.

November 13, 2008 - Brandon Valley Challenger - High school students build a cloud chamber - When high school science teacher Steve Boint put out a call to students interested in building a cloud chamber to photograph subatomic radioactive particles flying through the school, he wasn’t sure if he’d generate any interest at all. Turns out, six to 10 high schoolers – depending on their Thursday after-school schedules – were intrigued by the invitation. “These are kids who think that the meaning of life is understanding it,” Boint said. “They’re all extremely curious and intelligent, and are some of our top performers, too.” Boint was inspired to introduce the project after reading an article on the subject. “I’ve been wanting for a long time to have a cloud chamber to show students that particles do fly around here and, actually, building is better than buying.”

November, 13, 2008 - TMC.net - NRC issues confirmatory action letter to National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration Lab in Boulder, CO - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued a Confirmatory Action Letter to the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Boulder, Co. confirming the licensee's commitment to provide a complete accounting of all licensed radioactive material, improve security practices and assess the adequacy of its radiation safety programs.

November 13, 2008 - USNRC Press Release (11/12/08) - NRC issues an order to radiography company for inadequate safety practices - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued a confirmatory order to Mistras Holding Group documenting the company’s commitments to improve safety practices in radiography work. Mistras Holding Group, which operates from multiple locations throughout the country including Illinois and Pennsylvania, also does business as CONAM Inspection and Engineering Services Quality Services Laboratories, Inc. The NRC’s confirmatory order makes the company’s commitments into conditions of its license. If these conditions are not met, the company’s NRC license may be terminated; criminal or civil charges may be brought against the company; and fines may be levied. In January 2007, CONAM reported to the NRC that a radiographer may have been overexposed to radiation while performing industrial radiography at a Sunoco refinery in Philadelphia, Penn. Industrial radiography involves the use of a sealed radiation source to produce x-ray-like images. The NRC looked into the circumstances around the event. Inspectors identified five apparent violations, such as the radiographer’s failure to secure the sealed source with radioactive material in the shielded position; failure to wear a radiation alarm at all times; failure to stop radiography when a pocket radiation measuring device showed off-the-scale radiation levels; and failure to make sure that the radiation safety officer named in the NRC license performed the intended function. A subsequent NRC investigation showed that most of the apparent violations were willful or deliberate.

November 13, 2008 - UPI - US Wants To Resume Nuke Testing To Retain Bomb Making Skills - U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is all for a resumption of nuclear tests. In a key speech at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, he said the United States could not maintain deterrence, reduce arms or modernize them without tests. Gates pledged to set up a special group under James Schlesinger, a former U.S. defense and energy secretary, to draft measures for the direction and supervision of nuclear facilities in the country. The arguments the Pentagon chief used to justify the resumption of tests are not new and are slightly cunning. He said the country ceased developing nuclear weapons in the 1980s and stopped producing nuclear munitions in the 1990s. With weapons developers and engineers gone, he said, the United States suffered a brain drain. Since the mid-1990s the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration has lost one-quarter of its staff. Half the scientists working in nuclear laboratories are older than 50, while young engineers have never engaged in the development of nuclear weapons. What's more, since 1992 the United States has conducted no nuclear tests. This, according to Gates, compromises the effectiveness of the weapons required by the American military.

November 13, 2008 - Xinua - Japan’s nuclear facility catches fire, no radiation leak - A 43-year-old male worker sustained burns Thursday as a fire broke out at a building housing a reactor in the Onagawa nuclear power plant in Japan’s Miyagi district.The fire was extinguished in about 50 minutes and there was no radiation leak outside the plant owned by Tohoku Electric Co., Kyodo News Agency reported. The fire started at around 2 p.m. at the plant’s No. 1 reactor, which has been undergoing regular checkups since February, the company said. Kyodo quoting initial probe report said the air conditioning system of the reactor might have caught sparks from welding work going on at that time. Company officials said the injured worker sustained minor burns and was able to walk to safety on his own.

November 13, 2008 - Knoxville News-Sentinel - Nuclear forensics at ORNL - Brad Patton and Bryan Broadhead of ORNL will talk about the lab's nuclear forensics program at the Nov. 18 dinner meeting of the Oak Ridge/Knoxville chapter of the American Nuclear Society. The forensics work involves the study of unused nuclear materials that have been captured or the debris following a nuclear explosion. ORNL's work supports programs at the Dept. of Homeland Security, Dept. of Energy and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. To make reservations, contact Jayson Hayward at haywardjp@ornl.gov or 865-574-5699. The dinner ($20 per) is at Calhoun's on the River in Knoxville.

November 13, 2008 - Knoxville News-Sentinel - Delaying Oak Ridge cleanup could be costly nightmare - One of the programs most likely to suffer under tight federal budgets is environmental cleanup, and that could put a crimp in Department of Energy plans in Oak Ridge. Several years ago, DOE sold officials in Tennessee and other states on the need to accelerate the cleanup programs in order to reduce the maintenance costs on old, surplus facilities and enhance safety by focusing work on high-risk areas. This strategy was at least partly successful, as big DOE cleanup projects were completed — including the closeout of entire facilities in Colorado and Ohio. But accelerating projects on paper didn’t make them immune to federal budget cuts, and other problems developed — such as the Oak Ridge accident in which a worker fell through a floor at K-25 — that forced DOE to reevaluate cleanup strategies and beg the states for forgiveness when missing deadlines. Anyway, now we’ve got a new administration coming to Washington, with a new attitude and probably some different priorities, and things will change. The question everybody wants to know is how they’ll change.

November 13, 2008 - Star-Tribune - Expert discusses health effects of uranium mining - Between 100 and 150 people attended a program Saturday at the Community Center at Chatham to learn more about the potential health effects of uranium mining in Pittsylvania County. The free educational program was sponsored by the Dan River Basin Association and featured Douglas M. Brugge, an associate professor in the Department of Public Health and Family Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, Mass. Brugge spoke on the history and health effects of uranium mining. "There are far too few studies on the effects of community exposure," he said, adding that residents also would benefit from listening to different experts from other fields. "I think people should concern themselves about something like this and should educate themselves," he said. "But I can't tell you what conclusions you should draw." Brugge talked about the effects uranium mines had on the Navajo people in the Southwest during the "uranium boom" of the 1950s. Years after the mines closed, he said, there are still major problems.

November 13, 2008 - Chadron Record - Regional groups unite to oppose uranium mining - Environmental activists from a four-state area met near Chadron last weekend to discuss their objections to the rapid expansion of uranium mining in the region, and to plan strategies to advance their cause. The meeting, hosted by the Western Nebraska Resources Council (WNRC), was held in Chadron because of its proximity to the Crow Butte Resources in-situ leach (ISL) uranium mine, which is already in the process of permitting one major expansion and has two more in planning stages. Participanting groups included the Powder River Basin Resource Council, from Wyoming, ACTion for the Environment from South Dakota’s Black Hills, the Black Hills chapter of the Sierra Club, Defenders of the Black Hills, Owe Aku/Bring Back the Way, a Lakota cultural group, and Coloradoans Against Resource Destruction.

November 13, 2008 - Carlsbad Current-Argus - Nuke dump: Yucca Mountain, or somewhere else? - With research, development and implementation of alternative and renewable energy sources pushed to the front-burner, attention has naturally turned to nuclear power. But if nuclear power is to become more of a player in our energy future, the problem of where to dispose of nuclear waste must be addressed and solutions found. The disposal problem is coming to a head, with the Energy Department set to give Congress a choice in coming weeks: Either expand the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., or find a second permanent site. It's understandable that the single biggest obstacle to finding a nuclear-waste dump site is the NIMBY Not in My Back Yard syndrome. Who can blame Nevadans and others for not wanting used reactor fuel buried close to them? The fuel, even though used, is still highly radioactive and is intended to be buried for up to a million years.

November 13, 2008 - Boulder Daily Camera - Radioactive material reported missing from Boulder NOAA lab; Incident marks second radiation mishandling at a Boulder facility - Radioactive material contained within two pieces of aging research equipment has gone missing from a storage facility at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Earth System Research Lab in Boulder, NOAA officials said Wednesday. The low-radiation material, nickel-63, does not pose a public health risk, officials said. The research lab has notified the Nuclear Regulatory Commission about the missing material, which was contained in two gas chromatographs that had been retired from use and placed in long-term storage in 2002. A gas chromatograph is an instrument commonly used to analyze atmospheric gases. The two missing devices contain a total of three individual pieces of nickel-63, which NOAA said emits an “extremely low level” of radiation. The devices could not be accounted for in a recent audit, said John Schneider, deputy director for research at the lab. “There’s no identified safety risk,” Schneider said. “There’s no leaks, there’s no material that we don’t have control of that’s sitting on desks — (the machines) are unaccounted for. We’ve been looking everywhere for them.”

November 13, 2008 - Associated Press - Air Force finds nuclear deficiencies at Mont. base - Air Force officials said Wednesday that a recent nuclear inspection found deficiencies in a unit responsible for 150 ICBMs in Montana, but added that there was no threat to public safety. The inspection of the 341st Missile Wing at Malmstrom Air Force Base, near Great Falls, evaluated the unit's readiness to execute nuclear operations and found "deficiencies in several areas", according to an Air Force statement. Capt. Sharbe Clark with Air Force Space Command said Wednesday that further details of problems could not be disclosed. She said the public was not at risk. The 341st oversees security, maintenance and operations of intercontinental ballistic missiles across north-central Montana. The Air Force will reinspect the unit within 90 days. The Air Force statement suggested there would be no shake-up among Malmstrom's commanders as a result of the inspection, saying "the right leadership is in place at the 341st." "They have the knowledge and skills to correct whatever areas that had the deficiencies in it," Clark said. "They have to get it up to par."

November 13, 2008 - Salt Lake Tribune - EnergySolutions posts 7.7% gain in Q3 - Salt Lake City-based EnergySolutions Inc. announced increased profits and revenues for the third quarter. Net income jumped to $10.9 million, or 12 cents per share, compared with $200,000 in the same period last year. Revenues were $419 million, up 7.7 percent from $389 million from the quarter ending Sept. 30, 2007. "In summary, our core business remains strong in spite of the effects of the current turmoil in the financial markets," CEO R Steve Creamer said. "Our capital structure is sound, our debt levels are manageable and we have over $100 million of cash and undrawn lending commitments from our banks."

November 13, 2008 - Contra Costa Times - Fusion research, if properly funded, holds huge promise - For more than half a century, scientists have dreamed about using fusion — the source of the sun's energy — to produce electricity. Now, thanks in large part to research at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, that dream could be realized in the next couple of decades. The latest and most promising means of economically producing safe, carbon emission-free electricity is Laser Inertial-Confinement Fusion-Fisssion Energy, or LIFE. It is a combination of fusion and fission, the process used in today's atomic power plants. Fusion energy would be used to set off fission reactions in spent nuclear fuel and old nuclear weapons. Not only would LIFE produce clean electricity, it would burn up nuclear waste, greatly reducing the need for a waste storage facility such as the controversial one planned at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The key to fusion-fission energy is producing a sustainable fusion reaction. That is what is being developed at the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. The NIF uses 192 high-powered lasers focused on a tiny target of hydrogen isotopes to create the astronomically high temperature and pressure necessary to achieve a fusion reaction.

November 13, 2008 - KXNT Las Vegas - Obama May Alter Yucca Mountain's Future - At least two of Nevada's federal officials are hopeful President-elect Barack Obama will shut down further funding of Yucca Mountain. For more than two decades, the Silver State's senators and congressional representatives have fought to keep the site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas from becoming a waste dump for nuclear power plants nationwide. The federal government has funded studies showing that Yucca Mountain is the most logical choice for the repository, and has allocated millions of dollars getting the site ready. Those against the project have been able to stall the issue so far, despite support for the project by the Bush administration over the last eight years. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Congresswoman Shelley Berkley both say they are confident Obama will keep his pre-election promise to fight the dump. Meanwhile, the Department of Energy continues to ready the site for the delivery of 77,000 tons of waste. The DOE needs approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. That approval is still three to four years away.

November 12, 2008 - Times-Standard - Family sues Mad River Hospital over exam - A McKinleyville family is suing Mad River Community Hospital after a radiology technician allegedly overexposed their 2-year-old son to radiation during a test, leaving the boy with “radiation burns and chromosome damage to his DNA,” according to court documents. Carrie and Padre Roth and their son Jacoby filed a lawsuit late last month after Raven Knickerbocker, a state-licensed radiology technician, allegedly administered a 65-minute Computerized Axial Tomography, or C-T, scan to Jacoby, who was 23 months old at the time. The lawsuit has a case management conference set for Feb. 4. In January, the Roths had taken Jacoby to the hospital after he fell out of bed and hurt his neck. The court documents said hospital employees ordered the C-T scan as a precautionary measure to determine whether Jacoby had internal injuries. Within two hours of the scan, Jacoby developed burns on his face. Don L. Stockett, the Roths' attorney, said a sample of Jacoby's blood was sent to a DNA expert to be analyzed, and it was found Jacoby has severely damaged chromosomes. Stockett said cancer is now a high probability, but Jacoby has not shown any other symptoms yet beyond the radiation burns he got the day of the scan. Stockett said the hospital terminated Knickerbocker shortly after the incident. A spokesperson said Knickerbocker is no longer with the hospital, but no further comments about the allegations can be made due to the pending litigation.

November 12, 2008 - Medical News Today - Cancer Risk From Cardiac CT Overstated: Medical University Of South Carolina Researchers - Radiology and cardiovascular researchers from the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, S.C., have presented new data that shows the risk of cancer from exposure to radiation during computed tomography for cardiovascular disease has been overstated and that new estimates are several times lower than previously published conclusions. The MUSC researchers presented their findings at the American Heart Association's meeting in New Orleans. In previously published studies, different researchers concluded the risk of cancer from radiation exposure during CT for cardiovascular disease was approximately 1 in 114, but the new study suggests the risk is 1 in 1000. U. Joseph Schoepf, MD, and colleagues from MUSC, claim previous studies assessing lifetime risks of cancer from radiation in cardiac CT are based on unreliable models of patients who undergo CT for cardiovascular disease.

November 12, 2008 - The Day - Millstone Decommissioning Funds Hurting - Funds set aside to pay for the eventual shutdown and cleanup of Millstone Power Station are taking a hit as the stock market continues to lose value. How much of a hit, however, is hard to gauge, since Millstone owner Dominion's third-quarter earnings report does not provide a breakdown of how much money is in each individual fund. As of Sept. 30, the third-quarter earnings report states that Dominion Resources of Virginia, the parent company of Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, reported $50 million in so-called “impairment charges” on securities for decommissioning funds for Dominion Resources' entire fleet of eight reactors in Connecticut, Virginia and Wisconsin. Impaired assets are those which have been marked by a sudden decline, but the losses remain unrealized if the assets have not been sold, much the way higher true home value is unrealized until the home is sold.

November 12, 2008 - Brattleboro Reformer - More cracks found in VY steam dryer - Opponents of the relicensing of Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant want to know why a press release announcing the successful refueling of the reactor did not include notification that 16 additional cracks had been found in the plant's steam dryer. In its press release Yankee stated the steam dryer had been inspected and it "remains in very good condition." No mention was made of the cracks, said Rob Williams, spokesman for Yankee, because they were not new and had been discovered using enhanced inspection techniques. Inspections of the steam dryer during three refueling outages were required by Vermont's Public Service Board when it authorized the plant to increase power production by 20 percent in 2004. "In our best engineering judgment, these cracks have been there since the early days of plant operation," said Williams. "Why should we trust them?" asked Ray Shadis, technical consultant to the New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution, which raised issues with the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board about fatigue cracks in the dryer.

November 12, 2008 - Greeneville Sun - Nuclear Fuels Facility In Erwin Is Designated As Historic Site - The Erwin plant site of Nuclear Fuel Services, Inc. (NFS) has earned a distinction that recognizes the company and the town as of historic significance as a key location for advancements in nuclear technology and the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. The prestigious American Nuclear Society (ANS) 'Nuclear Historic Landmark' designation was awarded to NFS this week at the society's Annual Winter Meeting in Reno, Nev. NFS representatives Randy Shackelford and Richard Booth accepted the award at the meeting. Dwight Ferguson, NFS's president and CEO, said, "The designation validates as fact that NFS and the Erwin plant are of historic significance for advancements in nuclear science. This can be something of pride for our employees, retirees, Unicoi Countians and the region." The ANS is a respected international scientific and educational organization comprised of 11,000 engineers, scientists and educators. A press release said, "NFS's Erwin plant was selected because of its contribution to the peaceful applications of nuclear technology and nuclear energy. The company has achieved several firsts within the industry that were of major historic significance.

November 12, 2008 - Satnews - Northrop Grumman Offers Sensing Success With Early Delivery - Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) successfully delivered a key sensor for global climate change measurement one week ahead of schedule and on budget. The sensor is the second to be delivered for the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) Preparatory Project (NPP). The Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) sensor will be integrated onto the NPP spacecraft, which is scheduled to launch in 2010. NPP is a joint mission between the tri-agency NPOESS Integrated Program Office and NASA providing risk-reduction for NPOESS and will bridge climate measurements between NASA’s Earth Observing System (EOS) research spacecraft and the operational NPOESS system. Northrop Grumman is the prime contractor for the design, development and delivery of NPOESS system – and is responsible for overseeing the delivery of three sensors for NPP. Northrop Grumman modified CERES under contract to NASA Langley Research Center.

November 12, 2008 - Daily Press - Nuclear and gas - I have been closely following the articles in our paper regarding President-elect Barack Obama and his advisers on energy and the economy. I am not seeing any proposals or discussion on the use of nuclear power and/or natural gas to rid ourselves of our dependence on foreign oil. Recently it was announced that AREVA (a French company) had negotiated a deal with Northrop Grumman Newport News to build a facility in our local shipyard to build nuclear-generating components for commercial use. I hopefully trust that both AREVA and Northrop Grumman know something that we do not. It seems to me that this should be one of the first areas that we should look at since this technology already exists and it would immediately put people to work with high-paying jobs. In addition, I believe that the American automobile manufacturers could quickly engineer and build American vehicles to use natural gas. This technology also exists and we have an abundance of this product in our country. This would put more Americans back to work and also increase our tax base. By doing these two things we could significantly reduce the dollars flowing out of our country every year to countries that do not like what Americans stand for.

November 12, 2008 - Platts - Duke contracts with DOE to dispose of new reactors' spent fuel - Duke Energy has signed a contract with the Department of Energy for the disposal of spent fuel generated by its proposed William States Lee III nuclear power plant in South Carolina. Duke's contract with the department is the first publicly announced for disposal of spent fuel from new reactors. In a November 10 press statement, Duke Energy Chief Nuclear Officer Dhiaa Jamil said the contract "is a vital step in supporting the timely licensing" of the station. DOE announced October 31 that it was ready to negotiate spent fuel disposal contracts for new reactors. NRC cannot license a new power reactor until the owner has entered into a spent fuel disposal contract with DOE or is negotiating one. Duke, which already owns and operates seven nuclear units, has proposed building two AP1000 reactors in Cherokee County, South Carolina.

November 12, 2008 - Vicksburg Post - New nuclear plant less likely during Obama presidency - The sun didn’t set on chances for a new nuclear plant in Mississippi with the election of Barack Obama, but the skies became far more cloudy. As a candidate, Obama set two preconditions for any new approvals that may be impossible for energy companies to meet. One was no federal subsidy for the costs. The other was for an approved facility for storage of nuclear waste to be in operation — and Obama doesn’t support a repository at Yucca Mountain, the Nevada site proposed by the U.S. Department of Energy for spent fuel many years ago and a political football since. Neither of those preconditions will be welcomed by Entergy Nuclear, which now operates the state’s only nuclear-fired power plant at Grand Gulf in Claiborne County, or by utility consortiums that have been taking steps toward new plants in Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama. In a story reported by Reuters news service earlier this year, Obama said that because nuclear power does not emit greenhouse gases, the United States should consider — not commit to — research dollars into whether nuclear waste can be stored safely pending reuse. France, for example, reprocesses spent fuel — a practice now illegal in the United States. Obama has also accepted campaign donations from Exelon, which sells power made by nuclear plants in his home state of Illinois. Otherwise, he’s clearly a no-nuker.

November 12, 2008 - Daily Herald - Radiation caused man’s illness - Mt. Pleasant native George Kittrell graduated from Hay Long High School in 1948 and was in college at MTSU when he signed up for a three-year Army hitch on Sept. 11, 1950. “I knew my country was in trouble so I signed up to go to Korea,” Kittrell said. But Kittrell did not go to Korea. He was 21 years old and a soldier at Ft. Campbell when in November 1951 he was re-assigned to Camp Desert Rock, Nevada. At the time, he had no idea his duty on American soil would prove to be as hazardous as the tours of many of his fellow soldiers fighting in Korea. He would not find out until decades later. Kittrell remembers that it was between Nov. 21 and Nov. 23, 1951, that he was driven from his barracks 20 miles into the Nevada desert. “They dropped us off about seven miles away from the explosion. We were ordered to face 180 degrees from the tower where the bomb was exploded,” Kittrell said. “I felt the heat on the back of my neck from there. It was like somebody was welding behind me.” Kittrell said when he and the others were ordered to turn around and load into trucks, they could see the giant mushroom cloud left behind by the explosion.

November 12, 2008 - Houston Chronicle - Radioactive kegs menace public, hike recycling costs - French authorities made headlines last month when they said as many as 500 sets of radioactive buttons had been installed in elevators around the country. It wasn’t an isolated case. Improper disposal of industrial equipment and medical scanners containing radioactive materials is letting nuclear waste trickle into scrap smelters, contaminating consumer goods, threatening the $140 billion trade in recycled metal and spurring the United Nations to call for increased screening. Last year, U.S. Customs rejected 64 shipments of radioactive goods at the nation’s ports, including purses, cutlery, sinks and hand tools, according to data released by the Department of Homeland Security in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. India was the largest source, followed by China. “The world is waking up very late to this,” said Paul de Bruin, radiation safety chief for Jewometaal Stainless Processing BV in Rotterdam, the world’s biggest stainless-steel scrap yard.

November 12, 2008 - KVVU 5 - State Dems Sure Obama Will Stop Yucca Dump; DOE Continues Application Process - Opponents of the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository said they're confident President-elect Barack Obama will make good on a campaign promise to keep nuclear waste from being shipped to Nevada. Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid is among Nevada elected leaders who oppose nuclear waste storage in the state. In an interview with the Review-Journal, Congresswoman Shelley Berkley said that after spending 10 years fighting the nuclear waste dump, she can wait three or four more months to make sure it's done. Meanwhile, the Energy Department said it's moving ahead on its plan. If completed, the mountain will entomb 77,000 tons of highly radioactive spent nuclear reactor fuel 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The department is seeking approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to open and operate the repository. Project chief Ward Sproat said the NRC review and a decision could take three or four years.

November 12, 2008 - Christian Science Monitor - The US nuclear waste issue – solved; Nuclear energy is a must. Disposal is within our reach - President-elect Barack Obama supports nuclear power to increase US energy independence and fight global warming – but only if a path to safe nuclear waste disposal is opened. Fortunately, there is a two-step plan that can open that path and lead to an effective waste solution within eight years. And it embraces citizen consent. In 1987, Congress cut off comparative site evaluations and closed all discussion of permanent nuclear waste locations except Yucca Mountain, in Nevada. It taxed nuclear utilities to pay for it, racking up $26 billion to date. The Energy Department did what Congress required: It studied Yucca and recently submitted an application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to approve site construction. However, few informed observers believe that the facility can be completed without the cooperation of Nevada, which is dead set against it. Critics perceive the site as too risky and as a threat to tourism. On top of that, Nevadans seem to feel that the federal government is unfairly pushing the facility on the state. Decades of complex administrative delays and judicial battles loom. So, half a century after we started generating nuclear power, used nuclear fuel continues to accumulate at more than 100 temporary storage facilities near nuclear power plants. It's a daily reminder of the unfulfilled federal promise to own and begin moving the material by 1998. Much of the problem stems from an anachronistic policy enacted in 1982. The policy essentially stipulated that used fuel should be disposed of in a geologic repository as soon as one becomes available. But, if used fuel is allowed to sit in safe storage for 90 years, much of the heat and radioactivity decays away. This reduces the size, complexity, and cost of underground disposal. It also buys time. During the cool-down period, used fuel could be transformed from waste into a major source of energy if we can satisfy the tough engineering, cost, and security challenges involved in reprocessing it.

November 12, 2008 - IRIN - Landslides threaten radioactive waste dumps - Residents of the village of Min-Kush in Naryn Province, central Kyrgyzstan, are worried that a mudslide could destroy a nearby radioactive waste dump and contaminate the local river. The Soviet-era radioactive waste dump is about 2km from Min-Kush and close to the River Tuyuk-Suu. “We are afraid of a huge mudslide triggered by heavy rain. It could destroy the radioactive waste dump, leading to contamination of the river. What will we do?” asked 35-year-old Saparkul Burkokbaeva from Min-Kush. The area is mountainous and earthquake prone, and Ministry of Emergencies experts say torrential rain could trigger potentially devastating landslides which could change the course of the River Tuyuk-Suu, and/or wash away the waste dump, one of the biggest identified. It contains about 450,000 cubic metres of radioactive waste. “The problems of Min-Kush village need an urgent decision. We have had a lot of rain and there is a risk of landslides blocking or altering the course of the Tuyuk-Suu river,” said Emergencies Minister Kamchybek Tashiev. Many radioactive waste sites in Kyrgyzstan - a legacy of the Soviet Union - are in areas prone to earthquakes and landslides, and thus pose an environmental safety hazard to Kyrgyzstan and the Central Asian region.

November 11, 2008 - Spokesman-Review - Atomic vets know war; Nuclear tests, aftermath their story - Mike Driscoll is solving a puzzle that has bothered him for 46 years. Could his health have been affected by exposure to atomic bomb testing? The insight the Spokane Navy veteran is gathering is as personally momentous to him as his time aboard the USS Yorktown. He joined the aircraft carrier in 1961 after enlisting in the Navy out of high school. The crew were told they were taking part in a test, but none knew the details. It became clear when a nearby destroyer became the first surface ship to fire an antisubmarine nuclear rocket. Four decades later, Driscoll suffers from health problems that many Americans have, including a thyroid condition for which he takes medication. He's now connecting with fellow veterans and using the Internet to review declassified documents about his ship and its missions. Driscoll is not looking for a payout – he doesn't know for sure his health issues are related to the test – but he wonders how the exposure to fallout from bomb tests is affecting others. Some may not even know they were part of it.

November 11, 2008 - Associated Press - No Syrian reaction on traces of uranium - Syria has no immediate comment on reports by diplomats at the International Atomic Energy Agency that uranium traces were found at a Syrian site bombed by Israel last year on suspicion it was a covert nuclear reactor. Unnamed diplomats at the Vienna-based U.N. agency said late Monday samples taken from the site contained uranium combined with other elements that merit further investigation. One said the findings would figure in a report on Syria to be presented later this month. Syrian officials had no comment on the report Tuesday. Syria has previously denied any covert nuclear program. Deputy Foreign Minister Fayssal Mekdad has said Damascus would consider a request by the nuclear watchdog to revisit the bombed site.

November 11, 2008 - The Daily News - Democrats should rethink position on nuclear waste - The next administration and new, more Democratic Congress will have to reassess their stated opposition to the proposed nuclear waste repository near Nevada’s Yucca Mountain if they are to develop a sensible energy policy. The campaign rhetoric that helped them turn Nevada blue in last week’s election would pretty much rule out an expansion of nuclear power — something President-elect Obama and most members of Congress have conceded must be part of any plan to reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil. The fact is, commercial utilities cannot be expected to construct new nuclear reactors until they have some assurance that the federal government will honor its promise to take possession of radioactive waste that has accumulated at existing reactors. Right now, there are tens of thousands of tons of commercial nuclear waste scattered around the country at 131 sites. This includes 4,700 tons of spent fuel rods currently stored at the idled Trojan Nuclear Plant near Rainier. The radioactive waste continues to accumulate — at the rate of some 2,000 tons a year — at the nation’s 104 active commercial reactors. The U.S. Department of Energy said last week that it will urge Congress to either approve a significant expansion of the proposed Nevada repository or allow the DOE to begin looking for a second site to bury nuclear waste. Edward Sproat, head of the agency’s civilian nuclear waste program, said that, within two years, the amount of waste will exceed the 77,000 tons the Yucca Mountain project is designed to store. If development of the Yucca Mountain repository is allowed to proceed, the facility wouldn’t be ready to receive shipments of waste until 2020 at the earliest.

November 11, 2008 - Barents Observer - Russia removed radioactive lighthouses from Arctic coast - In the course of summer, Russia removed another 46 strontium-fuelled lighthouses from the coast of the White Sea and the Barents and Kara Seas. With Norwegian project support, Russia has now removed 180 radioactive lighthouses between Murmansk and the Novaya Zemlya and replaced them with solar cell installations. The 46 lighthouses were all sent to the VNIITFA institute in Moscow, Rosbaltnord.ru reports with reference to RIA Novosti. Another 11 lighthouses will be brought from the island of Vaigach to Moscow next summer. The lighthouses have for decades been guiding vessels operating along Russia’s Arctic coast. The last 46 lighthouses removed this summer where taken from the coast of the White Sea, the Barents Sea and the Kara Sea. Some of them had been placed on the islands of Kolguyev, Vaigach and Novaya Zemlya. Since 2001, a total of 180 lighthouses have been removed from the coast, 153 of which have been decommissioned.

November 11, 2008 - Your Nuclear News - A Blow to Nuclear Power in Chicago - As the world media filled with the victory of Barack Obama, a defeat for atomic power in his own back yard sent a Solartopian message to the new administration. In the Chicago-area communities of Oak Park, Berwyn and Riverside, voters approved by well over two-to-one a referendum asking that “our elected officials in Illinois take steps to phase out nuclear power in the state, replacing it with renewable sources such as wind and solar.” The three communities currently rely on atomic power for some 75% of their electricity, which is supplied through Commonwealth Edison, a subsidiary of Exelon, America's largest nuke owner. With 11 operating reactors, Illinois has more reactors than any other state. But 31,586 (68.3%) voters approved the referendum, versus 14,676 (31.7%) opposed.

November 11, 2008 - Oakland Tribune - New Clean Energy Initiative Unveiled at Livermore Lab - The allure of a carbon-free energy technology that would use nuclear waste as fuel and render fossil-fuel power plants obsolete drew Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday to his first tour of Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. Schwarzenegger was joined by former Secretary of State George Schultz during his late-morning visit to a powerful laser facility here that will begin testing a long-held dream of generating electricity in abundance using radioactive waste from nuclear reactors and decommissioned nuclear weapons. "What's most exciting about (the laser technology) is the potential to revolutionize our energy future," said Schwarzenegger, speaking to reporters in the lobby of the National Ignition Facility. "If successful, this new endeavor would produce endless megawatts of carbon-free power," he said.

November 11, 2008 - Irish Health - Ireland’s radon levels dangerous - Ireland ranks sixth in the world for the h