Press Pieces

Radiation-related consulting and services from Integrated Environmental Management, Inc.

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.)

February 8, 2010 - Las Vegas Review-Journal - Yucca Mountain seen as possible reprocessing site - A devastating blow last week to a plan to bury nuclear waste under Yucca Mountain has bolstered another controversial idea: reprocessing nuclear waste at the same location on the Nevada Test Site. Several Republican candidates -- including leading U.S. Senate candidates Danny Tarkanian, Sue Lowden and Sharron Angle -- have expressed support for studying or experimenting with reprocessing, a method of extracting useful fuel from radioactive waste. Two Republican gubernatorial candidates are also open to the idea, despite steadfast opposition from the Nevada political establishment that stymied the plan to store waste at Yucca Mountain. The opposition lineup includes Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the highest-ranking politician to ever come from the state who counts keeping dangerous radioactive waste out of Nevada among his foremost accomplishments. Of Yucca Mountain Reid said, "We should be able to use it for something ... other than nuclear waste." Even as Reid and other incumbents celebrated three recent bureaucratic maneuvers they say killed the nuclear storage plan once and for all, reprocessing advocates stuck to their guns. For them, the fear of radioactive accidents is offset by hope for high-paid, high-tech jobs. The prospect of bringing new jobs and technology to Nevada is how Republican proponents seeking office approach the issue.

February 8, 2010 - Diamonds.net - GILC Opens Discussion on Key Issues - Participation for the Gemstone Industry & Laboratory Conference (GILC), held at the Tucson Convention Center, was nearly double the expectations of the organizers, the International Colored Gemstone Association (ICA) and the American Gem Trade Association (AGTA). Laboratories from around the world were well represented and included many members of the LMHC and CIBJO, including Roland Naftule who is vice president of CIBJO and president of Sector 3. Members of the trade from the wholesale and retail sectors provided valuable insight and perspective to the discussions. While a variety of topics were covered, nomenclature for glass-filled rubies was an important issue for many participants. A committee was formed for follow-up discussions to come up with an acceptable commercial name with proper disclosure for this product who will then report to GILC members on their progress. A discussion on the findings at the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) on ‘Radioactive Uranium Mineral as Inclusions in Turquoise,’ presented by Shane McClure, caught many attendees by surprise, generating a flurry of questions. A committee was formed to look in to this further and give recommendations to regulate the import of this product in accordance with NRC.

February 8, 2010 - The Energy Collective - Will We Run Out of Uranium? - I noted on Friday, that there is strong evidence that a nuclear Renaissance is underway, and that the number of new reactors under construction, being planned, and under consideration is rapidly increasing. Brian Wang has pointed out in a private communication that present world Uranium mining capacity would be unable the demand for uranium. I understood thatBrian was referring to a a situation that could arise with no change in reactor or mining technology during the next generation David MacKay tells us, A once-through one-gigawatt nuclear power station uses 162 tons per year of uranium. This calculation is based on the amount of U-235 extracted from uranium, and the burn rate of U-238 in Light Water Reactors. The U-238 burn rate refers to the amount of U-238 in reactor fuel, that is transformed into plutonium in the reactor, and plutonium will fission inside a reactor. Fast Breeder reactors are capable of converting almost all U-238 into plutonium. Some U-238 will fission aster absorbing a neutron so at least in theory fast breeders can convert close to 100% of their uranium into nuclear fuel. MacKay suggests that fast breeder reactors are 60-times-more-efficient at burning uranium than Light Water Reactors. In fact, in a fast breeder, one ton of uranium is capable of producing 1 GW year of electricity in a fast reactor. Thus fast reactors are 162 times more efficient than light water reactors. This is the first of a number of strange calculation errors, which MacKay makes during his discussion of nuclear power.

February 8, 2010 - Comparecarrentals.com - Experts Says Full Body Scanners Have Low Risk of Radiation - Right now experts claim that the risks associated with the new full body scanners being placed in airports are very small. They go on to say that these machines generate much lower doses of radiation than some would expect. In fact, they say that these scanners generate less radiation than the normal background radiation that the average person runs into each and everyday. The normal annual background radiation per person run to about 3,000 microsieverts. This includes radiation that could be caused by things like microwaves. This is a unit that is used to measure radiation exposure. The body scanner delivers 0.1 to 5 microsevierts according to a recent study. These new full body scanners are likely to be the most used scanners at airports due to a Nigerian man that was able to sneak a bomb onto a plane bound for the United States. These scanners are likely to be used despite the fact that they are still controversial and cost about 10 times the amount of normal scanners. The head of the radiation safety and monitoring at the International Atmoic Energy Agency, Renate Czarwinski, said that the risks are very small. He said that every application of X-ray systems should be justified, and people have to weigh the benefits and the problems. The benefits on this security system is high and the risks are low.

February 8, 2010 - Press TV - Iran holds 1st fully domestic laser exhibit - Tehran is hosting an exhibition of Laser Science and Technology Achievements to show the latest advances by Iranian scientists in the field. The display, which includes high-tech laser instruments made by young Iranian researchers, is the first show of its kind in the country. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took part in the opening ceremony and visited the collection of domestic technologies. The venue sponsored by Iran's National Center For Laser Science and Technology aimed to exhibit devices that are totally designed and manufactured in the country. "Today we admit with pride that scientists and researchers of our country are in the vanguard of laser science," Mr. Ahmadinejad said during the opening ceremony of the exhibit. According to Iran's laser center, the country started localizing the technology only three years ago, yet has managed to take considerable steps in it. "The government and the president are supporting us. We are able to produce a wide range of lasers in demand within the country in medical and industrial fields," Jamshid Sabbaghzadeh, head of Iran's National Laser Center told Press TV reporter.

February 8, 2010 - WCAX - Rep. Hodes pushes plan giving N.H. oversight over Vt. Yankee - New Hampshire Congressman Paul Hodes is visiting the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant today to try and give his state more of a say in the plant's safety. Hodes, who is running for the U.S. Senate, plans to inspect safety procedures at the Vernon plant. He also plans to announce a new federal proposal that would give New Hampshire greater oversight over safety inspections at Vermont Yankee. Plant officials are currently trying to locate the source of a radioactive tritium leak which was first discovered in groundwater in January. Last week a test well reading indicated that a leak in an underground pipe connected to a sump pit may be responsible for the problem. Officials are reminding people that there's no public health risk associated with the leak.

February 8, 2010 - Spokesman Review - Vapor concerns halt Hanford work - Concerns over chemical vapors from an underground tank have stopped work to retrieve radioactive waste from Tank C-104, the only leak-prone tank currently being emptied at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. A Hanford worker was diagnosed with a medical issue after several workers smelled fumes, and a determination has not been made about whether the medical problem is linked to the vapors. Late Jan. 25, workers who were in a control trailer for the work outside the C Tank Farm fence at Hanford came outside and smelled a strong odor linked to vapors vented from the tanks, said Fred Beranek, director of environment, safety, health and quality at Washington River Protection Solutions. Smelling vapors is not unusual, and workers who have any symptoms are required to report for medical care, he said. The workers were taken to a medical center and checked out that night. They were allowed to return to work for their next shifts. Symptoms were typical of vapor exposure, including watery eyes, throat irritation or a metallic taste in the mouth, Beranek said. During the week, several more workers developed symptoms, all apparently from the same January shift, he said. On Feb. 1, a worker called a stop to work, using a system extended to any Hanford worker who believes there is a safety issue, because of the number of employees who had reported symptoms.

February 8, 2010 - Fosters Daily Democrat - Nuclear industry needs to instill confidence, not raise concerns - During his State of the Union address President Obama called for an expansion of the nation's nuclear power capacity. Less than a week later a headline on the front page of Foster's Daily Democrat read: "Tritium leak found in local nuke plant reactor in 1999," referring to the Seabrook nuclear power plant. The comments, both pro and con, that resulted point to the fragile nature of the public's willingness to trust the nuclear industry. It also strikes at the need of the nuclear industry to get ahead of the curve in promoting its safety record. To be fair, the 1999 leak at Seabrook was no secret. In a follow-up story in Foster's, a Seabrook spokesman said the station's operators made a concerted effort to notify residents and the news media soon after the leak occurred, holding a public meeting on the issue in November 1999. He said the tritium levels have not increased since then, adding they are constantly monitored. But it appears a leak at Vermont Yankee, which generated the need for Foster's front-page story on Feb. 2, was initially covered up or wrongly minimized. As reported by The Associated Press: "Officials of the New Orleans-based Entergy Corp., which owns the plant in Vernon in Vermont's southeast corner, have admitted misleading state regulators and lawmakers by saying the plant did not have the kind of underground pipes that could leak tritium into groundwater."

February 8, 2010 - Huntington News - An INCO Cover Up Links Huntington to Seabrook, Indian Point Reactor Per Village Voice - Along came a statement from a reliable source, INCO had allegedly messed up materials at a nuclear plant in New York. One problem: The time frame was after the ‘secret’ Huntington Pilot Plant/Reduction Pilot Plant closed. But , not, before it was buried in a 150 foot long trench in Piketon, Ohio on the Portsmouth Diffusion Plant site. Insight into that statement comes in a Village Voice column, Geiger Counter. It was published decades ago in the late 70s. The mothballing of the HPP/RPP plant did not terminate INCO’s involvement with the nuclear industry. Nickel, after all, had been deemed an essential component in the reaction process due to its strength. Thus, Huntington Alloys division of International Nickel manufactured piping known as INCO 82 and INCO 182, which carried water to sooth the “savage uranium fuels.” After use, coolant became dangerously radioactive. At Public Service Electric Gas & Electric (PSE & G), the lab’s chief metallurgist, Dr. Edward Siegel, claimed he had been assigned to investigate brittling and crackling in Inco 82 & 182 welds. Dr. Siegel claimed that water temperatures would jump rapidly from 500 and 600 degrees to 1,000 degrees. Village Voice then contact a PSE & G engineer who claimed that Dr. Siegel was trying to “believe in science” and the utility had “no INCO problems in their then operating power plants. However, out in Iowa, at the Duane Arnold power plant, the nuclear reactor had to be shut down due to radiation leakage. And, after a fuel has been used in a reactor for a longer period of time, it decays. Remote controls cranes have to be used to replace the plutonium, which is now part of the process. What causef the leaks? Inconel 600 fittings.

February 8, 2010 - Associated Press - Scientists from Ghana training at Los Alamos - Nuclear specialists at the los Alamos National Laboratory spent the past week training a team from the African nation of Ghana. The two scientists from Ghana were studying how the lab oversees a program to retrieve surplus radioactive material from other nations. The Off-Site Recovery Program retrieves packages the material for shipment and arranges long-term storage. The lab's program is part of the National Nuclear Security Administration's program to keep civilian nuclear materials out of the hands of terrorists. Last month about 12 pounds of spent nuclear fuel were transported from Turkey.

February 8, 2010 - Globe and Mail - Isotope crisis deepens with Dutch reactor shutdown - Canadian medical officials are bracing for “significant shortages” of a key isotope used to perform imaging tests and warning a lack of supply this spring could hamper diagnoses of life-threatening illnesses such as cancer and heart disease. Doctors have been grappling with a decline in isotope production since last May, when the nuclear reactor in Chalk River, Ont., was shut down for repairs. But the shortfall is about to get worse. The aging Petten reactor in the Netherlands, which has helped to fill the void while the Chalk River facility sits idle, will be turned off on Feb. 19 to repair leaks, and it is expected to remain closed until summer. Together, these two reactors produce about 60 per cent of the world's supply of an isotope called technetium 99, a radioactive substance used in 85 per cent of diagnostic imaging procedures. “We are definitely exquisitely anxious. But I don't think that anybody has real solutions,” said Jean-Luc Urbain, president of the Canadian Society of Nuclear Medicine. “Nuclear medicine is such that we have the ability to do early diagnosis compared to radiology, for example. And, if you don't do diagnoses of diseases, they keep progressing,” he said. “So what we are going to see is an increase in the numbers of advanced cardiovascular diseases and advanced cancers in the years to come.”

February 6-7, 2010 - Webmuenster took the weekend off.

February 5, 2010 - Bloomberg News - Airport Body Scanning Raises Radiation Exposure, Committee Says - Air passengers should be made aware of the health risks of airport body screenings and governments must explain any decision to expose the public to higher levels of cancer-causing radiation, a restricted report said. Pregnant women and children should not be subject to scanning, even though the radiation dose from body scanners is “extremely small,” said the Inter-Agency Committee on Radiation Safety report, which is restricted to the agencies concerned and not meant for public circulation. The group includes the European Commission, International Atomic Energy Agency, Nuclear Energy Agency and the World Health Organization. A more accurate assessment about the health risks of the screening won’t be possible until governments decide whether all passengers will be systematically scanned or randomly selected, the report said. Governments must justify the additional risk posed to passengers, and should consider “other techniques to achieve the same end without the use of ionizing radiation.”

February 5, 2010 - Edmonton Journal - Nuclear energy unsafe - The following is my comment on a deceptive report by the University of Alberta group, and their subsequent defence of this at the Jan. 31 forum: It is very unfortunate that Professor Davidson and colleagues introduced this report on nuclear energy as if the problem is one of public perception and knowledge, not of what it is, the very real danger of nuclear power to human life. Nuclear energy is radioactive material that kills upon contact; that is useful in killing cancers, but that is only a tiny amount of the result of having a functional nuclear reactor in your neighbourhood. All reactors emit radioactive effluent daily; Alberta is at the headwaters of rivers that go all across Canada; reactors are usually built on a river. Thus, we would be threatening the safety of water systems all across Canada, including the sources of drinking water. In times of a summer drought, a reactor must take too much of the available water to keep cool enough to prevent it from exploding. That leaves inadequate water for the population. As well, reactors age and have accidents and leaks, most recently, a leak this past week from a reactor in Vermont. These are only two of the serious problems with nuclear power. The long-term problem of safe waste storage for the hundreds of thousands of years needed for protection from radioactive substances while they progress through their various half-lives, is one of the problems that cannot be solved. All other forms of energy sources are preferable to this deadly form of energy.

February 5, 2010 - The Cap Times - Think nuke power is safe? Think again - Your recent report “No nukes for now,” by Lavilla Capener and Mike Ivey, states without qualification that Wisconsin’s two nuclear facilities “have operated quietly and safely since the 1970s.” It is easy to prove this statement false. Every U.S. government agency that regulates radiation exposure agrees that there is no safe level of exposure. The Environmental Protection Agency says, “There is no level below which we can say an exposure poses no risk. ... Radiation is a carcinogen. It may also cause other adverse health effects, including genetic defects in the children of exposed parents or mental retardation in the children of mothers exposed during pregnancy.” The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says, “The radiation protection community conservatively assumes that any amount of radiation may pose some risk for causing cancer and hereditary effect.” The National Council on Radiation Protection says that “every increment of radiation exposure produces an incremental increase in the risk of cancer.” Many people do not know that radioactive contamination of the environment occurs daily from the normal operation of nuclear reactors. Reactors can’t even operate without regular, legally permitted -- as well as accidental and prohibited -- releases of radioactively contaminated water and gas, such as tritium, Xenon, Krypton, and even strontium-90 and cobalt-60. Radioactivity is vented every day in order to control the pressure, temperature and humidity inside reactor cores and to keep radiation levels from exceeding exposure limits for nuclear reactor workers inside. The workers’ exposures are a necessary evil of reactor operations, and are allowed under statute, but they’re all unsafe and increase the workers’ risk of cancer.

February 5, 2010 - Phoenix Business Journal - Commission named to solve nuclear waste problem - U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu has appointed a commission to develop a long-term solution to managing used nuclear fuel and nuclear waste, one of the obstacles to generating more nuclear power. Two Washington heavyweights will chair the commission: Lee Hamilton, a former House Intelligence Committee chairman and vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission; and Brent Scowcroft, the national security adviser to Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush. The Obama administration wants to make nuclear power a larger source of electricity production in the U.S. because nuclear plants emit low levels of greenhouse gases. The president’s budget plan for fiscal 2011 calls for $54.5 billion in federal loan guarantees for construction of nuclear power plants -- triple the current amount. “We’re committed to restarting this industry and regaining American leadership,” Chu said. In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama called for “building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country.”

February 5, 2010 - Aiken Standard - Yucca proposal met with outrage - The federal government's proposal to abandon the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository is angering some local residents. As part of President Barack Obama's 2011 budget proposal announced Monday, the Yucca project would be terminated. Yucca has been designated as the United States' long-term storage site for the nation's spent nuclear fuel. On Tuesday night, Aiken County Council moved forward on a resolution demanding the proposal to terminate the much-invested Yucca facility be reconsidered. At the same time, the South Carolina House of Representatives and Senate are debating a resolution of their own against the proposal to terminate the Yucca site. The resolution states the fear that "the federal government's decision to abandon Yucca Mountain means the Savannah River Site may become a permanent repository for defense nuclear waste in violation of long-standing federal assurances to the contrary." Speaking from Columbia Wednesday, Aiken County Councilman Chuck Smith said he was livid about the decision and the money that has been used to investigate the Yucca site. Smith said the decision was "arrogant." Smith said an estimated $100 billion has been spent on the project. He described any alternatives as "a joke" and "pie in the sky" that the technology could be rolled out soon. Smith said he was in Columbia looking at remedies to help South Carolina financially, such as charging "tipping fees" to other states whose plutonium has been removed and is being stored at the Savannah River Site.

February 5, 2010 - PRInside - EnergySolutions, Inc. Investor Alert - Investigation - An investigation on behalf of current investors in EnergySolutions, Inc (NYSE: ES) over possible breaches of fiduciary duty by the board of directors announced. If you a long term investor in EnergySolutions, Inc (NYSE ES) shares, you have certain options and you should contact the Shareholders Foundation, Inc at mail@shareholdersfoundation.com or at: +1 (858) 779 - 1554. One of the major services that EnergySolutions provides through its Commercial Services segment is its “license stewardship program,” through which the Company provides nuclear decommissioning services. Under this program, EnergySolutions acquires title to substantially all of a customer’s buildings, facilities and equipment from the customer’s non-operating nuclear power plant. As the owner of the plant and associated permits, licenses and other assets, the Company is eligible to acquire a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (“NRC”) to decommission the plant, and most importantly, to gain access to the client’s decommissioning trust funds associated with the plant, which are overseen by the NRC. In December 2007, the Company finalized a contract with Exelon Corporation to decommission two nuclear reactors in Zion, Illinois. April 24, 2008, Exelon issued a press release and disclosed that its decommissioning trust fund accounts had significantly declined in value. On May 12, 2008, after the close of the market, the Company issued a press release and affirmed its full year guidance of revenues.

February 5, 2010 - Las Vegas Review-Journal - Outraged politicians forget Obama's stand against nuclear dump - What a difference a day makes. President Barack Obama went from a hero deserving Nevada's gratitude to a bum trying to kill Las Vegas' economy. On Monday, when Obama released his budget zeroing out the Yucca Mountain Project, effectively killing it, he was thanked by Nevada officials. Harry Reid, John Ensign. Reps. Shelley Berkley and Dina Titus all issued positive statements. So did Gov. Jim Gibbons. Only Rep. Dean Heller ignored the Yucca Mountain story. On Tuesday, Obama said in New Hampshire: "You don't blow a bunch of cash on Vegas when you're trying to save for college." Now he's a bum among the same Nevadans, Democrats and Republicans, who were singing his praises 24 hours earlier. (Once again, Heller has nothing to say about it.) Now, putting a stake in the idea of storing nuclear waste 100 miles from Las Vegas has been something the majority of Nevadans have wanted for the past 20 years. Yucca Mountain has been pronounced dead more than once in the past few years, only to come back like a B-movie villain whose hand comes back to grab the heroine by the ankle. But the absence of any money in Obama's budget to pursue a Nevada nuclear storage site seems more definitive than before. Another clue: The government is going to stop any effort to license the site. Our Republican governor was "glad the president has finally seen the light." Our senior senator welcomed the "great news because it not only prevents Nevada from becoming the nation's nuclear dumping ground, it also protects hundreds of communities through which the waste would have had to travel in order to get to Yucca."

February 5, 2010 - Las Vegas Review-Journal - Energy chief defends Yucca Mountain determination - Energy Secretary Steven Chu on Thursday defended the decision to terminate the Yucca Mountain program, telling senators at a budget hearing the Nevada repository plan is being set aside in a search for "better solutions." Chu encountered push-back from several Republican senators on the decision during a hearing on the Energy Department's fiscal 2011 budget. In his first appearance before Congress since announcing he would withdraw a construction application for the Nevada site, Chu said ending the repository program is a turn, and not an end, to the government's efforts to managing radioactive spent fuel from nuclear plants. "We are still going to move forward," Chu said. "We don't think the pulling of the Yucca application means we are at a standstill, but I do believe there are better solutions." Chu told senators he would rely on a 15-member commission that was named last week to recommend a path forward after a two-year study. But Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., questioned the need for a panel. He also questioned whether banks will back the construction of new nuclear plants if the waste issue is unsettled. "We have to pick a path and go for it," Burr said. "We either know something and we should do it, or we are going to kick this can down the road, which I am tired of doing."

February 5, 2010 - New York Times - Medical Group Urges New Rules on Radiation - The leading professional organization dedicated to radiation oncology has called for enhanced safety measures in administering medical radiation, including the establishment of the nation’s first central database for the reporting of errors involving linear accelerators — machines that generate radiation — and CT scanners. The group, the American Society for Radiation Oncology, or Astro, issued a six-point plan on Wednesday that it said would improve safety and quality and reduce the chances of medical errors. Even though the group says serious radiation accidents are rare, it says it will work toward a stronger accreditation program, expanded training, and an enhanced program to ensure that medical technologies from different manufacturers can safely transfer information. Astro will also press for federal legislation to require national standards for radiation therapy treatment teams, along with additional resources for the Radiological Physics Center, a federally financed group that evaluates the safety of treatments.

February 5, 2010 - Domain-b - NIST scientists develop world's most precise atomic clock - Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed an enhanced version of an experimental atomic clock, that they claim is world's most precise now. Based on a single aluminum atom, the new clock is more than twice as precise as the previous pacesetter based on a mercury atom, a NIST release said today. The new aluminum clock would neither gain nor lose one second in about 3.7 billion years, according to measurements to be reported in the `Physical Review Letters.' The second version of NIST's `quantum logic clock,' the new clock borrows the logical processing used for atoms storing data in experimental quantum computing.

February 5, 2010 - Register Citizen - Solvit Incorporated to hold free seminars about radon dangers - The company Solvit Incorporated will be holding free seminars about the dangers of radon in an effort to keep people safe. Solvit Incorporated repairs plumbing, heating and air conditioning systems, conducts testing for radon and cleans ducts. It has offices in Torrington, New Milford, Norwalk and Stamford. The company will be holding a free seminar at the Torrington Library on Saturday, Feb. 27, from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and another at the Harwinton Library on Wednesday, March 3, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Mike Criss, a Solvit employee specializing in radon testing, explained the company wants to enable people to protect themselves. “Just because January is Radon Action Month does not mean you should not have radon testing throughout the year,” Criss said. “We are educating consumers about its causing lung cancer and stomach cancer.” Torrington Area Health District official Gil Roberts will be speaking at the lectures. Radon kills about 20,000 Americans per year, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. A natural radioactive gas, radon does not emit a smell, color or taste.

February 5, 2010 - 7th Space - CyberKnife radiosurgery for inoperable stage IA non-small cell lung cancer - ObjectiveTo report serial 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) positron emission tomography (PET)/ computed tomography (CT) tumor response following CyberKnife radiosurgery for stage IA non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Methods: Patients with biopsy-proven inoperable stage IA NSCLC were enrolled into this IRB-approved study. Targeting was based on 3-5 gold fiducial markers implanted in or near tumors. Gross tumor volumes (GTVs) were contoured using lung windows; margins were expanded by 5 mm to establish the planning treatment volumes (PTVs). Doses ranged from 42-60 Gy in 3 equal fractions. 18F-FDG PET/CT was performed prior to and at 3-6-month, 9-15 months and 18-24 months following treatment. The tumor maximum standardized uptake value (SUVmax) was recorded for each time point. Results: Twenty patients with an average maximum tumor diameter of 2.2 cm were treated over a 3-year period. A mean dose of 51 Gy was delivered to the PTV in 3 to 11 days (mean, 7 days). The 30-Gy isodose contour extended an average of 2 cm from the GTV. At a median follow-up of 43 months, the 2-year Kaplan-Meier overall survival estimate was 90% and the local control estimate was 95%. Mean tumor SUVmax before treatment was 6.2 (range, 2.0 to 10.7).

February 5, 2010 - Defimedia - Power lines pose cancer risk - High voltage electric supply transformers located near residential areas, schools or public places can pose serious health hazards. The situation is getting worse day by day in Mauritius where construction sites have mushroomed in areas where such transformers are found, according to many observers. Leading scientists and researchers around the world who deal with health hazards associated with electric supply systems believe there is a need for an urgent rethinking on the presence of high voltage power lines near houses and schools.  A three-year study by the American National Council for Radiation Protection shows that there is clear evidence that living near an electricity line could be linked to fatal childhood diseases such as Leukaemia. A draft major report recommends firm restrictions at 0.2 microTesla, an indicative level of public concern. A Japanese study by Saito et al published in The Journal of Epidemiology 2009 reveals an eleven-fold increase in brain tumours for children exposed to magnetic field. However, Dr.Anil Mohit, Cancer Specialist at the Mauritian Ministry of Health says: “I am not aware of any studies done in Mauritius regarding the risks taken when exposed to power lines. I believe there have been many scientists who have investigated this probability in the UK and the US but I have nothing to say regarding the health of the nation when exposed to electromagnetic field (EMF) .”

February 5, 2010 - Gloucester Daily Times - Lowering the risk in fight against breast cancer - The total number of women in the United States diagnosed with invasive breast cancer rose by 5.5 percent during 2009. Approximately 192,000 women reported an estrogen positive or an estrogen negative type of invasive breast cancer during the past year, compared with 182,000 during 2008, according to American Cancer Society published statistics. This past December, Teresa Heinz Kerry, philanthropist and wife of U.S. Sen. John Kerry, wrote an op ed column in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, announcing her own recent breast cancer diagnosis. As a longstanding advocate and philanthropist supporting a better understanding of how environmental pollutants are linked to our high national breast cancer rates, she has been a steadfast friend to breast cancer prevention proponents. But Heinz's recent editorial was disappointing at best; Heinz, now 71, urged all women to have an annual mammogram, beginning at age 40; something that even Dr. Susan Love, along with the U.S. Prevention Services Task Force and the American College of Physicians, believe is a foolish practice, given the safer alternatives to mammography, which exposes women to harmful radiation, results in more false that correct readings, and too often subjects terrified women to unnecessary treatment.

February 5, 2010 - Sky News - Nasa Pictures Show Changing Surface Of Pluto - The most detailed pictures ever taken of Pluto have shown the former planet has a mottled white, orange and charcoal black surface. The new images suggest the northern hemisphere of the frozen world is melting. Pluto, which sits on the outer edge of our solar system, is so distant and small its surface has long been a puzzle to astronomers. But the Nasa images taken by the Hubble Telescope suggest the planet undergoes seasonal changes just like Earth. Compared with older photographs it also appears Pluto, which was downgraded to a dwarf planet in 2006, has become significantly more red. Astronomers believe this is most likely the result of surface ice melting on Pluto's sunlit northern hemisphere and then refreezing on the other pole. Nasa believes ultraviolet radiation from the distant sun is breaking up methane on the surface, leaving behind a dark and red carbon-rich residue.

February 5, 2010 - Burlington Free Press - Radioactivity readings spike at Vermont Yankee - Tritium levels in groundwater samples taken at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant are up more than nine times over previously recorded levels, officials said Thursday. Plant, state Health Department and federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials said a newly dug monitoring well at the Vernon reactor had turned up a reading of nearly 775,000 picocuries per liter. That’s more than 37 times the Environmental Protection Agency’s safety limit for tritium in drinking water. Tritium has been linked to cancer when ingested in large amounts. “There’s not currently, nor is there likely to be, an impact on public health or safety or the environment,” NRC spokeswoman Diane Screnci said. She had maintained previously that the EPA drinking water safety limit had an abundance of caution built into it. California’s state limit is 50 times lower than the EPA’s, 400 picocuries per liter. The National Academy of Sciences said in 2005 that any exposure to ionizing radiation from an isotope such as tritium elevates the risk of cancer, though it also said the risk would be low with small exposures.

February 4, 2010 - Concord Monitor - Vermont Yankee investigation needed - When it happens on The Simpsons, it's funny. Viewers expect Montgomery Burns, the villainous owner of the nuclear power plant that employs Homer Simpson, to lie. When it happens in real life, no one smiles. People the expect honesty from the operators of the nation's nuclear power plants. So the Entergy vice president who recently told regulators and the public that the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant had no underground pipes capable of leaking tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, was being either deliberately misleading or frighteningly ignorant about the workings of his power plant. Vermont Yankee has underground pipes that carry water contaminated with tritium. Last month, Entergy officials notified regulators that tests of a well on the property showed elevated levels of the carcinogen. Tritium turned up in even higher levels in another well a short time later. Entergy is seeking permission from Vermont's legislature and regulators to extend the life of the plant for 20 years beyond 2012, the year the aging plant hits 40. The plant's latest incident is just one more reason that Vermont lawmakers should lean heavily in favor of closing the plant to protect the public.

February 4, 2010 - Salt Lake Tribune - EnergySolutions flips on deal not to expand waste site - EnergySolutions Inc. put the brakes on expansion plans for its Tooele radioactive waste site two years ago in an agreement with then-Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., who hailed the deal as a "monumental win" for Utah residents. But, now that the U.S. District Court for Utah has ruled the waste site is not under the thumb of regional waste authorities, the company says the deal is obsolete. "When the district court ruled that the Northwest Compact lacked jurisdiction over the Clive [Tooele County] facility," company president Val Christensen said in an e-mail to The Tribune this week, "the standstill agreement with Gov. Huntsman became unnecessary." Gov. Gary Herbert, who succeeded Huntsman when he left in August to become U.S. ambassador to China, insists the size-limitation deal remains in force. "Our understanding is this agreement is still binding," said Angie Welling, Herbert's spokeswoman. The view is echoed by state environmental regulators.

February 4, 2010 - Business Wire - Toshiba Receives FDA Clearance for Viamo Ultrasound System - Designed to meet the needs of today’s hospitals by combining portability with high-end radiology features, Toshiba America Medical Systems, Inc.’s new ViamoTM laptop ultrasound system has received FDA clearance. The Viamo is the industry’s no-compromise ultrasound system with advanced radiology capabilities, previously unavailable on hand-carried systems. Toshiba’s Viamo provides the best value in the hand carried class by offering the same premier image quality as larger, more expensive ultrasound systems, but at a lower price point for hospitals. The Viamo was introduced at the 2009 Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) annual meeting. The Viamo combines the portability of a laptop system with advanced radiology features to deliver outstanding image quality, enhance diagnostic confidence and improve ease of use. Developed from a radiology foundation, Toshiba’s Viamo provides the confidence to image patients at bedside, which generally requires larger, more expensive cart-based systems. When an immobile patient needs a high-end ultrasound exam, the portable Viamo ultrasound is brought to the patient to improve the patient’s comfort without compromising exam quality. It is also ideal for a variety of patient exams, including general radiology, pediatric, emergency, OB/GYN and vascular. “The Viamo is specifically designed to provide advanced radiology capabilities in a portable system, creating more comfortable exams for patients,” said Girish Hagan, vice president, Marketing, Toshiba. “Providing the best value in the hand-carried segment, the Viamo delivers high-quality images for numerous clinical applications.”

February 4, 2010 - Legalbrief Today - Dad loses battle against mobile phone mast - The father of an autistic daughter lost a High Court battle this week against a mobile phone mast being sited outside his home, notes a report in The Independent. Alan Cox, an engineer with professional experience of microwave transmission, expressed concern that radiation from the mast could affect his daughter's health. The family home is just 24 metres from the site of the proposed mast. Cox's daughter (26) suffers from neurological problems following brain injury at birth and is in the house most of the time, with her mother as full-time carer. In a ruling at London's High Court, Deputy Judge Robin Purchas QC said the inspector had been entitled to find there was little objective evidence to support local fears about the mast.

February 4, 2010 - Examiner - The nuclear debate heats back up - There were two conflicting news stories this week. On Monday, President Obama proposed guaranteeing loans for the building of a ‘new generation’ of nuclear power stations. The reason for the government guarantee? Wall Street considers the nuclear power business too risky to invest in. Who’s right, the White House or Wall Street? It was also reported on Monday that tritium has been found in the groundwater around the Vermont Yankee nuclear power station. This news comes on top of the 27 other nuclear power plants that are likewise known to be leaking. The tritium at the Vermont plant was measured at 70,500 picocuries per liter. That’s bad enough. However, the owners of the plant, Entergy Corp., lied to state regulators and lawmakers by saying the plant did not have the kind of underground pipes that could leak tritium into groundwater. How bad is tritium? The government says anything above 20,000 picocuries is dangerous to humans, so the Vermont plant is more than triple that amount. But the medical field questions even the government’s figure. The National Academy of Sciences concluded after an exhaustive study in 2005 that even the tiniest amount of ionizing radiation increases the risk of cancer. According to Dr. Richard Monson, professor of epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, “There is no threshold of exposure below which low levels of ionizing radiation can be demonstrated to be harmless.”

February 4, 2010 - Discovery News - The Universe is Precisely 13.75 Billion Years Old - The Universe is 13.75 billion years old, primordial helium has been spotted for the first time and key evidence for the inflationary period immediately after the Big Bang has been found. But not all the new discoveries by NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) appear to fit cosmological theory. Previously, scientists using data from WMAP measured the time since the Big Bang to be an incredibly precise 13.73 billion years (give or take 0.12 billion years). And now, using the same space-based observatory, the age of the universe has been refined even further, adding another 20 million years to the total (plus or minus 0.11 billion years).Using data from the first 7 years of operation, this refined universal age could be arrived at. Previously, the first 5 years of WMAP observations were used; the longer the observatory is operational, the longer the exposure time, therefore the results become more precise. This news comes as a series of papers from the WMAP team have been published concerning several different aspects of the observations. WMAP is constantly surveying the furthermost reaches of the universe, measuring the very faint "echo" of the Big Bang. This echo is known as cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, a remnant of the vast energies unleashed as the universe burst into being. By mapping the slight variations of temperature in this background radiation, a lot of information about the conditions of the early universe can be gleaned, but cosmologists aren't only interested how long ago the Big Bang occurred. They are trying to find further evidence for what we believe happened in the moments after the Big Bang and now WMAP is filling in the gaps of our knowledge.

February 4, 2010 - Turkish Weekly - Nuclear Divorce, Italian Style? - The nuclear resurgence in Italy -- triggered by the adoption of new energy legislation in July 2009 -- is set to bust like a soap bubble in the wake of an inter-regional body rejecting the energy policy pursued by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government. With an eye on regional elections on March 28, Berlusconi himself is expected to drop the pro-nuclear stance so as to win the polls. This outlook is a source of concern to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Its Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka said in Rome on February 3 that “a clear integrated long-term vision for the energy sector” including nuclear power was necessary. Anxiety about the fate of nuclear power has come to the fore on the heels of a meeting of the inter-regional Conferenza Stato-Regioni in January 2010 at which the regions of Lombardia, Friuli-Venezia and Veneto supported central pro-nuclear policies. But all the rest as well as two autonomous provinces were in opposition, resulting in a vote of 18 to three rejecting the re-introduction of nuclear power.

February 4, 2010 - Rutland Herald - Company names new leadership - A squad of top-level Entergy and Entergy Nuclear executives have been appointed to a new management team to restore the trust of Vermonters, Entergy Nuclear announced late Wednesday. The team will be headed by a top-level Entergy executive, Curtis L. Hebert Jr., a former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, who has worked for Entergy since 2001. Hebert's appointment comes one day after the company announced it had removed Jay Thayer, vice president of operations, from his position in Vermont. Hebert is Entergy Corp.'s executive vice president for external affairs and is based in New Orleans. Thayer was placed on administrative leave pending the results of an investigation into allegations that Thayer and other Entergy Nuclear executives misled Vermont utility regulators over the existence of underground pipes carrying radioactivity at Vermont Yankee. Thayer has since apologized for his statements, but didn't explain why he made them.

February 4, 2010 - Huntington News - Huntington Uranium Burial Lost Worker Confidence with Portsmouth Contractor - Can you imagine digging a hole and dumping rail cars, trucks, machines, bricks and everything else in, then cover it up? That’s what happened in Piketon when the Huntington Pilot Plant/Reduction Pilot Plant was entombed in 1979. According to a November 1999 release by Vina Colley, President of Portsmouth/Piketon Residents for Environmental Safety and Security (PRESS) and co-founder of National Nuclear Workers for Justice (NNWJ). Internal Goodyear Corporation correspondence from July and December 1977 described the material to be buried as 26,000 cubic feet of equipment and 10,000 cubic feet of pipe. The material was contaminated with nickel carbonyl and uranium. (At least?). The disassembled plant arrived for placement in a ditch approximately 24 feet wide, 150 feet long and 12 feet deep. A former worker and eyewitness said it took six months and that “all kinds of stuff went into the ditch.” The project has not been public knowledge Workers at Portsmouth were apparently informed only on a need-to-know basis. Geoffrey Sea in his thesis for Harvard University states that Goodyear "eventually lost credibility when an entire dismantled uranium processing plant from West Virginia was buried at the Portsmouth classified nuclear waste site and the workers were told it hadn't happened."

February 4, 2010 - Chico News & Review - Beware of gas; Environmental agencies encourage Americans to test for radon - Radon, a naturally occurring, radioactive gas that seeps out of the ground and can enter homes, was identified recently as the leading cause of lung cancer for non-smokers in the United States, according to the American Lung Association. The leading cause of lung cancer, of course, is smoking. Each year, radon gas causes more deaths in the United States than any other in-home hazard, including fires and carbon-monoxide deaths combined. The World Health Organization and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have issued a “call to action” for Americans to test their homes for the gas, which is invisible and odorless. The EPA estimates that nearly 8 million American homes have elevated levels of radon, and that if action is not taken to correct the problem, 15,000-22,000 deaths will occur in 2010 alone.

February 4, 2010 - SR Today - Radioactive Waste Dumped in the Baltic - A Russian submarine near HelsinkiAccording to Swedish Television’s program Uppdrag Granskning, radioactive waste and chemical weapons could have been dumped in the Baltic Sea by the Russian military as late as the 1990s. The Swedish government at the time was said to be aware of the dumping, but the Ministry of Defence decided it would be too difficult to investigate the matter. Swedish secret service agent Donald Forsberg holds that the Russians unloaded the chemicals near the island of Gotland between the years 1989 and 1992. “They just sailed out at night and dumped in two areas,” he told the television program. The archives of the Swedish military intelligence service MUST house three separate secret reports that describe the night-time sinking of barrels with chemical weapons and radioactive waste. ”Except for that there are no records whatsoever”. Although then Minister of Defense Björn von Sydow does not remember the incident, the former Foreign Minister’s political advisor, Sven Olof Pettersson, clearly remembers Anna Lindh’s anger at the reports. She wanted the matter to be investigated, he says, but the Ministry of Defence replied that it would be too difficult and too costly to find the chemical waste without knowing its exact location. A proposed gas pipeline from Russia will not pass through the area in question off the coast of Gotland, though there are plans to lay a fiberoptic cable nearby.

February 4, 2010 - WCAX - O'Brien criticizes Vermont Yankee leadership shifts - A top state regulator says Vermont Yankee's removal and replacement of a high-ranking official will do little to calm the state's worries about the facility. Wednesday's statement from Public Service Department Commissioner David O'Brien came one day after Vice President Jay Thayer was permanently relieved of his duties in Vermont after giving authorities misinformation about the existence of underground pipes at the Vernon plant. On Wednesday, plant owner Entergy Nuclear appointed a new management team of top-level Entergy and Entergy Nuclear executives, including two Vermonters, for the state. The team will be led by former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Curtis Hebert. However, O'Brien says replacing Thayer won't do the trick in restoring the state's faith in Vermont Yankee. He also says Vermont's only nuclear power plant still hasn't met conditions necessary for a 20-year extension of its license, which is due to expire in 2012.

February 4, 2010 - Chattanooga Times Free Press - Sequoyah to produce bomb-grade material - The Tennessee Valley Authority is preparing to make a key component for America's hydrogen bombs at its Sequoyah Nuclear Plant near Soddy-Daisy. In the White House budget released this week, the U.S. Department of Energy said it wants TVA to make bomb-grade tritium at Sequoyah, similar to what TVA has done at its Watts Bar plant near Spring City, Tenn., for the past decade. TVA officials said Tuesday that adding military production to Sequoyah's energy generation will have only a minimal impact on plant operations and fulfills the agency's federal mission. "We've tested and done this type of production at Watts Bar since 1999 with limited impact on our operations," TVA Vice President Jack Bailey said. But critics said such plans could heighten the risk of a terrorist attack near Chattanooga and weaken U.S. efforts to limit nuclear proliferation abroad. "There's simply no need to turn the Sequoyah nuclear power plant into a nuclear weapons plant," said Ralph Hutchison, coordinator for the Oak Ridge Peace Environmental Peace Alliance. "If they do that, it becomes much more of a target for terrorists wishing to strike out at the United States." Others worry that using another civilian nuclear plant for military purposes is contrary to what America's foreign policy approach has been to other countries wanting to use the nuclear power plants for military purposes.

February 4, 2010 - Colorado Springs Gazette - More nukes, fewer kooky loan ideas - After his State of the Union address, we expected environmental groups to protest President Barack Obama’s declaration to advance nuclear power. We’re pleased the outrage spans the political spectrum, with many stops in between. Add us to the complainers. The new federal budget proposes to triple loan guarantees for nuclear power plants, from $18.5 billion to $54 billion. This worsens a bad situation. As usual in Washington, it also relies on taxpayers to pay for the grief. Obama’s nuclear power push irritates environmentalists, to whom all things nuclear are nonstarters. But the president proposed this payoff to the nuclear lobby to win GOP support for his horrendous energy bill. The greenhouse-gas limiting legislation was bad enough, with the crippling economic consequences of its carbon cap-and-trade regulations. Obama’s commitment would pile on more federal interference and potential costs. Some critics rightly describe the scheme as another potential multibillion dollar federal bailout when loans begin to default. We support nuclear development as the most realistic way to ease, if not eliminate, American reliance on foreign oil. But, unlike the president, we want a leveling of the playing field, not the federal government tipping the scales to favor the alternative-energy source du jour. Federal guarantees would result in loans made that otherwise wouldn’t be. Does this sound familiar? The housing collapse was partly the result of similar federal protections.

February 4, 2010 - Salt Lake Tribune - Poll: Radioactive waste not welcome here - Utahns question accelerated uranium enrichmentUtahns strongly support a federal ban on importing radioactive waste from foreign nations. And, even more strongly, they oppose the disposal of thousands of tons of depleted uranium in their state. Whether they were Republicans or Democrats, men or women, members of the LDS church or not - the majority of registered voters who responded to a recent poll conducted for The Salt Lake Tribune objected to low-level radioactive waste coming to the state. The question made Grantsville resident Anne Watson recall the story of scientist Marie Curie, who died from exposure to the radioactive material she studied. "That's my concern," said Watson, the mother of four, grandmother of 12 and soon-to-be great-grandmother of seven. "Is there going to be a day when we're going to be exposed to it? I don't know how secure it will be" for future generations. Radioactive waste remains a hot-button issue for Utahns even though a specialized landfill in Tooele County has been in operation for 20 years and has for years been the nation's busiest burial ground for low-level waste. Providing disposal primarily for waste from government cleanups and nuclear reactors, the site now operated by Salt Lake City-based EnergySolutions Inc. has been the subject of an aggressive public relations campaign.

February 4, 2010 - Las Vegas Review-Journal - YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Nuke group sets 'alarms' - The nuclear industry's trade group is signaling it might not go along with the Obama administration's plan to withdraw from Yucca Mountain and make it difficult if not impossible to revive the proposed nuclear waste repository ever again. The Nuclear Energy Institute said it would accept the repository plan being shelved but in a way that could permit it to be revived if warranted in the future. That's not what the White House proposed this week. Agreeing to the demands of Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and other officials from the state, it moved to withdraw the project's license application in a legally binding way that would prevent it from being brought back at a later date. Attorneys who follow nuclear waste issues noticed the caveat in NEI's statement shortly after it was issued Monday. Nevada officials focusing on the nuts and bolts of the Obama plan said it raises a red flag on what they hope would be a repository shutdown conducted with order -- and finality. "That certainly sets off alarms," said Bruce Breslow, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects. Breslow said it underscores the need for Nevada officials to stay on their toes as the administration attempts to wind down the project. Marvin Fertel, chief executive officer of NEI, said in the statement the industry "does not support the termination of this program but believes that, if it is going to happen, it should occur in an orderly manner to permit the licensing process to be restarted if ever warranted." There are a number of people who believe that abandoning the Yucca site before the NRC can weigh a license would waste $11 billion that has been spent since 1983. Top officials with the state of Nevada argue the site is flawed and would pose a health and safety risk to residents. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Monday the Department of Energy in the next month will file a motion with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission seeking to withdraw the license application "with prejudice," meaning it could not be refiled.

February 3, 2010 - Nursing Times - Warning over 'souvenir' foetal scan images - The Health Protection Agency has said there is no danger to unborn babies from ultrasound scans used for diagnostic purposes, but warned parents to consider whether they want to have extra ultrasound scans to receive pictures as mementoes. The Independent Advisory Group on Non-Ionising Radiation, which advises the HPA on ultrasound issues, has reviewed the latest scientific evidence and concluded that more research into the long-term effects of ultrasound on unborn children should be carried out, although there is no danger from diagnostic scans. The advisory group said the available evidence did not suggest that diagnostic ultrasound affected mortality of babies during pregnancy or soon after birth, or suggest any effect on childhood cancer risk. There were, however, been some unconfirmed reports suggesting possible effects on the developing nervous system. AGNIR chair Anthony Swerdlow said: “In the light of the widespread use of ultrasound in medical practice, its increasing commercial use for “souvenir” foetal imaging, and the unconfirmed indications of possible neurological effects on the foetus, there is a need for further research on whether there are any long-term adverse effects of diagnostic ultrasound.

February 3, 2010 - The Day - White House plan to scratch nuclear waste site plays to mixed reviews - The Obama administration is dumping plans for underground storage of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain while tripling taxpayer-backed loan guarantees for new reactors. Following the news Monday that President Barack Obama would eliminate funding by 2011 for the underground repository, the U.S. Department of Energy filed the paperwork Tuesday to withdraw its application for the site, which was being considered by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board. Mired in delays and controversy, the Yucca Mountain project was intended to be a permanent underground site for storage of the highly radioactive spent fuel that is a byproduct of nuclear power. The federal energy department submitted its application for the Nye County, Nev., project on June 3, 2008, according to the NRC. Obama's directive drew mixed reviews Tuesday from industry insiders and nuclear power opponents, but they did agree that jettisoning the Yucca Mountain project does not relieve the administration of its obligation to provide permanent, final storage for highly radioactive spent fuel. Obama's stance was no surprise to Dominion of Virginia, the parent company of Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, which owns the Millstone Power Station in Waterford, said Richard Zuercher, a Dominion spokesman. "Zeroing out the budgeting for Yucca Mountain … does not alleviate the DOE from its responsibility to dispose of used commercial nuclear fuel," Zuercher said.

February 3, 2010 - Globe and Mail - Chernobyl: Leaking radiation and sucking up Canadian money - Almost a quarter-century after its explosion killed hundreds and shocked the world, the Chernobyl nuclear reactor still sits crumbling amid an uninhabitable wasteland in northern Ukraine, still emits surprising amounts of radiation, and still absorbs vast amounts of money. Much of that money, at least $71-million of it, has come from Canadian taxpayers, intended to pay for a project launched in 1997 under a pledge from leaders of the G-7 countries to enclose the reactor in a permanent, sealed sarcophagus. It was meant to be finished in eight years and cost $768-million (U.S.), a symbol of a resurgent Ukraine returning to democratic government and an open economy, putting the 1986 disaster permanently in the past. But in a story of tragic disappointment that exemplifies the web of corruption and distrust that so often ensnares relations between Ukraine and the West, 13 years later the cost of the project has ballooned to almost $2-billion and construction has not even begun. Canadian officials describe it as a “money sink” that has fallen prey to the worst aspects of Ukraine's failed development, a physical manifestation of the once-wealthy country's political decay.

February 3, 2010 - Chicago Sun Times - Widow thought home, because it was not old, was safe from radon - After seeing a story on the news, Joe Linnertz talked to his wife, Gloria, about getting their home of 18 years tested for radon. But their house wasn't very old, so they decided it wasn't necessary. A year later, Joe Linnertz, a nonsmoker, was diagnosed with lung cancer that his wife later found out was likely caused by exposure to high levels of radon. Gloria Linnertz's husband, Joe, died in 2006 of lung cancer likely caused by radon gas. Testing later showed her Waterloo house had four times the radon level the United States considers safe. Testing of the couple's home in Downstate Waterloo after Joe Linnertz's death in 2006 showed radon levels four times higher than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standard. "I wanted to tear the house down," Gloria Linnertz said. "I thought, 'The house is what caused this.' " Radon -- an odorless, colorless radioactive gas that seeps into homes from soil -- is the second-leading cause of lung cancer, after smoking. And 46 percent of Illinois homes have radon levels higher than the EPA standard, according to the Illinois Emergency Management Agency. "The only way to know you have a problem is to test," said the state agency's Pat Daniels. Yet, many homeowners and home buyers don't follow that advice, according to Chicago-area real estate agents and state data."Very rarely do I have anybody in my area calling for a radon test," said Patrick Zomparelli, an Orland Park real estate agent for more than 20 years.

February 3, 2010 - Japan Times - The world's radioactive rubbish is piling up - The Pacific Sandpiper, a specially built cargo ship with safety features far in excess of those found on conventional vessels, left Britain's Barrow port bound for Japan the other day. The security surrounding its departure on Jan. 21 indicates that something out of the ordinary is aboard. The Pacific Sandpiper and several sister ships make no port calls on their voyages between Europe and Japan because they carry potentially lethal nuclear material. In the Pacific Sandpiper's hold on this journey to Japan via the Panama Canal is only one item of cargo — a giant cylinder weighing more than 100 tons. Inside are 28 containers, each made of stainless steel nearly one-third of a meter thick. They are packed with 14 tons of highly radioactive waste that has been turned into solid glass form to make it safer and easier to handle.

February 3, 2010 - POGO - POGO is Shocked by Wasteful Spending in DOE Budget - In the midst of initiating a federal spending freeze, it is shocking that President Obama’s FY 2011 Budget Request released this week pours billions of dollars into two unnecessary nuclear weapons construction projects. There is no demonstrated requirement for either the Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) at the Y-12 National Security Complex nor the Chemical and Metallurgical Research Replacement Nuclear Facility (CMRR-NF) at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). “Contrary to the spin, neither of these facilities are needed to ensure the safety, security and effectiveness of our weapons,” says Peter Stockton, POGO Senior Investigator. In addition, DOE does not even have an estimated cost for completing the projects, as the budget describes their total costs as “TBD.” “To Be a Disaster,” is what POGO fears that term means, based on DOE’s atrocious record of soaring construction costs and overruns. For example, the cost of the Highly Enriched Uranium Manufacturing Facility (HEUMF) at Y-12 ballooned from $97 million to $549 million. The National Ignition Facility (NIF) project also experienced dramatically increased costs and delayed completion dates. The Department of Energy sold the NIF to Congress in the early 1990s with a reported cost estimate of $700 million and an original completion date of 2002, yet its most recent cost estimate is $5-6 billion with a completion date of 2010 — more than 600 percent over budget and at least 8 years behind schedule. Despite the 10 percent spending increase on the nation's nuclear weapons budget, one of the only areas to see reduced growth is the budget for weapons dismantlement, which was sliced almost in half. “When it comes to nuclear weapons, Obama talks one way, but walks another,” says Peter Stockton, POGO Senior Investigator. “How will we move towards a world free of nuclear weapons, when the budget for dismantling our excess warheads is decreased?

February 3, 2010 - Digital Journal - Cluster of child cancer cases appear in Florida - Abnormally high cases of cancer in children have been reported in a small town of Florida. The concerned semi-rural community of The Acreage has observed a spike of brain tumors appear in girls. Health officials in the community of The Acreage near Palm Beach are baffled by the high rates of brain cancer appearing in children. 13 families have reported brain cancer or brain tumors from 1993 to 2008. As such, this medical data from a small town, which according to census data has only 32,000- 40,0000 people, is enough to classify the reported cancer cases a "cluster". Random tests of 50 homes in the area confirmed elevated levels of radium, a carcinogen, were present in some homes. However, the same study also the elevated levels were from natural causes and concluded that water quality was "generally good". Further environmental tests are imminent and interviews with the affected families have been conducted by health officials to identify commonalities.

February 3, 2010 - Voltairenet.org - Iraq to sue US, Britain over depleted uranium bombs - Iraq’s Ministry for Human Rights will file a lawsuit against Britain and the US over their use of depleted uranium bombs in Iraq, based on reports from the Iraqi ministries of science and the environment. According to the reports, during the first year of the US and British invasion of Iraq, both countries had repeatedly used bombs containing depleted uranium. According to Iraqi military experts, the US and Britain bombed the country with nearly 2,000 tons of depleted uranium bombs during the early years of the Iraq war. Atomic radiation has increased the number of babies born with defects in the southern provinces of Iraq. In addition, Iraqi doctors have been struggling to cope with the dramatic rise in the number of cancer cases —especially in cities subjected to heavy U-S and British bombardment. The high rate of birth defects and cancer cases will move in the coming years to the central and northern provinces of Iraq since the radiation may penetrate the soil and water by air. The ministry will seek compensation for the victims of these bombs.

February 3, 2010 - The Hindu - Nod for GAIC to set up irradiation facility in Gujarat  - The State-run Gujarat Agro Industries Corporation (GAIC) has got the approval of AERB for setting up an irradiation facility for food and agro products at Bavla near here, a move that would place Gujarat amongst the prominent mango exporting destinations in India. “Atomic Energy Regulatory Board has given it’s approval for setting up an irradiation facility at Bavla, a process that disinfects mango fruit through radiation process, and is a pre—requisite as per USDA norms for exporting the product to US and Europe,” Managing Director GAIC) D. Thara said. The electromagnetic waves emanating from the hi-tech machinery installed at this plant shall disinfect the mango and make it chemical free without touch of hand, Ms. Thara said. “The project is being executed in co—ordination with AERB and is expected to be commissioned within next one and a half year. It shall give a major filip to mango exports from the state to countries like US and Europe,” she said.

February 3, 2010 - Down To Earth - 60 people battle giants; Rooftop radiation binds the Mobile Tower Grievance Forum - Banker, housewife, engineer, pujari. They came from all walks of life, from across Maharashtra, and met up for the first time in a public meeting at Mumbai's Shivaji Park. They exchanged notes, bonded, and vowed to work together. Each of the 60 people gathered under the Mobile Tower Grievance Forum had their own story to tell. They told stories of their battle against illegal installation of mobile towers, of money power, and of cancer, brain tumour, skin rashes and insomnia caused by the towers erected atop apartment buildings. The narrations cemented the group and the meeting culminated in an action plan that included selecting a 10-doctor team to document the impact of radiation from towers on people’s health. When the meeting started at 10.30 am on December 13 last year, the dilemma was palpable. Stray comments could be heard saying towers are needed to transmit the signals from cell phones. But as the discussion progressed, the ambiguities evaporated because many speakers said the law was clear: before installing mobile towers near residential areas, companies have to get a no-objection certificate from the residents’ cooperative society and permission from the municipal corporation and the pollution control board. There should be a gap of 36 metres from human habitation, the law stipulated.

February 3, 2010 - The Times Herald - Plant mulls waste options - Exelon Corp. has applied for government permission to begin shipping some of the low-level radioactive waste generated at the Limerick Nuclear Generating Station to its Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station in York County. The request to modify the license at Peach Bottom was filed with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Jan. 6. The waste in question is not the highly radioactive spent fuel rods that Limerick has been storing on-site since it first opened in 1986. The second unit opened in 1990. The waste is classified by the NRC as “low-level radioactive waste” and is generally things like shoe coverings, mops, wiping rags, filters, tools and reactor water treatment residues that have become contaminated by contact with radioactive material or become radioactive themselves through exposure to neutron radiation, said NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan. The NRC further classifies this waste as being of A, B or C grade. Grade A emits the lowest level of radiation, with the other two classes emitting higher levels. All nuclear plants have facilities to store this waste and Limerick is no different, said Joseph Szafran, a spokesman for the Limerick plant, located off Sanatoga Road.

February 3, 2010 - Las Vegas Review-Journal - Yucca's 625 workers face uncertain futures - Chains holding the white Department of Energy flag creaked against the flagpole in the gentle breeze and sent an eerie sound across the half-filled parking lot at the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project Tuesday. The asphalt lot had more empty spaces than employees' cars. It was a sign that the once-bustling, multibillion-dollar effort to study and build a repository for the nation's most deadly nuclear waste was coming to a halt. Employees with long faces and quick words of "no comment" entered the building as they returned from the noon hour not sure what their next jobs will be. For the first time in the 23-year history of the project, they had been told by DOE officials in Washington, D.C., to close down the building on Hillshire Drive and prepare for funding to terminate in September. "Everybody is really saddened and depressed," said Tracie, a contract worker for the project who would only give her first name after a security guard in uniform interrupted her conversation. "They're telling us it's done. The budget is zero. I think it's very sad. It's a shame," she said. Monday afternoon, shortly after Energy Secretary Steven Chu told reporters the effort to license the repository was suspended and the application before nuclear regulators would be withdrawn in 30 days, the 625 federal and contract workers in Las Vegas and at the Forrestal Building on Independence Avenue in the nation's capital were given the news they had dreaded.

February 3, 2010 - Free Lance Star - An atomic awakening is at hand - Over the last century, burning coal has been a sensible way to produce electrical power. Coal is cheap, plentiful, and we do not have to import it from abroad. There is still enough coal right here in the United States to make electricity for centuries to come. There is, however, a nagging problem with continued use of coal. We seem to have finally reached a point of crisis, in which the combustion of hydrocarbon fuels, such as coal and oil, may be altering the atmospheric chemistry in disadvantageous, irreversible ways. But a durable, fully developed alternative to coal already exists. Prototype plants to replace coal have already been built and have been subjected to more than 60 years of testing and refinement. The fuel for these plants is cheap and available domestically or on the highly competitive world market. France, a country that lacks our berth of economic resources, has already implemented this plan, which is nuclear power. Nuclear energy is a clean power source, producing no airborne exhaust of any kind. It works at night and on calm days, and it makes an excellent high-load power source at the base of a new system that employs a variety of pollution-free energy sources. There is enough reactor fuel available today to give us all the electricity we will need for thousands of years, and nuclear power generation has become the safest, most tightly regulated industry on the planet. So, why are we not jumping at the opportunity to improve the way power is generated? We are, but with something as big as the global power network, things move at glacial speed. We may be at the edge of a nuclear power renaissance, with old plans and intentions being dusted off and implemented after 35 years of hibernation. China, which seems to have taken the global initiative, recently announced plans to build 30 nuclear stations, and here in the U.S. several new plants are breaking ground. Over the next 100 years, the world will go 80 percent nuclear out of pure necessity.

February 3, 2010 - St. Louis Post-Dispatch - Nuke industry announces advertising blitz - The Nuclear Energy Institute on Tuesday revealed the details of a new, seven-month advertising campaign aimed at federal and state policymakers. Print advertisements will appear in publications aimed at polticos - like Congressional Quarterly as well as a web-based campaign that will take place primarily in the Washington D.C market. “As our federal and state leaders develop energy and environmental policies, it is more important than ever that they recognize the full range of benefits that nuclear energy provides to consumers,” said Scott Peterson, NEI’s vice president of communications. No doubt these advertising dollars began flowing after President Obama voiced a need for new “safe, clean” nuclear plants during his state of the union address last week. While the president seems to be on the nuclear bandwagon, his new budget zeroes out funding for the beleaguered Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada. So what do you think EcoSpeak readers? Do you think we need more nuke plants? Environmentalists have been somewhat divided over the issue. Some think nuke plants will help combat global warming. Others point to waste disposal problems that have yet to be solved.

February 3, 2010 - Prescott Daily Courier - Radiation agency offers informational lecture for 'downwinders' - When the U.S. Government began testing nuclear weapons between July 1945 and November 1962, about the only things test officials were sure of was that the bombs made big explosions and intriguing mushroom clouds. Since then, scientists and doctors have identified the deadly effects of radiation poisoning. Representatives from the Radiation Exposure Screening and Education Program (RESEP) offer an educational lecture forum at 9 a.m. Thursday at Sharlot Hall Museum Library and Archives, 115 S. McCormick St., in Prescott.

February 3, 2010 - Harry Reid Press Release - Reid Calls on GAO to Consider Alternative Uses for Yucca Mountain Project Site - Nevada Senator Harry Reid today sent a letter to Gene Dodaro, the Comptroller General of the United States, regarding potential future uses of the Yucca Mountain project site and related facilities. In the letter, Reid asks that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) consult with the state of Nevada and relevant federal agencies about how the site could be used for activities unrelated to storing nuclear waste, including: National security activities, including armed services readiness, intelligence gathering, and defense technology testing and demonstration; Renewable energy technology development, testing, and demonstration; Arms control, verification, weapons detection, and other nonproliferation-related activities; Science and/or engineering laboratory for sensitive work requiring either underground or remote experimentation, or; Facility for government continuity-of-operations activities. “Now that forward progress on making Yucca Mountain the dumpsite for the nation’s nuclear waste has ended, we now need to keep this from being a total loss to the taxpayers and find a responsible way to use the Yucca facility,” Reid said. “Given the site’s location at the Nevada Test Site and Nevada’s vast clean energy resources, I believe we should begin by looking at alternative uses focused on our national security and clean energy efforts.”

February 3, 2010 - Las Vegas Sun - Panel to seek Yucca Mountain alternative - The Obama administration has appointed former Rep. Lee Hamilton and former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft to run a commission that will recommend alternatives to Yucca Mountain for storing spent nuclear fuel and nuclear waste. Congress has designated the site as the nation's first permanent nuclear waste repository. But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and other Nevada lawmakers strongly oppose storing nuclear waste at the site, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. President Barack Obama has said he doesn't see Yucca Mountain as a workable option. Obama energy adviser Carol Browner says the White House is "done with Yucca" and wants to find alternatives. The 15-member commission will include scientists, industry representatives and former lawmakers, the Energy Department said Friday. The group will issue an interim report within 18 months and a final report within two years.

February 2, 2010 - Associated Press - Former US Sen. Hagel named member of commission - Former U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska has been named a member of the White House administration's new blue ribbon commission on managing nuclear waste. Hagel is a Republican who served 12 years in the Senate. The commission will provide recommendations for developing safe, long-term solutions to managing the nation's used nuclear fuel and nuclear waste. President Barack Obama singled out nuclear power in his State of the Union address last month, and his spending plan for the next budget year is expected to include billions more dollars in federal guarantees for new nuclear reactors. Obama has pledged to close Yucca Mountain, the planned burial ground in the Nevada desert for high-level radioactive waste.

February 2, 2010 - The Medical News - PET for children: CHOP-Penn researchers study reduction in radiation dosage - Studies have shown positron emission tomography's (PET) value as a minimally invasive, painless and safe diagnostic tool for many pediatric conditions. In a study published in the February issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine (JNM), researchers at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) gathered data that may provide clinicians with new formulas-specific to pediatrics-to calculate the amount of radiotracer that should be injected based on the patient's weight. "These findings mean that PET-a very common nuclear medicine procedure-can be used in children with methods that are even more patient-specific than those currently employed," said Roberto Accorsi, Ph.D., former research assistant professor of radiology at CHOP-Penn and lead author of the study. This study is one more contribution to the medical imaging community's overall efforts to reduce radiation dose to children. Nuclear medicine specialists are continuously refining methodologies in order to preserve image quality and minimize radiation exposure during pediatric PET exams. Since medical research published in recent years highlights the health risks of exposure to ionizing radiation, many have looked to the medical community for ways to curb exposure during medical imaging exams. Although the nuclear medicine exam's benefits to the patient far outweigh any potential risks associated with radiation, the nuclear medicine community seeks to uphold practices that are consistent and mindful of patients' concerns.

February 2, 2010 - Softpedia - NIH to Assess Radiation Risks for the General Public To determine if average exposure is a cause of cancer - For many years, a large number of experts have argued that repeated exposures to radiation may be be associated with an increased risk of developing cancer for the general public. The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) have recently decided to engage in a new study that will seek to gauge this risk, based partially on the history of radiation exposure that people get from being subjected to medical imaging techniques such as computer tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The work will be conducted by experts at the NIH Clinical Center, e! Science News reports. All reports related to the radiation-dose exposure will be included in the electronic medical record, the officials announce, which is a method of providing researchers with direct access to relevant data and possible statistical correlations between radiation exposure and cancer risks. Details of the planned investigation have been published in the February issue of the respected Journal of the American College of Radiology (JACR). Usually, the medical record is a tool that allows healthcare experts and doctors a direct access to a patient's medical history, so that the specialists can make informed decisions on, for example, courses of treatment. “One widely publicized appraisal of medical radiation exposure suggested that about 1.5 to 2 percent of all cancers in the USA might be caused by the clinical use of CT alone. Since there is no epidemiologic data directly relating CT scanning to cancer deaths, scientific assessment must instead rely on the relationship between radiation exposure and death rates from Japanese atomic bomb survivors. While the legitimacy of this approach remains debated, radiologists as well as clinicians may rightfully be confused by the ongoing controversy. Patients seeking medical help may legitimately question the rationale of, and any risks from, diagnostic radiology tests,” the Director of the NIH Clinical Center Radiology and Imaging Sciences, David A. Bluemke, MD, explains. The expert is also the lead author of the new paper. He adds that the NIH has developed a radiation-reporting policy that it plans to implement with all major equipment vendors dealing in radiology and nuclear medicine. “All vendors who sell imaging equipment to Radiology and Imaging Sciences at the NIH Clinical Center will be required to provide a routine means for radiation dose exposure to be recorded in the electronic medical record. This requirement will allow cataloging of radiation exposures from these medical tests,” Bluemke adds.

February 2, 2010 - Merinews - Important breakthrough in nuclear fusion technology - The quest for developing a nuclear fusion reactor has received a boost. In a crucial breakthrough, scientists in a joint project of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Columbia University in the United States successfully tested a novel way of confining plasma at high temperature using a levitating high power magnet. Today, all our nuclear energy comes from the process of nuclear fission, wherein a radioactive atom is split into two giving off a high amount of energy. Higher amounts of energy can be generated from another process called nuclear fusion, wherein two lighter atoms of Hydrogen are combined together. The technology to control nuclear fission has been successfully mastered. However, sustaining a nuclear fusion reaction, to provide steady energy, throws up serious theoretical and practical difficulties, as nuclear fusion occurs only in conditions of high temperature, in the order of millions of degrees Celsius, and high pressure. At high temperatures, Hydrogen exists in the form of plasma, considered as a fourth state of matter on account of its peculiar properties. Confining plasma at high temperature and pressure is a steep theoretical and technological challenge.

February 2, 2010 - Palm Beach Post - New data confirms Acreage cancer cluster; health officials puzzled on cause of children's ailments - The Acreage has a cluster of childhood cancer cases, the head of Palm Beach County's Health Department said Monday, confirming some of the worst fears of parents who called for a state investigation last year. Eight months of uncertainty ended Monday when state health officials confirmed that rates of brain tumors and brain cancer among children in the semirural community are higher than normal, especially among girls. But based on early results of interviews with the families, it's unlikely that health officials will be able to pinpoint what has caused the spike, said Dr. Alina Alonso, director of the county's Health Department, a division of the state health department. "We really don't have one thing," Alonso said during a monthly conference call updating legislators on the investigation, which started in June. "From what we're seeing now, there is nothing that is going to say, 'Aha this is the cause of the cancer.'" Health officials recently completed interviews with 12 of 13 families with children who have been diagnosed with either brain tumors or brain cancer from 1993 through 2008, in search of commonalities. One of the 13 families couldn't be located because they moved. Until the department finishes analyzing those interviews in the next two months, the state wouldn't conduct any environmental tests, if at all, to look for a potential cause, said county health department spokesman Tim O'Connor. Even so, O’Connor added, Alonso has said that the data available so far are enough to label the cancer cases a cluster.

February 2, 2010 - Medical News Today - How To Prevent Radiation Mistakes In Cancer Patients - Recent media stories have reported isolated cases of cancer patients who were injured by incorrect doses from intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT). Despite such reports, IMRT remains one the most powerful cancer treatments, and extensive safety measures can ensure patients receive the proper doses, said radiation oncologist Dr. Kevin Albuquerque of Loyola University Health System. IMRT uses computer-controlled linear accelerators to deliver precise radiation doses to a tumor or areas within a tumor. It focuses high doses within the tumor while minimizing the dose to surrounding normal tissue.

February 2, 2010 - Chicago Sun-Times - Nuke waste here still safe 'for decades' without Nev. site - About 1,000 tons of nuclear waste could continue to be safely stored "for decades" in a decommissioned nuclear plant just 100 yards from Lake Michigan in north suburban Zion, power company Exelon says. But President Obama's announcement on Monday that the U.S. will stop funding the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada leaves unanswered where Illinois' nuclear waste finally will go. Critics say that leaves the Zion plant vulnerable to a terror attack that could contaminate the water supply for four states.

February 2, 2010 - 7th Space - Ramipril mitigates radiation-induced impairment of neurogenesis in the rat dentate gyrus - Sublethal doses of whole brain irradiation (WBI) are commonly administered therapeutically and frequently result in late delayed radiation injuries, manifesting as severe and irreversible cognitive impairment. Neural progenitors within the subgranular zone (SGZ) of the dentate gyrus are among the most radiosensitive cell types in the adult brain and are known to participate in hippocampal plasticity and normal cognitive function. These progenitors and the specialized SZG microenvironment required for neuronal differentiation are the source of neurogenic potential in the adult dentate gyrus, and provide a continuous supply of immature neurons which may then migrate into the adjacent granule cell layer to become mature granule cell neurons. The extreme radiosensitivity of these progenitors and the SGZ microenvironment suggests the hippocampus as a prime target for radiation-induced cognitive impairment. The brain renin-angiotensin system (RAS) has previously been implicated as a potentmodulator of neurogenesis within the SGZ and selective RAS inhibitors have been implicated as mitigators of radiation brain injury. Here we investigate the angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor, ramipril, as a mitigator of radiation injury in this context.

February 2, 2010 - Las Vegas Review-Journal - WHITE HOUSE BUDGET: Sky may be falling over Yucca - After two decades of strife between Nevada and the federal government, the end may be in sight for Yucca Mountain following a series of critical moves Monday by the Obama administration. The Department of Energy filed paperwork seeking to suspend licensing for the site. It also served notice that, within 30 days, it will withdraw its bid to build a nuclear waste repository in Nevada. That action, coupled with the announcement of a new White House budget that essentially zeroes out federal support for Yucca Mountain, suggested to some people that a controversial chapter in Nevada history is about to close. "I don't want to be premature in doing a eulogy, but if this were to be true, this has been going on now for over 20 years, and it has been a titanic battle," said retired state archivist Guy Rocha. The White House budget plan still needs to get through Congress, and judges at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would need to sign off on the Energy Department's bid to pull the license application. Nevada officials who have managed political fights and legal campaigns against Yucca Mountain since the 1980s said they were keeping the corks in the bubbly for now. "We have been waiting for the day that the Yucca Mountain Project is called unsuitable to go forward," said Irene Navis, Clark County nuclear waste division planning manager. "We have our fingers crossed." Absent any surprises, "I think it's over," said former Democratic U.S. Sen. Richard Bryan.

February 2, 2010 - DAWN.com - Getting real about nuclear terrorism - In May 1998, surprise nuclear tests by India and Pakistan transformed regional strategic calculations and added a dangerous new dimension to tensions between the two long-time rivals. According to Taylor Branch, writing in The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President, Indian officials who spoke with then US President Bill Clinton were fully aware of the potential devastation a clash between the two nations could lead to, calculating that a doomsday nuclear volley would kill 300 to 500 million Indians while annihilating all 120 million Pakistanis (although the Pakistani side insisted its rugged mountain terrain would shield more survivors than the exposed plains of India). Regardless of the accuracy of these numbers, and although the two countries’ military strategies differ (India’s is based on conventional superiority, while Pakistan tends to emphasise nuclear deterrence to cancel out this advantage) one thing is clear: the threat of nuclear terrorism looms large over both. In December 1998, Osama Bin Laden told Time magazine that acquiring weapons for the defence of Muslims is a religious duty. “If I have indeed acquired these weapons, then I thank God for enabling me to do so. And if I seek to acquire these weapons, I am carrying out a duty,” he is reported to have said. Even if the statement was mere rhetoric, it demonstrates intent. However, a number of reports suggest that Bin Laden’s statement was more than trash talk.

February 2, 2010 - Associated Press - Is radiation from CT scans harmful to kids? - Q. My 9-year old daughter has chronic abdominal pain. A specialist is recommending a CT scan of her abdomen. I agreed to the test initially, but am now concerned because of the risk of radiation exposure. What should we do? A CT scan (also called CAT scan) is a special type of X-ray that provides detailed images of the inside of the body. In the United States, 7 million CT scans are performed on children per year. Over the past several years, there's been concern whether radiation exposure from a single CT scan could increase the risk of developing cancer later in life. For this reason, health care providers must weigh the risks of radiation exposure against the benefits of obtaining the CT scan. Along with this, they must consider alternative methods of imaging, such as MRI and ultrasound. In certain instances, CT scans are the best imaging option. For example, young children typically need sedation for an MRI, whereas CT scans are much quicker and may eliminate this need. Also, CT scans provide certain details that an ultrasound may not. As a parent, you should voice your concerns to your child's specialist. You can also visit for more information.

February 2, 2010 - Facing South - Obama's nuclear generation gap? - During the energy portion of his first State of the Union address last week, President Obama called for "building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country." That raises a question: Exactly what generation of nuclear power is Obama talking about -- and what makes it an improvement over the generation we now have, with its high cost and threats to public health and the environment? The commercial nuclear power plants operating in the United States today are what are known as Generation II reactors. Built through the 1990s, they include the design types known as Pressurized Water Reactors, which comprise the majority of all U.S. nuclear plants, as well as Boiling Water Reactors, the other type used by the U.S. power industry. Both of them are what are known as "Light Water Reactors," which means they use ordinary water to cool the reactor. Before the reactors of today came those of Generation I, the first commercial nuclear power plants in the U.S. Among them are Shippingport near Pittsburgh, which operated from 1957 to 1982; Fermi on the shore of Lake Erie about 30 miles from Detroit, which began operating in 1957 and closed in 1972, six years after experiencing a partial fuel meltdown; and Dresden Unit 1 at Exelon's existing nuclear plant near Morris, Ill., which went active in 1960 and retired in 1978.

February 2, 2010 - Roanoke Times - Environmental group: Uranium mines a threat - A proposal to mine uranium could contaminate drinking water from the Roanoke River, an environmental group warned Monday as it placed the river basin on a top 10 list of endangered areas in the South. The Southern Environmental Law Center is concerned about a push to mine uranium in Pittsylvania County, and the possibility of similar projects in the Piedmont region of Virginia. Although uranium mining is currently banned in Virginia because of environmental concerns, the General Assembly has asked for a study of the topic by the National Academy of Sciences. The study -- which is not expected to be completed until at least next year -- comes as Virginia Uranium Inc. is expressing interest in mining a vast uranium deposit in Pittsylvania County that is believed to be the country's largest. "The [uranium] mining that has taken place in the United States, largely in the arid Southwest, has some pretty big horror stories associated with it," said Jeff Gleason, the law center's deputy director.

February 2, 2010 - Tri-City Herald - 2011 Hanford budget bump proposal includes increase for vit plant - The fiscal 2011 budget for the Hanford nuclear reservation would increase at least $22 million from the current year's budget to about $2.1 billion under the Obama administration's proposal released Monday. That money would be in addition to $1.96 billion in federal economic stimulus money being spent on Hanford cleanup from spring 2009 through fiscal 2011. In early budget talks, the administration had considered cutting the budget for environmental cleanup of nuclear weapons sites such as Hanford by 20 percent, or about $1 billion, nationwide. But the Washington congressional delegation stepped up to get funding restored in the proposed budget, with Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., personally visiting the White House to discuss her concerns, said Gary Petersen, vice president of Hanford programs at the Tri-City Development Council. "In a very difficult budget year, this Hanford budget keeps cleanup on track and workers on the job," Murray said in a statement. "It is a recognition by the Obama administration that Hanford cleanup is vital not only to environmental cleanup but also to economic recovery."

February 2, 2010 - The News Journal - Salem application unaffected by radioactive leaks in Vermont - Owners of the Salem/Hope Creek complex along the Delaware River say public concern about newly discovered radioactive water leaks at a Vermont nuclear plant hasn't affected their application for a license renewal. Local environmental group leaders are taking a closer look at lingering problems at Salem as Entergy Corp. and government regulators investigate leaks of radioactive tritium from underground pipes at the Vermont Yankee plant. Tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen, was found at levels 100 times the federal drinking-water limit in a pipe conduit under the plant, and about 5 percent higher in nearby groundwater. Leaks of the same material caused an uproar last year at the Oyster Creek nuclear plant in New Jersey -- the nation's oldest operating commercial reactor -- and in 2003 at Salem, on the river southeast of Augustine Beach. "It's an example of ongoing maintenance problems in the industry," said Jane Nogaki, a New Jersey Environmental Federation member. "These are issues that haven't been addressed and could be indicative of other, more serious problems that have yet to unfold."

February 2, 2010 - Las Vegas Sun - Yucca Mountain’s death just a few steps away - The long and tortured effort to build a national burial ground at Yucca Mountain for highly radioactive waste will be halted once and for all, the Obama administration promised Monday, saying it would withdraw the application to build the project and starve it of funds. And the coup de grace, maybe many years from now: plugging the tunnel into the mountain and sealing inside, forever, not nuclear waste but a giant boring machine that became an icon for the vexed project. The government has poured $38 billion into the effort, claiming it had found the perfect place to house the Earth’s most dangerous garbage but failing in its effort to prove its case. Now that search will be renewed. “The administration has determined that Yucca Mountain, Nevada, is not a workable option for a nuclear waste repository and will discontinue its program to construct a repository at the mountain in 2010,” White House in budget documents said. Marty Malsch, an attorney who has fought the project for years on behalf of Nevada, said if the application withdrawal is approved, “It would mean, effectively, that’s the end of it.” “Yucca, as Yucca, is dead.”

February 2, 2010 - Bellona - Environmentalists urge Russian parliament to revise controversial bill on radioactive waste management - Much to environmentalists’ dismay, the lower house of the Russian parliament voted in the last week of January to pass in the first hearing a controversial new bill on radioactive waste management — a document that ecologists fear will give the nuclear industry an unchecked licence to carry on with its dangerous waste disposal practices. On January 26th, Russian public organisations made an open statement urging representatives of the lower house of the Russian parliament, the State Duma, and senators from the upper house, the Federation Council, to reconsider passing the law “On Management of Radioactive Waste” with the language that had been proposed by the government and adopted in the Duma’s first hearing. While they acknowledge the very attempt to better regulate the issues of radiation safety in Russia — the country still has no law governing the management of radioactive waste and this bill will only be Russia’s third to deal with the operation of nuclear industry sites to begin with – ecologists argue that passing the law in its current draft is as big a risk to Russia’s environmental health as was the Russian law on protection of the environment — a 2001 document that de facto sanctioned imports of foreign-generated nuclear waste for reprocessing in Russia.

February 2, 2010 - Burlington Free Press - Shutting down Vermont Yankee is the right thing to do - So let's suppose we luck out with Vermont Yankee. Entergy works out a power deal that we cannot refuse. We run the plant at 120 percent for the next 20 years. No grave accidents, despite shady management. Only occasional leaks despite piling up high level waste from 60 years of operation. We get to keep the jobs at the plant. The community benefits from 20 more years of Enexus' support of various causes in the community to continue its role as good community citizen. We are spared for 20 years of any serious attempt to build alternatives to the base load the plant provides. We anti-nukers moan and protest for 20 more years, but it amounts to nothing new. Enexus tries, in 2032, to extend the plant's license for a further 20 years because we have little choice (we will have spent so little on alternatives), but finally we say we have had enough, and the plant is finally turned off. But that's only the next 20 years. We still will have to luck out for thousands and thousands of more years. Even if we begin to reprocess the fuel, which reduces the quantity somewhat, the intensely poisonous waste will still be there in huge quantities. It will need to be contained and guarded for 250,000 more years. That means this waste will last through several new civilizations we cannot even predict, innumerable new languages (what civilization, language, let alone nation, lasts more than a thousand years?). And who can predict the geological changes that will occur along the banks of our river for that long?

February 1, 2010 - Las Vegas Review-Journal - Proposal would eliminate funding for Yucca Mountain - President Barack Obama will propose eliminating funding for the Yucca Mountain Project in a new budget he will submit to Congress today, said Nevada lawmakers who were notified over the weekend. Also, White House officials said they will take steps "in the near future" to withdraw a pending license application to build the long-planned nuclear waste repository, which could be a decisive move in ending the government's 23-year focus on developing the Nevada site for radioactive waste storage and disposal. With the formation Friday of a commission to study nuclear waste management, officials said the budget will underscore Obama's "commitment to pursuing a responsible, long-term strategy" for handling waste generated by nuclear utilities and government defense agencies. The plan would fulfill an Obama campaign promise to end the Yucca Mountain program, which has been unpopular with many Nevadans and the state's top leaders. "This is great news," said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who has consulted Obama on an exit strategy for Yucca Mountain.

February 1, 2010 - Huntington News - Workers at Former Huntington Plants Exposed to Plutonium, Neptunium; Buried Slurry in Piketon Leaking - HNN has confirmed through publicly available, unclassified documents that the workers at the formerly ‘secret’ Huntington Pilot Plant/Reduction Pilot Plant (HPP/RPP) on the INCO campus were exposed to [at least] “trace quantities” of Neptunium and Plutonium. The Huntington facility received nickel from reactors at Hansford and Savannah River, as well as the Paducah and Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plants. The Portsmouth, Ohio, plant is located in Piketon, Ohio. Vina Colley, a compensated Portsmouth (Piketon) Diffusion Plant former atomic worker and activist for compensation of workers, believes that plutonium and other residue on materials sent to Huntington for recycling and decontamination eventually made the Huntington plant contaminated beyond clean up. The material that the Huntington plant received had been used at these various atomic energy plants as part of the chemical flow. Huntington’s job was to reduce/remove the radioactivity and separate the compounds. For instance, once process separated nickel carbonyl and enriched uranium. In the early periods of attempting to attain an economic and safe recycling, HNN has seen documents that show still partially radioactive materials went to a second Huntington manufacturer for reuse. The workers at that plant have not yet been deemed eligible for atomic worker benefits, but they have petitioned for that status, HNN has learned.

February 1, 2010 - Pottstown Mercury - Limerick may send waste elsewhere - Exelon Corp. has applied for government permission to begin shipping some of the low-level radioactive waste generated at the Limerick Nuclear Generating Station to its Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station in York County. The request to modify the license at Peach Bottom was filed with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Jan. 6. The waste in question is not the highly radioactive spent fuel rods which Limerick has been storing on-site since it first opened in 1986. The second unit opened in 1990. The waste is classified by the NRC as "Low-Level Radioactive Waste" and is generally things like shoe coverings, mops, wiping rags, filters, tools and reactor water treatment residues that have become contaminated by contact with radioactive material or become radioactive themselves through exposure to neutron radiation, said NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan. The NRC further classifies this waste as being of A, B or C grade. Grade A emits the lowest level of radiation, with the other two classes emitting higher levels. All nuclear plants have facilities to store this waste and Limerick is no different, said Joseph Szafran, a spokesman for the Limerick plant, located off Sanatoga Road.

February 1, 2010 - ScienceCentric - NIH takes step to assess any possible risk associated with low-dose radiation exposure - Researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Centre are incorporating radiation dose exposure reports into the electronic medical record, an effort that they hope will lead to an accurate assessment of whether any cancer risk is associated with low-dose radiation exposure from medical imaging tests, according to an article in the February issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology (JACR). The electronic medical record allows for the storage, retrieval, and manipulation of one's medical records. There is much controversy surrounding diagnostic medical radiation exposure. 'One widely publicised appraisal of medical radiation exposure suggested that about 1.5 to 2 percent of all cancers in the USA might be caused by the clinical use of CT alone,' said David A. Bluemke, MD, lead author of the article and director of Radiology and Imaging Sciences at the NIH Clinical Centre. 'Since there is no epidemiologic data directly relating CT scanning to cancer deaths, scientific assessment must instead rely on the relationship between radiation exposure and death rates from Japanese atomic bomb survivors. While the legitimacy of this approach remains debated, radiologists as well as clinicians may rightfully be confused by the ongoing controversy. Patients seeking medical help may legitimately question the rationale of, and any risks from, diagnostic radiology tests,' said Bluemke.

February 1, 2010 - The Register - Obama to boost US nuclear power industry - President Obama has moved to boost the US nuclear power industry, proposing massive government loan guarantees for construction of new stations and setting up a panel to sort out nuclear waste policy. The New York Times reports that the White House will include $54bn of loan guarantees in the 2011 budget request to Congress, up from $18.5bn. The idea is to provide investors with enough certainty to move ahead and build new power stations. At the same time, Obama's energy secretary Steven Chu announced the appointment of a new commission on nuclear waste, hinting that at least some waste might be re-used as fuel in the future rather than being put into long-term storage. In the early days of nuclear power it was assumed that spent fuel would be reprocessed and reused, because it was thought that uranium was so rare that no other plan could make sense. In the event, however, uranium turned out to be more common than expected. Some nations undertook reprocessing activities anyway, but new fuel has so far remained cheap enough that generally these have been commercially marginal - though perhaps worthwhile from the viewpoint of national weapons programmes.

February 1, 2010 - RFGlobalnet - VLA Observes Supernova Explosion Through Radio Emissions, Not Gamma Rays - For the first time, astronomers have found a supernova explosion with properties similiar to a gamma-ray burst, but without seeing any gamma rays from it. The discovery, using the National Science Foundation's Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope, promises, the scientists say, to point the way toward locating many more examples of these mysterious explosions. "We think that radio observations will soon be a more powerful tool for finding this kind of supernova in the nearby Universe than gamma-ray satellites," said Alicia Soderberg, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. The telltale clue came when the radio observations showed material expelled from the supernova explosion, dubbed SN2009bb, at speeds approaching that of light. This characterized the supernova, first seen last March, as the type thought to produce one kind of gamma-ray burst. "It is remarkable that very low-energy radiation, radio waves, can signal a very high-energy event," said Roger Chevalier of the University of Virginia.

February 1, 2010 - Softpedia - New ASUS Motherboards Boast Reduced Radiation; Models employ the Protect 3.0 Design with intelligent anti-radiation shielding - On average, users are, on a daily basis, exposed to about eight hours of electromagnetic radiation from computer usage. In order to cater to the needs of the industry for safer technology, both in relation to end-users and the environment, ASUS has introduced a new line of motherboards. These products claim to effectively cut the electromagnetic emissions in half, through their use of the ASUS Protect 3.0 Design. Thanks to these reduced radiations, not only does the user have the benefit of a safer and healthier environment, but the system itself gains an increased longevity. The ASUS Protect 3.0 Design is based on the Xtreme Design and features intelligent radiation shielding and low-radiation components. As such, the adverse health impact upon users is reduced and even system operations are more stable. Protect 3.0 uses the ASUS EPU (Energy Processing Unit) chip, which can reduce the system-wide power consumption by up to 80.23%, as well as a Low Radiation Design, a Radiation Moat Design and an Anti-Surge Design.

February 1, 2010 - ANI - World's most powerful laser could trigger fusion power in October - If reports are to be believed, then the world's most powerful laser could trigger fusion reaction in October this year, which will be a pivotal step in the march towards fusion power, the "holy grail" of sustainable clean energy. Scientists in the US are preparing for the dramatic moment when the world's most powerful laser unleashes the nuclear force that lights up the sun and achieves "ignition". At that moment, 192 laser beams housed in a building the size of three football pitches will focus on a target the size of a peppercorn to trigger a self-sustaining fusion reaction. According to a report in the Telegraph, if all goes according to plan, this could be achieved in October. Although no more than a test of the technology, it could mark the start of a revolution that will change the science and politics of energy forever. Scientists have spent decades chasing the dream of fusion power, which holds out the promise of producing unlimited amounts of clean energy from hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe. Nuclear fusion happens when the nuclei of atoms are driven together so hard that they fuse to form a heavier particle.

February 1, 2010 - The Hill - Nuclear energy firms seek more than loan guarantees for revival - Raising the amount of federal loan guarantees available for new nuclear plants is just part of what the industry wants Congress to do to spur its revival. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu told reporters on Friday that the DoE budget, which will be released on Monday, would call for a $54 billion loan guarantee program, tripling the current amount. The move was praised by industry lobbyists but criticized by some environmental and fiscal watchdog groups for putting too much taxpayer money at risk. Congress has already approved an $18.5 billion loan guarantee program in hopes of reassuring Wall Street investors about an industry with a history of cost overruns. But the industry said additional financial support was needed. The loan guarantee program prompted 17 applications for projects that were estimated to cost $122 billion to build. The announcement of the additional loan guarantees “is a very important signal of the seriousness about getting a clean energy industry back up and running,” said Jim Connaughton, a former director of the White House Council on Environmental Quality in the Bush administration.

February 1, 2010 - Grand Junction Free Press - Old radioactive mill tailings unearth old issue - The city of Grand Junction and private property owners are not held to the same regulations regarding the removal of uranium mill tailings uncovered during construction projects. FCI Constructors Inc. is dealing with radioactive waste as they dig up Main Street for the Downtown Uplift restoration project. The sand-like mill tailings were widely used in the Grand Valley during the 1950s and 1960s as fill dirt until federal officials halted the practice, citing health risks from exposure to gamma radiation and radon gas. FCI employees have hauled nearly 500 cubic yards of tailings to the temporary storage facility at the city yard along West Avenue, where the material awaits permanent disposal at the Cheney disposal cell, south of Grand Junction. “There are other tailings that are just as high or higher (in gamma radiation readings),” that are being left in place, said Mike Cosby, Uranium Mill Tailings Remediation Manager for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

February 1, 2010 - Boston Globe - Vt. Yankee radiation level requires federal notice - A spokesman for Vermont's only nuclear plant says the level of radiation found in a monitoring well is enough to require notifying federal regulators, though it does not pose a public health risk. Rob Williams of Vermont Yankee says levels of a radioactive isotope called tritium reached 32,000 picocuries per liter in test results that engineers received Sunday. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission requires written notice within 30 days when the level reaches 30,000 picocuries per liter. Williams says a second test shows the level has fallen below that threshold. He says no elevated levels of tritium have been found in samples from drinking water wells or Connecticut River water. The plant is located along the west bank of the river in Vernon. Vermont Yankee faces scrutiny as the Legislature decides whether to extend its license, set to expire in 2012.

February 1, 2010 - Spectroscopy Now - A metal sponge for cleaning up nuclear waste - An inorganic material with an open framework can selectively trap caesium ions, including its 137 isotope, one of the most significant radioactive isotopes left behind after the Chernobyl nuclear reactor fire. Caesium-137 is one of the main residual sources of lethal radiation in the nuclear industry. Caesium-137 can be produced by nuclear fission. It is water-soluble and highly toxic, and so poses a high risk to life if released into the environment, where it can persist for many years. Finding a way to swap these toxic ions for benign ions is a keen focus of the nuclear industry. One area of chemistry that could prove useful is the development of open inorganic frameworks based on clusters of the chalcogenides, including sulphur and selenium. Various materials have been developed that have intriguing structures, and can undergo ion-exchange. One aspect of these materials that is yet to be explored in depth is the flexibility of their frameworks and how this might be exploited in controlling their behaviour, their selectivity for particular ions and their ability to bind to them, for instance. Mercouri Kanatzidis of Northwestern University, in Evanston, and Argonne National Laboratory, Chicago, Illinois and Northwestern's Nan Ding explain that framework flexibility could be important in facilitating the passage of molecules and ions through a confining framework material. They point out that there are two notable examples of framework flexibility that affects macroscopic behaviour. The first is the "breathing" action observed in cubic mesostructured c-PyPtSnSe. This material undergoes a very large volume change between its contracted and fully expand state of as much as 70%. The second is K6Sn[Zn4Sn4S17] through which caesium ions can diffuse despite the narrow windows through which it must pass being smaller than the ionic diameter.

February 1, 2010 - Medical News Today - Nuclear Waste Threat Could Be Curbed By Hospital Scanner - Medical equipment used for diagnosis of patients with heart disease and cancer could be a key weapon in stopping nuclear waste seeping into the environment, according to new research. A team of scientists from the Universities of Manchester and Leeds have joined forces with experts in nuclear medicine at Manchester Royal Infirmary, using medical gamma-ray cameras to track radioactive isotopes in soil samples from a US civil nuclear site. This is the first time the technique, which is used in hospitals for heart, bone and kidney scanning, has been used to study the environmental behaviour of nuclear waste - and its success could help scientists find new ways of using bacteria to control the spread of radioactivity. Radioactive isotopes of the element technetium (Tc) are produced in bulk by nuclear facilities, while a specific isotope of Tc with a very short life is routinely used as a medical tracer in human bodies. Nuclear fission of Uranium has released tonnes of Tc from nuclear facilities over the past decades, with the element remaining radioactive for thousands of years. But although the short lived medical isotope is chemically indistinguishable from that in long lived waste, it can be used safely in tests.

January 30-31, 2010 - Webmuenster took the weekend off.

January 29, 2010 - American Cancer Society Press Release - Prominent US Radiology Association Says Airport Body Scanners Safe - If you've recently traveled internationally or flown through one of the US's busiest airports, you may have noticed there's something new at airport security lines in addition to the usual bag scanners and wands. The whole body scanner, which scans your body head to toe to detect objects hidden by clothing, is common abroad and is becoming increasingly common at airports in the US, as the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) ramps up efforts to keep travelers safe. But not everyone is a fan of the scanners. Some argue they pose a privacy risk, and still others are worried about the biological effects of whole body radiation. But do the whole body scanners actually pose a health risk? The American College of Radiology (ACR) -- the leading US professional society of radiologists, radiation oncologists, medical physicists, interventional radiologists, and nuclear medicine physicians -- says no. According to a recent statement, the ACR says it is "not aware of any evidence that either of the scanning technologies that the TSA is considering would present significant biological effects for passengers screened."

January 29, 2010 - EMC News - Best Theratronics unveils new radiation technology - Kanata company Best Theratronics unveiled its advanced cancer treatment technology on Jan. 12 during a morning presentation, tour and demonstration. This technology, called 3D Conformal Radiation Therapy (3D CRT), will be used in the company's Equinox Teletherapy cancer treatment units and allows medical professionals to deliver radiation by conforming to specific tumour shapes. Best Theratronics designs products and solutions that help medical professionals treat cancer on a world-wide scale. Best Theratronics has been "manufacturing, marketing, selling and servicing cobalt-based cancer therapy systems" for more than 40 years. The company began as a division of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited and was sold to Canadian health company MDS Nordion and subsequently sold to Best Medical International in early 2008. "Best Theratronics is a worldwide leader in the global fight against cancer," said Krish Suthanthiran, president of Best Theratronics, adding that the machines produced in Kanata are "actively modernizing gamma teletherapy by adding tools that will allow clinicians to target tumours and reduce side effects."

January 29, 2010 - BSANNA News - Ukraine agrees to take EBRD money for KHOYAT-2 at Chornobyl NPP - President Viktor Yushchenko has signed the law on ratification of the Grant Agreement (Chornobyl NPP Safety Project) among the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the Cabinet of Ministers and the State Nuclear Regulatory Committee. The Ukrainian parliament (Verkhovna Rada) passed this law on January 20, 2010. The instrument provides for the extension of EUR 3.5 million for the construction of the KHOYAT-2 (Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation) that must be in line with international nuclear and radiation safety standards.

January 29, 2010 - Medical News Today - Cleveland BioLabs Granted European Patent For Radiation Protection Drug CBLB502 - Cleveland BioLabs, Inc. (NASDAQ: CBLI) announced that the European Patent Office (EPO) has granted its European Patent Application Number 04813124.7l, titled "Methods of Protecting Against Radiation Using Flagellin." Allowed claims cover the method of protecting a mammal from radiation using flagellin or its derivatives, including Protectan CBLB502. The United States, nine member countries of the Eurasian Patent Organization, and two additional countries have already granted this patent. Yakov Kogan, Ph.D., MBA, Chief Operating Officer of Cleveland BioLabs, noted, "The continued extension of our patent coverage for CBLB502 in key geographies around the world is a testament to its completely unique approach to protection of healthy tissues from the impact of radiation and other acute stresses. We are particularly excited by this decision from the EPO, as it enables us to receive patents in up to 38 of its member countries, including every major European market."

January 29, 2010 - HealthDay News - CT Scans Reduce Unneeded Appendectomies in Women - Using computed tomography (CT) scans to assess younger women with suspected acute appendicitis may help reduce unnecessary surgeries, a new study shows. "We found that rising utilization of CT over the past decade, along with advances in CT technology, coincided with a significant decrease in negative appendectomies among women 45 years and younger," Dr. Courtney A. Coursey, a radiologist at Emory University in Atlanta, said in a news release. She co-wrote the study while a radiology fellow at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C. Coursey and colleagues reviewed the medical records of 925 patients who underwent urgent appendectomy at Duke between January 1998 and September 2007. Over that time, the number of patients who had preoperative CT increased, from 18.5 percent to 93.2 percent. This increased use of preoperative CT coincided with a decrease in the rate of negative (unnecessary) appendectomies among women aged 45 or younger -- from 42.9 percent in 1998 to 7.1 percent in 2007.

January 29, 2010 - TG Daily - Senate hearing reveals dangers of cell phone use - A number of expert witnesses recently informed a US Senate committee hearing that cell phones have a detrimental effect on human health. According to Tel Aviv University researcher Dr. Siegal Sadetzki, individuals who talk on cell phones are at a higher risk of developing a parotid tumor on the side of the head where the use of such a device is most frequent. For example, the risk of developing a tumor increases by 34 percent among individuals who regularly use a cell phone for five years. The risk grows even higher (58 percent) if 5,500 calls were accepted or received over the same time period. In addition, individuals who spend 266.3 hours on cell phones were found to be at an increased risk (49 percent) for a parotid tumor. It should also be noted that prolonged exposure to cell phones and wireless radiation have been linked to infertility, DNA corruption, cognitive problems and salivary gland tumors. Ouch, no wonder my head hurts. Is that my DNA aching?

January 29, 2010 - Russia InfoCenter - First Experiments with Resonance Neutrons Performed - IREN facilityIREN (source of resonance neutron) facility was launched in December 2008, and now first results have been obtained. The facility is located in Dubna and is aimed at finding solutions for a variety of problems in fundamental and applied nuclear physics. Experiments, which took place at IREN, included studying radiation stability of semiconducting materials and devices, based on said materials, as well as elemental analysis by means of resonance neutrons. Analysis techniques, based upon resonance neutrons, have many advantages over other methods, for instance, they do not require sample destruction.

January 29, 2010 - Associated Press - Entergy Nuclear extends service in Nebraska - A unit of New Orleans-based power provider Entergy Corp. has agreed to extend management service to the Cooper Nuclear Station until January 2029. Financial terms of the deal between Entergy Nuclear and the Nebraska Public Power District were not revealed Thursday. Cooper is an 810-megawatt boiling water reactor near Brownville, Neb. The original service contract was signed in 2003 and was due to expire in 2014.

January 29, 2010 - Discovery News - Did a Nuclear Blast Give Birth to the Moon? - Looking at the silvery Moon hanging in the sky, it's hard to believe that quiet, comforting night light was formed in an episode of incredible violence several billion years ago. But that's exactly what scientists are proposing in a new theory about Luna's formation: they think a massive nuclear explosion occurred at the edge of Earth's core, flinging red-hot, liquid rock into space. The orbiting detritus gradually congealed into what is now our planet's lone satellite. If this holds any water, it's bound to be controversial. Most scientists believe that the Moon formed from the debris left over when a Mars-sized object hit our newly-formed planet around 4.5 billion years ago. This is based on several modeling studies that provide a pile of evidence in favor of the idea. There are some holes, though. For one, the Moon's chemistry is very similar to Earth's. That makes sense until you consider that in a titanic impact like the one proposed, a good portion of the offending object would be melted, vaporized, and incorporated into the wreckage that eventually formed the Moon. But if there was no impact, there's still the matter of the explosion -- how do you get a nuclear bomb to go off in the middle of the planet?  Well, the researchers think that as the molten Earth spun, radioactive thorium and uranium accumulated at the boundary between the core and mantle in large enough quantities to spark a runaway fission reaction. Heat and energy built up until Whamo! A nuclear jet pushed giant globs of molten rock into space. Sound like a crazy idea? It is, but the scientists think there's a way to test the idea: look for isotopic signatures on the Moon left over from when the "georeactor" exploded. If they're there, it's a good chance that Earth once went critical in a huge way, and our ghostly galleon was tossed into the heavens by the world's first nuclear detonation.

January 29, 2010 - Straits Times - Nuke funds increase sought - Vice President Joe Biden said President Barack Obama's budget proposal will include US$7 billion (S$9.83 billion) to maintain the US nuclear weapons stockpile, which would be US$600 million more than Congress approved last year. In an opinion piece on the Wall Street Journal's website on Thursday, Mr Biden also said the administration intended to boost funding in that area by more than US$5 billion over the next five years. 'Even in a time of tough budget decisions, these are investments we must make for our security. We are committed to working with Congress to ensure these budget increases are approved,' Mr Biden said. Mr Biden said the Obama administration had inherited a 'steady decline' in support for US nuclear stockpiles and infrastructure. 'For almost a decade, our laboratories and facilities have been underfunded and undervalued. The consequences of this neglect - like the growing shortage of skilled nuclear scientists and engineers and the aging of critical facilities - have largely escaped public notice,' he wrote. 'The budget we will submit to Congress on Monday both reverses this decline and enables us to implement the president's nuclear-security agenda.'

January 29, 2010 - Rutland Herald - NRC: Previous leaks hard to find - It took the owner of Vermont Yankee more than a year to find a similar radioactive leak at its Indian Point plant north of New York City. "Every situation is unique," said Neil Sheehan, a spokesman with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. "In some cases, the source of the leakage has been found within weeks. In other cases, it has taken significantly longer, on the order of many months or more." After identifying the leak and stopping it, comes remediation, which can include leaving it in the ground and monitoring it, Sheehan said, or pumping the tritium-laced water into storage tanks, where it can be measured, and left to have its radioactivity decay, he said. "Leaving it in the ground and monitoring it … would not be acceptable if there was any evidence of off-site releases of the contamination that were above allowable levels," he wrote in an e-mail. The well that contains the tritium, GZ3, is halfway down a steep bank of the Connecticut River. That well, which is about 30 feet deep, has been in place since 2007, since the NRC recommended nuclear reactors start monitoring groundwater for contamination. The Department of Health has said tritium-contaminated water is undoubtedly draining into the immediately adjacent Connecticut River, but said that because of the sheer volume of the river, no detectable levels of tritium have showed up in tests of river water. Entergy and the Vermont Department of Health released no new test results for the one groundwater well outside the Vernon reactor that is contaminated with tritium, a radioactive isotope.

January 29, 2010 - Pembroke Daily Observer - Hoopla over full body scanning just a bunch of nonsense - To some, the implementation of full body scanning at airports is evidence al-Qaida is winning, or has won, the current war on terror. This oddly generous assumption assumes al-Qaida's goal is to inconvenience us, rather than to kill us. Wrong, but an acceptable alternative if murder fails. Some feel body scanning is an unnecessary, useless and offensive invasion of privacy whose only purpose will be to titillate those who view the screens. Hysteria and hype are busily at work. CBC Radio's Cross Canada Check-up, heard various opinions on the subject, which added little to the advancement of public knowledge. There is really only one question that needs to be answered about full body scanning of airline passengers: Will it work?Will it make flying safer, or is it cosmetics (to use the word loosely) simply to make us "feel safer" while flying? A surprising number of people think the latter. But most of us don't know. We just "hope" it adds to our flying safety. As for the "privacy" factor, we are now assured the body-scanning screens will be viewed in another room, where the individual whose doing the scanning doesn't physically see the person being scanned. Supposedly, those doing the scanning, will be of the same sex as the scannee, so to speak. What a lot of nonsense. Who cares?

January 29, 2010 - vtdigger.com - Clean energy at what cost? Algonquin leader questions nuclear industry’s uranium mining practices - In an era of climate change, energy experts often talk about nuclear power as a carbon-neutral source of electricity compared with coal-generated electricity. Vermont Yankee’s Web site says the plant has “prevented more than 50 million tons of carbon and other pollutants from being released into the environment. As a result, Vermont has the second-lowest per-capita carbon footprint of any state in the U.S.” In fact, if you run a Google search for Vermont Yankee, the plant’s Web site pops up under the URL http://www.safecleanreliable.com/. Those three words — “safe,” “clean,” “reliable” — also dominate the main real estate on the front page of the Web site and serve as the company slogan. Since a leak of radioactive tritium was discovered at the plant recently, however, Vermont officials have begun to question Vermont Yankee’s motto.

January 29, 2010 - University of Manchester  Press Release - Hospital scanner could curb nuclear waste threat - Medical equipment used for diagnosis of patients with heart disease and cancer could be a key weapon in stopping nuclear waste seeping into the environment, according to new research. A team of scientists from the Universities of Manchester and Leeds have joined forces with experts in nuclear medicine at Manchester Royal Infirmary, using medical gamma-ray cameras to track radioactive isotopes in soil samples from a US civil nuclear site. This is the first time the technique, which is used in hospitals for heart, bone and kidney scanning, has been used to study the environmental behaviour of nuclear waste – and its success could help scientists find new ways of using bacteria to control the spread of radioactivity. Radioactive isotopes of the element technetium (Tc) are produced in bulk by nuclear facilities, while a specific isotope of Tc with a very short life is routinely used as a medical tracer in human bodies. Nuclear fission of Uranium has released tonnes of Tc from nuclear facilities over the past decades, with the element remaining radioactive for thousands of years. But although the short lived medical isotope is chemically indistinguishable from that in long lived waste, it can be used safely in tests.

January 29, 2010 - Northumberland Today - Survey: 78% of residents confident about LLRW clean-up - Public opinion is pretty positive, according to the latest public attitude survey conducted by the Port Hope Area Initiative (PHAI), says Bob Neufeld, manager of stakeholder relations and communications. According to the survey, a large majority of Port Hope residents are satisfied with their community and are aware of the presence of historic low-level radioactive waste, yet they hardly think about it, he says. The findings indicate that 78% of residents polled continue to express confidence that the waste can be safely managed at the proposed facility, up from 65% in 2008. The survey was conducted by telephone and polled 250 people in Ward 1 and 100 in Ward 2 to find out just how much residents knew about the effort to clean up and manage the historic low-level radioactive waste and if they think it can be done safely, he says. This was the eighth annual survey conducted for the PHAI Management Office. As in previous surveys, residents expressed a high level of satisfaction with life in Port Hope, with more than 90% saying they like living in the community, Neufeld says. At the same time, 75% of respondents say they think about low-level radioactive waste in the community not very often or never. Of those surveyed, 33% that radioactive waste was the most important issue facing the community, with unemployment and lack of economic growth at 25%, he says. Eighty-nine percent identified the cleanup of low-level radioactive waste in Port Hope as either very important of somewhat important.

January 29, 2010 - LaCrosse Tribune - Radon a quiet killer - You can't see it, you can't smell it, you can't taste it, and yet we know it kills. It is a naturally formed gas, and everyone inhales it from the atmosphere. It's when it becomes concentrated in basements and enclosed homes that it attacks sensitive lung cells, leads to lung cancer and often becomes lethal. It is of course, radon, and it exists in dangerous quantities in many of our homes. Radon gas is a radioactive material that escapes into the atmosphere naturally from rock and soil. In the relatively small quantities inhaled from the atmosphere, it is harmless. However, when the gas seeps into basements and out of the foundations into the enclosed spaces of homes, it can reach dangerous levels at which lung cancer develops. It has been established that a minimum of 20,000 deaths are caused annually by radon gas, and it is believed that many more deaths may be attributed to inhaling the gas. Fortunately, inexpensive test kits can be purchased and used to test the levels of radon gas in your home. They are simple and easy to use. Everyone should test their home for radon gas.

January 28, 2010 - HealthTech Wire - Study investigates clear dose guidelines in PET exams on children - Studies have shown positron emission tomography's (PET) value as a minimally invasive, painless and safe diagnostic tool for many pediatric conditions. In a study published in the February issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine (JNM), researchers at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) gathered data that may provide clinicians with new formulas—specific to pediatrics—to calculate the amount of radiotracer that should be injected based on the patient's weight. "These findings mean that PET—a very common nuclear medicine procedure—can be used in children with methods that are even more patient-specific than those currently employed," said Roberto Accorsi, Ph.D., former research assistant professor of radiology at CHOP-Penn and lead author of the study. This study is one more contribution to the medical imaging community's overall efforts to reduce radiation dose to children. Nuclear medicine specialists are continuously refining methodologies in order to preserve image quality and minimize radiation exposure during pediatric PET exams. Since medical research published in recent years highlights the health risks of exposure to ionizing radiation, many have looked to the medical community for ways to curb exposure during medical imaging exams. Although the nuclear medicine exam's benefits to the patient far outweigh any potential risks associated with radiation, the nuclear medicine community seeks to uphold practices that are consistent and mindful of patients' concerns.

January 28, 2010 - Las Vegas Sun - Panel explores eventual fate of Yucca Mountain records - A three-judge panel in charge of hearing disagreements associated with the U.S. Department of Energy’s proposed Yucca Mountain Waste Repository is trying to figure out how to dress a turkey before it’s dead. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Construction Authorization Board held a hearing Wednesday to explore what would happen to all the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump records should Congress yank the funding for the controversial dump. President Barack Obama has said the Yucca waste depository is “off the books” and Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid says it’s dead. But the Department of Energy continues to pursue a license to build it — although its filings in recent months have tapered off sharply, according to board chair and federal Judge Thomas Moore. But the dump plans could die if funding is eliminated from the federal budget. The president is expected to unveil his proposed budget for fiscal year 2011 on Monday, and it is expected to include drastic cuts to the Energy Department’s Yucca Mountain project. That would be a big win for Nevada, which has fought the dump, planned 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, for more than 20 years. The state has no nuclear energy plants and believes the site is unsuitable for a nuclear waste dump because of its proximity to the state’s economic hub and because the safety measures meant to protect public health are unrealistic or implausible.

January 28, 2010 - Jacksonville Journal-Courier - Ignoring risk of radon won't make it go away - In the case of ignoring the potential for radon exposure in the region, it can adversely affect the health of families for years to come. Radon is a radioactive gas created as part of the natural decay of uranium in the soil. It is odorless, tasteless and invisible. Radon exposure is the 1980’s version of global warming. Cautionary tales then about its impact were met with concern by many, but ambivalence by others. That pocket of disbelief continues still, challenging the science and statistics that have prompted Environmental Protection Agency to warn exposure to high levels of radon increases the risk of lung cancer. In the EPA’s corner are a handful of groups, including the American Medical Association and the Centers for Disease Control. Now, the science: The EPA calculates radon exposure based on picocuries per liter of air. Its guidelines say 4.0 picocuries per liter is the point at which radon becomes a problem. By comparison, most people have about 120,000 picocuries of radioactive material already inside them, mostly from food and water and predominantly in the form of Potassium-40, radioactive carbon and hydrogen. Some believe radon is an isolated problem or confined just to pockets of the state or to particular types of houses — all myths. In fact, tests have shown the widespread presence of high radon concentrations in this region.

January 27, 2010 - Las Vegas Review-Journal - Yucca project assailed; NRC board hears Nevada's challenges - Nevada's lead attorney took a stab Tuesday at killing the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project, arguing before a licensing board that the Department of Energy neglected to consider the failure or absence of a key safety feature. Also, Marty Malsch, a lawyer with a Washington, D.C.-area firm retained by the state, told nuclear regulators the repository's design should be rejected because it is only 70 percent complete. Those were two of 11 legal challenges the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Construction Authorization Board heard in the first day of oral arguments. The hearing comes two years after the DOE submitted its license application for building a repository for the nation's highly radioactive waste and used reactor fuel at a disposal site inside a volcanic-rock ridge 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The hearings continue today at the NRC's Las Vegas facility on Pepper Lane. Based on questions asked by one of the panel's three judges, Malsch's most convincing argument dealt with the failure or absence of 11,000 titanium shields that would protect waste containers from corrosive water, dust and rocks that could fall inside a maze tunnels. The "drip shields" wouldn't be installed for a century.  Malsch said the repository's design relies heavily on the drip shields, which are a part of the system of engineered barriers to prevent deadly radioactive materials from escaping into the environment. "We're talking a million years, and uncertainties are rampant," Malsch told the panel, describing how a "defense-in-depth" system must stay intact long after the initial 10,000-year requirement for containing the waste. "Defense in depth is the elephant in the room, and the message from DOE and (NRC) staff is to ignore that elephant, but you can't," Malsch said. Without the drip shields, he said, the repository fails to meet the radiation safety standard.

January 28, 2010 - Right Side News - CIA: Terrorists to Nuke US Cities - A new report by retired longtime intelligence officer Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, who served as chief of the CIA's Weapons of Mass Destruction Department, accuses the U.S. government of seriously misreading al-Qaida's operational objectives. "Al-Qaida's reasoning," according to Mowatt-Larssen's new report from Harvard's Kennedy School, "runs counter to analytic convention that equates the ease of acquisition of chemical, biological or radiological weapons with an increasing likelihood of terrorist use - i.e., a terrorist attack employing crude weapons is therefore more likely than an attack using a nuclear or large scale biological weapon." "In fact, it is the opposite" of that conventional wisdom, according to the analysis, entitled "Al-Qaida Weapons of Mass Destruction Threat: Hype or Reality." Al-Qaida's motivations suggest "the greatest threat is posed by the most effective and simple means of mass destruction, whether these means consist of nuclear, biological, or other forms of asymmetric weapons." That makes all the scarier the scolding that came this week from the congressionally authorized Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation. That panel gave the Obama administration an F grade for its performance in preparing the U.S. homeland for a terrorist attack that utilized biological warfare.

January 28, 2010 - Dayton Daily News - Dayton's role in atomic bomb project could go unnoted - In the race to build an atomic bomb during World War II, recent evidence shows both Germany and Japan were further along in their research than historians had previously thought. However, neither country achieved what America’s Manhattan Project succeeded in doing in Dayton — the creation of a safe, reliable trigger for detonating the bomb. Even so, a two-year National Park Service study released early this month does not recommend including Dayton in a national historical park devoted to the Manhattan Project. Dayton area residents will have a chance to voice their reaction to that study at a public hearing today, Jan. 28. Local heritage leaders already are expressing theirs. “I think it’s unfair to the Dayton community,” said Tony Sculimbrene, executive director of the Dayton Aviation Heritage Alliance. “That bomb would have never gone off without the work done in Dayton,” said Dick Flitcraft, president of the Mound Museum Association.

January 28, 2010 - Record Courier - Douglas residents testing for radon, but few are fixing problem - People are checking for radon gas, but it doesn't appear that many are doing much to fix the problem. Test kits are flying off the shelves, with and estimated 1,200 new free tests distributed so far this month, according to University of Nevada Cooperative Extension Douglas County Educator Steve Lewis. Douglas County has had a good return on the kits with 69 percent being returned for processing. “The state folks have been really impressed with the number of free kits that have been processed,” Lewis said. The rate is one of the highest in the state, with 1,256 valid tests, so far. Douglas also has one of the highest single number of results exceeding the Environmental Protection Agency's action level with 514 locations all over the county. But Lewis said the state has only received reports that three-dozen homes in the Valley have been retrofitted to vent the radioactive gas that is the leading cause of lung cancer among non-smokers in the nation.

January 28, 2010 - DG News - Educational Intervention Can Reduce CT Scans, Radiation Exposure in the ER - A large New York medical center reduced the number of computed tomography (CT) scans and radiation dose delivered to patients presenting to the emergency department with suspected pulmonary emboli (PE) by holding collaborative educational seminars for staff and routing patients to CT pulmonary angiography (CTPA) or ventilation perfusion (V/Q) scanning based solely on their chest x-ray results. The study is published in the February issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology. "The total effective radiation dose from CTPA is approximately 5 times greater than that from V/Q scanning, and the dose is 20 to 40 times greater to the female breast," said lead author Linda B. Haramati, MD, Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, New York. "Most physicians are not aware of these differences." Collaborative educational seminars were held among the radiology, nuclear medicine, and emergency medicine departments regarding the radiation dose and accuracies of V/Q scanning and CTPA for diagnosing PE at Montefiore Medical Center.

January 28, 2010 - Radio Australia - Indonesia's Govt revives interest in nuclear power plant plan - The idea to develop Indonesia's first nuclear energy plant has been around since the 1970, but the project has gone in and out of fashion as political factions have come and gone. After backing off from the proposal during his re-election campaign, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Government appears to be again pressing forward with the power plant plan. However, local opposition to the proposal is strong, and there are considerable risks to consider. Though the idea has been around for decades, local opposition and a shifting political landscape have kept the nuclear power project from advancing in Indonesia. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono supported nuclear power development during his first term in office. But he distanced himself from the proposal as he campaigned for re-election last year. Following his victory and inauguration, government officials began renewing their calls that four, 1,000 megawatt plants be built. But local opposition to the nuclear power reactor, which would be built on plantation land in Jepara province on the north coast of Java, has drawn together business, environment and religious groups, including Nahdlatul Ulama, one of the largest Islamic groups in the world. Lilo Sunaryo is a hotel manager and local environmental activist in Jepara.

January 28, 2010 - Ottawa Citizen - Chalk River plant relaunch delayed a month - The restart of the Chalk River nuclear reactor in eastern Ontario has been delayed by a month, according to a release from Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. The reactor, an important source of medical isotopes, has been out of service since May with a leaky containment vessel. The reactor was to have been brought online in March but welding troubles delayed repair work. The problems are said to have been addressed and welding is to resume later this week. The AECL said the first medical isotopes will be distributed 10 days after the reactor is fixed, now expected to be sometime in April.

January 28, 2010 - AZoOptics - VLA Telescope Helps Astronomers Find Gamma-Ray Burst Alike Supernova - For the first time, astronomers have found a supernova explosion with properties similiar to a gamma-ray burst, but without seeing any gamma rays from it. The discovery, using the National Science Foundation's Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope, promises, the scientists say, to point the way toward locating many more examples of these mysterious explosions. "We think that radio observations will soon be a more powerful tool for finding this kind of supernova in the nearby Universe than gamma-ray satellites," said Alicia Soderberg, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. The telltale clue came when the radio observations showed material expelled from the supernova explosion, dubbed SN2009bb, at speeds approaching that of light. This characterized the supernova, first seen last March, as the type thought to produce one kind of gamma-ray burst. "It is remarkable that very low-energy radiation, radio waves, can signal a very high-energy event," said Roger Chevalier of the University of Virginia. When the nuclear fusion reactions at the cores of very massive stars no longer can provide the energy needed to hold the core up against the weight of the rest of the star, the core collapses catastrophically into a superdense neutron star or black hole. The rest of the star's material is blasted into space in a supernova explosion. For the past decade or so, astronomers have identified one particular type of such a "core-collapse supernova" as the cause of one kind of gamma-ray burst.

January 28, 2010 - Earth Times - Brush Research Introduces Flex-Hone Tool for Nuclear Water Pipe Decontamination - Brush Research Manufacturing has introduced a Flex-Hone Tool engineered for the nuclear industry. The decontamination of large-bore water pipes at nuclear power plants is a particular maintenance challenge, largely due to the production of secondary waste materials and exposure risks to plant employees. For any decontamination system to be considered viable it must minimize secondary waste and be cost effective to operate and maintain with minimal occupational radiation exposure. Traditional mechanical decontamination includes various grit blasting techniques using either wet or dry abrasives. Yet the costs of operating time plus handling and disposal of contaminated blasting media add to the time and monetary expense associated with these methods.

January 28, 2010 - COMTEX - S. Korea completes upgrade on research reactor - South Korea has effectively completed work to upgrade its 30 megawatt nuclear reactor into one of the most versatile and capable reactors in the world, a state-run atomic energy institute said Monday. The Daejeon-based Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI), located 160 kilometers south of Seoul, said its High-flux Advanced Neutron Application Reactor (HANARO) unit has been transformed to produce "cold neutrons" and incorporate a fuel test loop (FTL) system. "The ability to produce cold neutrons and have an FTL system makes HANARO a truly multipurpose reactor," a KAERI press release said. It added that the single unit can now carry out all the tasks of a research reactor. A research reactor does not generate power, but produces isotopes for medical and industrial purposes and is used to conduct various scientific and engineering studies. It can also be used to train expert personnel.

January 28, 2010 - Burlington Free Press - Douglas fed up with Vermont Yankee - The pressure intensified Wednesday on the beleaguered Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant as the governor, state regulators and the state’s top prosecutor turned up the heat. Gov. Jim Douglas made a surprise call for a change in management at the Vernon plant and asked for delays in a decision about spinning off the plant into a new company and the Legislature’s vote on the facility’s future. “Like many Vermonters, I have lost trust in the current management team, and I have been disappointed that changes have not already been made,” Douglas said during a news conference Wednesday, shifting from his long-standing support of the plant. Douglas said long-term decisions about the plant cannot be made until the company re-establishes the public’s trust following revelations this month that the radioactive isotope tritium is leaking from the plant, and that company officials misled the state about the presence of pipes that might be involved in the leak, the source of which remains unknown. Vermont Yankee officials responded by saying that they are taking the situation seriously, that current levels of tritium pose no public health threat and the plant continues to operate safely and efficiently. “Naturally, we are disappointed by the governor’s action today, but we remain committed to cooperate in every way possible with the state’s own inquiries,” the company said in a statement released Wednesday night by spokesman by Rob Williams. “We remain convinced that it is in the best interest of Vermonters and the state’s economic and energy future that this plant keep operating and have its license renewed. We cannot comment specifically on how this might affect the spin-off transaction.”

January 27, 2010 - Star News Online - While Technology Surges, Radiation Safeguards Lag - In New Jersey, 36 cancer patients at a veterans hospital in East Orange were overradiated — and 20 more received substandard treatment — by a medical team that lacked experience in using a machine that generated high-powered beams of radiation. The mistakes, which have not been publicly reported, continued for months because the hospital had no system in place to catch the errors. In Louisiana, Landreaux A. Donaldson received 38 straight overdoses of radiation, each nearly twice the prescribed amount, while undergoing treatment for prostate cancer. He was treated with a machine so new that the hospital made a miscalculation even with training instructors still on site. In Texas, George Garst now wears two external bags — one for urine and one for fecal matter — because of severe radiation injuries he suffered after a medical physicist who said he was overworked failed to detect a mistake. The overdose was never reported to the authorities because rules did not require it. These mistakes and the failure of hospitals to quickly identify them offer a rare look into the vulnerability of patient safeguards at a time when increasingly complex, computer-controlled devices are fundamentally changing medical radiation, delivering higher doses in less time with greater precision than ever before. Serious radiation injuries are still infrequent, and the new equipment is undeniably successful in diagnosing and fighting disease. But the technology introduces its own risks: it has created new avenues for error in software and operation, and those mistakes can be more difficult to detect. As a result, a single error that becomes embedded in a treatment plan can be repeated in multiple radiation sessions. Many of these mistakes could have been caught had basic checking protocols been followed, accident reports show. But there is also a growing realization among those who work with this new technology that some safety procedures are outdated. “Scientific societies haven’t been able to keep up with the rapid pace of technical improvements,” said Jeffrey F. Williamson, a professor of radiation oncology, who leads the medical physics division at the Massey Cancer Center at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond.

January 27, 2010 - Tri-City Herald - FFTF, better Hanford cleanup among public concerns - Concerns were raised about whether the state can make the federal government stick to its moratorium on importing certain radioactive wastes to the Hanford nuclear reservation at a public hearing Thursday night in Richland. About 40 people attended the hearing on a proposed settlement agreement reached by the state of Washington and the Department of Energy to resolve a lawsuit brought by the state against DOE almost a year ago. The state sued after it became clear DOE could not meet legal deadlines in the Tri-Party Agreement to empty leak-prone underground tanks of radioactive waste and treat the waste. The proposed settlement agreement would extend deadlines to dates DOE and the state say are realistic. And in one concession for doing that, the state won a commitment from DOE not to import several types of waste to Hanford until the vitrification plant is fully operational to treat the waste. That's scheduled for 2022. The alternative could have saved as much as $459 million, according to figures in an earlier Government Accountability Office report, but Hanford officials were unable to win the regulatory support of the states of Washington and New Mexico. About $40 million has been spent on the project. Less than two months ago, DOE released a draft environmental impact study that included the less expensive option of sending some of Hanford's tank waste to a federal repository in New Mexico rather than glassifying it at the $12.2 billion vitrification plant being built at Hanford.

January 27, 2010 - StatePress.com - ASU technology would allow scientists to measure radiation poisoning on mass scale - ASU is leading the development of technology that can quickly assess the amount of radiation thousands of people have suffered after a radiological disaster. The technology would process samples in a few hours and would allow doctors to effectively treat sufferers. “As compared to current methodologies that are out there, this is orders of magnitude faster than these other methods that have been used,” said Carl Yamashiro, the principal investigator for the research project. Yamashiro works out of ASU’s Biodesign Institute on the Tempe campus and helps manage the research project, which collaborates with seven other institutions for the five-year project that started last month. The research project is important so people can be treated quickly and to reduce panic, said David Brenner, the director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University. “If there was a radiological event, the object of the terrorist essentially is to spread panic and chaos,” he said. “If you could reassure people by giving them a very swift test … in a sense you’re defeating the bad guys.” Brenner is also director of one of the Centers for Medical Countermeasures Against Radiation (CMCR) that is funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and manages the research from his center, which started in 2005 and led to the current research at ASU.

January 27, 2010 - Times Daily - Work advances on privatization of TVA reservation - The Tennessee Valley Authority is expected to release a draft of its environmental assessment of the Muscle Shoals reservation in April. TVA issued its "scoping report" in December, a 28-page document that gives a timeline for the potential privatization of the 1,380-acre southern section of the reservation. The schedule includes releasing a draft environmental impact statement in late April, a commentary period from May 7 to June 21 and a final release expected in October. Officials expect the TVA board of directors to consider the environmental report in November and to issue a final report in December. Several environmental concerns about the land have been raised during public hearings. TVA is obligated by the National Environmental Policy Act to prepare an environmental impact statement that will assess potential impacts associated with the disposal and redevelopment of the Muscle Shoals reservation. The environmental impact assessment will focus on three areas, according to a TVA report released in December. They include a phosphorous slag area of approximately 70 acres, the Western Area Radiological Laboratory of 10 acres and a building.

January 27, 2010 - Vancouver Courier - Harper hopes to nuke isotope production - Geoff Olson has hit the nail on the head concerning the power that Stephen Harper is wielding over Parliament. The obvious question is why did the Governor General acquiesce? Her detailed reasons should be aired. Much more importantly than shutting down Parliament for a few months is the intended total destruction by the Harper government of our isotope production industry, currently under repair, at Chalk River. Does no one care that the Atomic Energy Commission lab's existing ancient facility, which produces over one-third of the world's medical and research isotopes, will disappear if Harper has his way? Who will pick up the slack for isotopes to diagnose and treat cardiac problems and breast cancer? Will we be forced to import these critical isotopes from Russia, the Netherlands or the U.S.? What will be the cost of these imports and what will be their purity?

January 27, 2010 - Business Wire - Piedmont Hospital Installs First Toshiba Vascular X-Ray System with 12” X 12” Mid-Sized Flat Panel Detector - Increasing its ability to provide patients with the highest quality of care, Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta has installed the country’s first InfinixTM VF-i vascular X-ray system with the 12” x 12” mid-sized flat panel detector (FPD) from Toshiba America Medical Systems, Inc. The new mid-sized FPD system is equipped with Toshiba’s Next Generation Advanced Image Processing (AIP) capabilities and marks the fourth Toshiba Infinix-i system installed by Piedmont Hospital. "Toshiba's Infinix VF-i with the 12” x 12” flat panel detector provides better perspective during electrophysiologic procedures than most traditional flat panel detectors,” said Piedmont Heart Institute physician Harry A. Kopelman, M.D., Director of Cardiac Electrophysiology Laboratories at the Fuqua Heart Center of Atlanta’s Piedmont Hospital. “The 12” x 12” panel offers a wider field-of-view, making it easier to image a large cardiac silhouette. It is well-suited for cardiac rhythm device implantation and other electrophysiologic procedures. The system is small in terms of its footprint inside the room, helping to maximize space. It is user-friendly, intuitive and responsive.” Toshiba’s Infinix VF-i system offers unprecedented patient access with a floor-mounted C-arm five-axis positioner that allows head-to-toe and fingertip-to-fingertip coverage. The freely moving components, ergonomically friendly design and five-axis positioner enable physicians to obtain optimal angles for cardiac diagnosis and interventional procedures without re-positioning the patient.

January 27, 2010 - Cincinnati.com - Program tells Story of Fernald Uranium Processing Plant - The Delhi Historical Society will present a program on the story behind the controversial Fernald Nuclear Feed Materials Plant in Western Hamilton County on Monday, February 8, 7 p.m., at the Delhi Park Lodge. The presenter will be Tim Bonfield, who was an Enquirer reporter assigned to investigate the uranium processing plant during its cleanup in the 1990s. “From construction that began in 1951 to the end of operations in 1989, more than 7,000 workers at Fernald produced the raw material for the atomic bombs that helped win the Cold War. Yet the Fernald legacy also has been tarred by four decades of secrecy, denial, false assurance.” The Fernald Plant, located in western Hamilton County, at one time provided all of the uranium for U.S. weapons, and also was a storage facility for K-65 waste – the radium waste from the Manhattan Project which developed the first atomic bomb. The program at the Delhi Park Lodge, 5125 Foley Road in Delhi, is free and open to the public. For more information, call the historical society, 513-451-4313.

January 27, 2010 - Defense Professionals - Raytheon Awarded $4.3 Million DHS Contract for On-Dock Rail Nuclear Detectors  - Under a $4.3 million contract from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN) is developing next-generation panels that can scan rail cars to detect nuclear weapons and other materials. The new panels are an additional configuration in Raytheon's Advanced Spectroscopic portfolio, a series of panels that can be used in various ways to screen cars, trucks, cargo containers, and now rail cars at seaports, border crossings, and airports. Raytheon's Integrated Defense Systems is developing the panels for the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office within DHS. The panels will be tested this summer in Tacoma, Wash. Ports of entry, courier facilities, airports and similar locations are now using first-generation radiation monitors to scan cargo containers that are placed on trucks. But those devices are not as effective in scanning rail cars, and they cannot distinguish between nuclear materials that pose a threat and the naturally occurring radioactive materials in fertilizer and bananas. Consequently, there can be frequent false alarms.

January 27, 2010 - Defense Professionals - Solace Systems and Thermo Fisher Scientific Partner to Improve Nuclear Sensor Network Effectiveness - Solace Systems and Thermo Fisher Scientific today announced a technology partnership to combine the capabilities of Thermo Scientific software and Solace’s hardware-based message routers for sophisticated nuclear threat monitoring using sensor readings and geospatial coordinates. The solution enables exceptional sensor readings to be routed to the right individuals and applications across intelligence and response agencies based on the nature and location of the reading. The first public customer for this joint solution was also announced today in the release entitled: “DHS Domestic Nuclear Detection Office Selects Solace Systems Geospatial Routing Solution for Emergency Management Network”. The integration of Solace and Thermo Scientific technology results in a fully automated backbone for processing large volumes of sensor data in real time using a dynamic set of rules that determine which information is needed where. For example, one set of responses may be triggered by a certain radioactivity threshold, and another may be triggered by the location of the reading. Solace’s message routers can handle millions of messages per second with low latency, so they can be directly fed by very large numbers of fixed and mobile Thermo Scientific sensors. “Thermo Scientific-driven sensor networks are remarkably powerful vehicles for building automated systems that support the rapid detection of conditions that represent potential threats,” said Shawn McAllister, CTO at Solace Systems. “By evaluating and routing the data they generate in real time, Solace’s technology gives the decision makers the situational awareness they need to take effective action.”

January 27, 2010 - Deseret Morning News - Utahns voice opposition to depleted uranium storage - A chorus of opposition to the storage of depleted uranium in Utah rang out Tuesday night during a public hearing on a proposed rule that would put in place additional restrictions. The hearing, intended to gather input on those new restrictions, instead focused more on general outright opposition to storing the radioactive waste altogether. "You err on the side of caution; you err on the side of protection," said Robert Henline, who added that it was "unfortunate he had to come before the board at all." Provo resident Jeri Roos called depleted uranium "a very nasty waste." "We may not understand all the science, but what matters is we don't want it," Roos said. She said that for too long Utah has been "the dumping ground" for other states' radioactive material, and it's time to stop.

January 27, 2010 - Times Argus - Expert: No level of tritium safe - The federal government may have set a safe drinking water standard for tritium, but no amount of that radioactive isotope, which is now leaking from the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, is safe, according to a national expert. Paul Gunter, a nuclear reactor oversight specialist with the Beyond Nuclear organization, told a crowd at Montpelier's Unitarian Church Tuesday night that the Environmental Protection Agency's tritium standards are far too liberal. The EPA sets a tritium drinking water standard of 20,000 picocuries per liter, but he said this dangerous byproduct of nuclear power can lead to cancer, developmental disabilities, mutations and death. "There is no safe dose," said Gunter, who spoke at the church at the request of the Vermont Yankee Decommissioning Alliance, a local anti-nuclear group. "The more you take in, the more risk you have." Vermont Yankee, located along the edge of the Connecticut River in Vernon, is at the center of a political uproar over recent revelations that it is leaking tritium into the groundwater and that officials may have misled state regulators about the existence of underground pipes, suspected of being the source of this on-going leak. The turmoil comes at a time when Entergy, the owner of the plant, had hoped to win the Legislature's backings for an additional 20 years of operation. The plant's license to operate expires in early 2012. Gunter and two other anti-nuclear experts who spoke Tuesday night – including one who is scheduled to testify today before the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee at the Statehouse – said Vermont should clearly not allow Entergy to run the facility for 20 more years.

January 27, 2010 - The Town Talk - France's nuclear program no example for U.S. - It is perhaps no accident that the nuclear power industry chose a French word -- "renaissance" -- to promote its alleged comeback. Attached to this misapplied moniker are a series of fallacious suggestions that nuclear energy is "clean," "safe" and even "renewable." And, in keeping with its French flavor, a key argument in the industry's propaganda arsenal is that the U.S. should follow the "successful" example of the French nuclear program. A failure to challenge this facile falsehood has cemented the myth of a French nuclear Utopia in the minds of the public. It masks a very different reality. France gets 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear power. However, this alone does not constitute a success. Rather, it results in the production of an enormous amount of radioactive waste that, as is the case for all other nuclear countries, has nowhere to go. France has no operating geological repository for nuclear waste. To date, therefore, it has resorted to reprocessing, a highly contaminating chemical process that separates uranium and plutonium while releasing large quantities of liquid and aerial radioactivity into the environment. These wastes have rendered the seabed near the French La Hague reprocessing center on the Normandy coast equivalent to radioactive waste. Liquid radioactive contamination from La Hague has been found in the Arctic Circle, while radioactive gases such as krypton 85 have been tracked around the world.

January 27, 2010 - Chicago Tribune - Lawmakers OK bill regulating radioactive material - The Indiana Senate has passed legislation that would boost the state's regulations for radioactive materials being shipped within the state. The Senate voted unanimously Tuesday to send the bill sponsored by state Sen. Jim Arnold to the Indiana House for consideration. The LaPorte Democrat says his bill is needed to keep Indiana safe from dangerous materials that require delicate handling because of their radiation threat. His bill would require the state's Homeland Security agency to issue a permit for the transportation of radioactive materials within Indiana. Shippers of radioactive material would have to tell the state how much material they plan to transport, when it will be shipped and what route the shipments will take through the state.

January 27, 2010 - Burlington Free Press - Delegation ask NRC for assurances on Vermont Yankee - The head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told Vermont’s congressional delegation Tuesday the agency is devoting more resources to concerns at Vermont Yankee and expects to find the source of a tritium leak there within the next several weeks, according to the lawmakers. Sens. Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders and Rep. Peter Welch said they told NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko that Vermonters have lost confidence in Vermont Yankee following this month’s discovery of the leak and that company officials had misled the state about underground pipes at the Vernon nuclear power plant. “Our demand is that the NRC move as aggressively as it can, find out where the leak is, rectify it as soon as possible and try to get to the truth of what Vermont Yankee is saying or not saying,” Sanders said in a conference call after the meeting in Sanders’ Washington office.

January 27, 2010 - Your Industry News - S. Korea completes upgrade on research reactor - South Korea has effectively completed work to upgrade its 30 megawatt nuclear reactor into one of the most versatile and capble reactors in the world, a state-run atomic energy institute said Monday. The Daejeon-based Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI), located 160 kilometers south of Seoul, said its High-flux Advanced Neutron Application Reactor (HANARO) unit has been transformed to produce "cold neutrons" and incorporate a fuel test loop (FTL) system. "The ability to produce cold neutrons and have an FTL system makes HANARO a truly multipurpose reactor," a KAERI press release said. It added that the single unit can now carry out all the tasks of a research reactor. A research reactor does not generate power, but produces isotopes for medical and industrial purposes and is used to conduct various scientific and engineering studies. It can also be used to train expert personnel. KAERI said construction of facilities to make cold neutrons began in 2003 and cost around 60.0 billion won (US$52.3 million), while 24.0 billion won was used for the FTL system from 2001.

January 26, 2010 - Associated Press - PSEG promotes nuke power with science center - In the new Energy & Environmental Resource Center, snazzy interactive displays show how much electricity that wind and solar power can generate, how you can conserve power and what role nuclear power might have in the nation's energy future. According to the center's owner, Public Service Enterprise Group, it's plenty. New Jersey's largest utility opened its new $2 million education center Monday as the company prepares to apply to put a fourth nuclear reactor on Artificial Island in Lower Alloways Township, a few miles away in this marshy, remote corner of New Jersey along the Delaware Bay. The company says it's a way to demystify nuclear energy, explain big energy dilemmas and spark some interest in science. An activist who opposes nuclear power sees it another way: "They for years have gone out to the schools in the area on propaganda missions," said Norm Cohen, the coordinator of the Unplug Salem campaign, who expects local opposition to PSEG adding a fourth reactor. "This way, they can have the schools come to them."

January 26, 2010 - PhysOrg.com - Glasgow scientists predict mass of new particle - A team of physicists from the University of Glasgow has predicted the mass of a new particle which would help explain one of the fundamental forces of the universe. The scientists say the Bc* meson will have been produced fleetingly in collisions in the Tevatron accelerator in Illinois, USA and at CERN in Switzerland, but has not yet been spotted by experimentalists searching through the debris. However, a team led by Professor Christine Davies, head of the University's Particle Physics Theory Group in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, and an expert in Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) theory, used supercomputers to predict the mass of the meson, which might help scientists understand the strong force that dictates the behaviour of particles at the sub-atomic level. The strong force is one of the four fundamental forces of the universe and is what holds quarks together - the smallest units of matter found to date. It is this force that QCD theory seeks to understand. The other fundamental forces are: * Gravitation - the phenomenon where bodies of mass are attracted to each other,  * Electromagnetic - the attraction that exists between electrically charged particles such as electrons and protons,  * Weak - which is involved in some forms of particle decay, most notably nuclear beta decay.Prof Davies said: "Although this meson has not yet been shown to exist, our calculations have allowed us to predict not only its existence but also its mass. Two previous predictions we've made have been shown to be true so we are confident with this one."

January 26, 2010 - San Francisco Chronicle - Supes to consider cell phone labels - Six weeks after telling us he was contemplating requiring cell phone retailers to label the devices with their radiation levels, the mayor has prepared legislation to introduce today. His proposal would require cell phone retailers to list each phone's specific absorption rate, or SAR - which signifies how much radio frequency energy a person absorbs into his or her body when talking on the device - anywhere that the price and other phone features are listed. The SAR's font would have to be the same size or larger than the other phone details. "In addition to protecting the consumers' right to know, this legislation will encourage telephone manufacturers to redesign their devices to function at lower radiation levels," said Newsom, who cautioned that cell phone users shouldn't be fearful but should be educated on the matter. The Department of the Environment and the Department of Public Health would develop educational materials about cell phone radiation, and retailers would have to provide the materials free to customers.

January 26, 2010 - The Tennessean - Don't start down slippery slope - The newest proposal in airport security is the so-called full-body scan. The machine is said to use far less "radiation" than a cell phone, and we are told it is "perfectly safe." Health concerns aside, does such a device comport with the Constitution? The Fourth Amendment guarantees that citizens are to be "secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." Without doubt a machine that gets up close and personal with assorted body parts constitutes a search of our "person." The key question is whether such a search is "unreasonable," since that inquiry has always been the touchstone of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. The proposed system uses a pair of security officers. The one working the machine never sees the image of the body scan, which appears on a computer screen behind closed doors elsewhere. The remotely located officer who sees the image never sees the passenger. As further protection, a passenger's face is blurred and the image as a whole is said to "resemble a fuzzy negative." This whole-body scan procedure is itself fuzzy and perhaps not well thought out. Will this really make us safer? The process appears to invade our privacy. It makes us uncomfortable and certainly angry that it may be necessary.

January 26, 2010 - FNA - Digital Mammography Delivers Much Lower Radiation than Conventional - The results of a major mammography trial indicated that the digital mammography delivers much lower radiation rate than conventional mammography. Data from one of the largest mammography trials in history demonstrates that overall the radiation dose associated with digital mammography is significantly lower (averaging 22 percent lower) than that of conventional film mammography and that the reduction could be greater in women with larger and denser breasts, according to a study published in the American Journal of Roentgenology. "The ability to reduce the radiation dose for many women is another step forward for breast cancer screening with mammography - which saves thousands of lives each year," R. Edward Hendrick, PhD, lead author of the study said. The American College of Radiology Imaging Network (ACRIN) Digital Mammographic Imaging Screening Trial (DMIST) published in 2005, enrolled 49,528 women and found that digital mammography detected significantly (up to 28 percent) more cancers than film mammography in women younger than 50 years of age, premenopausal women, and women with dense breasts. In this latest DMIST study, technical data from 5,102 DMIST participants were evaluated, demonstrating that the dose received by women imaged with digital mammography was significantly lower than that received by the same women imaged with standard film mammography. "The average breast radiation dose per view was 2.37 mGy for film mammography and 1.86 mGy for digital (22 percent lower for digital than film mammography)," Hendrick said.

January 26, 2010 - Alibaba.com - China Nuclear National Corporation to acquires uranium mine in Niger - China Nuclear National Corporation (CNNC) International Ltd. will acquire 37.2 percent of shares of NIG Azelik uranium mine in Niger at a cost not to exceed HK$414 million($53.42 million), the company announced on Monday. Due to heavy pollution caused by coal and oil, China is promoting its nuclear power development to minimize the consumption of traditional fuels. CNNC International Ltd. is the only channel through which the parent company CNNC will get uranium resources from oversea. And this deal is the first of its kind in Africa for the company, implementtion is expected in the second half of this year. The company is also seeking acquisitions in Kazakhstan to increase China's uranium reserve and promote its nuclear power development, Philip Li, chief financial officier of CNNC International Ltd. ,told Dow Jones Newswires on Monday.

January 26, 2010 - Business Wire - From the Origins of the Universe to Dark Matter, CERN’s ATLAS Experiment Powered by Dell and Industry IT Leaders - During a visit to the European Organization for Nuclear Research’s (CERN) today, Michael Dell said Dell will help architect and support the high-performance computing IT infrastructure for CERN’s renowned ATLAS particle physics experiment. “State-of-the-art high performance computing, in the form of servers, storage, and networking, provides critical enabling technologies for scientific discovery. The Dell ATLAS Alliance will accelerate the discovery process in particle physics for the worldwide collaboration of ATLAS scientists.” The company also will lead an industry consortium dedicated to developing and managing an open IT architecture, including energy and cost-efficient Dell PowerEdge servers, for researchers at ATLAS-affiliated universities worldwide. Led by Dell, the industry group supporting ATLAS includes Intel Corporation, Data Direct Networks, QLogic Corporation , Force10 Networks and Platform Computing. The group’s efforts will include support, guidance and consulting to optimize system configurations, optimal coding practices and best-practice guidelines for compute nodes, servers, storage and networking. It also will facilitate the availability of leading-edge technologies to support the project, which demands analysis of massive amounts of raw detector data. Alongside the ATLAS experiment, CERN’s LHC is using Dell technology to process, manage and store data at several other critical experiments including the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment and the Large Hadron Collider Beauty experiment.

January 26, 2010 - Rutland Herald - Entergy reveals 40 buried pipes - There are more than 40 buried pipes containing radionuclides at the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor, according to a document Entergy Nuclear submitted Monday to the Vermont Public Service Board. A year ago, the company's vice president of operations and the site vice president in charge of the Vernon reactor said there were none. The disclosure comes as the state and Entergy Nuclear, as well as the attorney general's office, are investigating whether Entergy Nuclear executives lied under oath to the Public Service Board last year when they testified during Yankee's relicensing hearings that they knew of no buried pipes containing radionuclides. The issue was key during the hearings, because such pipes have led to groundwater contamination at about two dozen other nuclear reactors across the country, and have added greatly to the cost of cleanup of many nuclear sites. One of the executives, Jay Thayer, has since publicly corrected his statement. The company, preparing for a meeting with the board Wednesday in Montpelier, said there was a difference between underground piping and underground vaults, which often contain multiple pipes, according to company spokesman Robert Williams. "No one is saying the company didn't know" there were buried pipes containing radionuclides, Williams said, attributing the problem to lack of communication within the company and "conflicting assumptions."

January 26, 2010 - Times Argus - Lawmakers should reject relicensing now - Vermont needs bold leadership now to secure our energy future – without Vermont Yankee. Our legislative leaders should vote now on the relicensing of Vermont Yankee. A vote now will enable a responsible transition for the plant employees and provide a safer, and more prosperous energy future for Vermont. Safety first. Last week's news of radioactive leaks from Vermont Yankee brings into clear focus the safety risks we cannot afford to take with our aging nuclear plant. Job creation and retention is critical for Vermont, but safety must be our first concern. It seems like every few months there is a news story about a mishap at the plant – collapsing cooling towers, failure to monitor high level radioactive waste, leaks of radioactive steam. Entergy officials even gave inaccurate information under oath to the Vermont Public Service Board about underground pipes now leaking the radioactive isotope tritium into groundwater flowing into the Connecticut River. This raises serious questions about trust in Entergy's representations about the plant's safety and its ability to operate for an additional twenty years. Secure our energy future. Vermont Yankee will cost our economy dearly if we do not move today towards our post-Entergy future – one with cleaner and lower cost power. Federal law gives Vermont two choices — relicense the plant for 20 years or shut it down. The need for a decision on Vermont Yankee should not come as a surprise. We knew 40 years ago that in 2012 Vermont Yankee might need to be replaced. Ideally, we would have a plan in place by now for a responsible transition from nuclear to local renewable energy. But we don't. The current administration rejected opportunities to buy dams on the Connecticut River, shortchanged energy efficiency, and resisted developing wind power in Vermont. As the next governor, I will provide the leadership to move Vermont to a clean energy future, but the process must begin now.

January 26, 2010 - ABC News - Breakthrough in nuclear waste clean-up - Audio: Chemists discover the 'Venus fly-trap' of radioactive waste clean-up materials (PM) Related Story: Evans honoured for nuclear work Related Story: China-US tensions over Iran sanctions Related Story: Iran issues 'ultimatum' to West over nuclear swap US researchers say they have developed a new material to soak up highly toxic radioactive isotopes from the site of nuclear accidents. Their findings were published yesterday in the journal Nature Chemistry. The material absorbs caesium-137, which is created in nuclear reactors. It is used in nuclear imaging and for sterilising foodstuffs, however if it gets into the environment it is easily absorbed by the body. It is highly toxic in minute amounts, capable of damaging organs and causing numerous forms of cancer. Professor of chemistry at the Northwestern University in Illinois, Dr Mercouri Kanatzidis, says that caesium-137 makes nuclear waste very difficult to handle. "It's a gamma ray emitter, it's highly undesirable," he said. "One has to remove caesium and concentrate it into a very small volume, and then remove it from the rest of the liquid waste so it can be processed normally."

January 26, 2010 - Santiago Times - Former Soldier’s Death Furthers Chile’s Nuclear Energy Debate - The death last Friday of a former Chilean soldier who was suing the state for health damages after he was overexposed to radiation once again highlights concerns over the future use of nuclear energy in Chile. Manuel Mella Tapia, 41, guarded the La Reina nuclear research facility near Santiago between 1987 and 1989 as part of his compulsory military service. Tapia was diagnosed with leukemia in 2008 and had been waiting for a bone marrow transplant at Santiago’s Clinica Alemana. He was one of 64 ex-conscripts petitioning the government for US$85 million in compensation after being exposed to radioactive material while serving at the La Reina facility (ST. Oct 22, 2009). At least half of the men have experienced health problems related to radiation poisoning. Tapia is the third La Reina conscript who served at the facility in the late eighties to have died. Guillermo Cofre and Luis Gomez, whose families are also part of the case against the state, both died of leukemia just months after finishing their military service in 1990. Both men were asked to clean up a March 1989 chemical spill in one of the centers’ laboratories using only towels (ST Nov. 10, 2009). It has since emerged that chemical suits obligatory for plant workers were not available to the soldiers.

January 25, 2010 - Washington Independent - While Health Reform Falters, Mammogram Debate Still Rages - When a preventive-health panel stirred a storm last November by scaling back its guidelines for breast cancer screening among 40-somethings, Congress was quick to intervene. Indeed, it took just 17 days before senators unanimously agreed to bar the government from using those recommendations to inform federal coverage policies — public or private. The message was clear: More screenings, not fewer, are better for women’s health. Yet as the dust settles and Washington’s attention shifts elsewhere, some prominent physicians are questioning the wisdom of the congressional decision to swoop in so quickly to dismiss the expert recommendations. Writing this month in the Journal of the American Medical Association, or JAMA, these doctors are blasting Congress for politicizing an issue they say is better left to medical science. It’s not a new argument. Preventive care specialists and some journalists were making it in November. Still, that a respected medical journal has returned to the issue now is a good indication that, even if the Democrats’ plans for health reform have hit a wall after last week’s special Senate election in Massachusetts, the thorny debate over preventive health care is far from dead. “Screening is not simply about benefit, it also causes important harms,” Steven Woloshin and Lisa M. Schwartz, both physicians at Dartmouth Medical School, wrote in the Jan. 13 issue of JAMA. “To make good decisions about screening, patients should understand the trade-offs.” In the case of routine mammograms, the authors contend, the benefits for women in their 40s are minimal. Without screenings, 3.5 of 1,000 40-somethings will die from breast cancer over the next decade, they note. With screenings, 3 of 1,000 will succumb to the disease — meaning that it requires 2,000 tests to save one life. “For most women with cancer, screening generally does not change the ultimate outcome,” Woloshin and Schwartz argue.

January 25, 2010 - Associated Press - Area Manhattan Project sites under consideration for park status - The government is exploring national park status for sites involved in the World War II-era Manhattan Project nuclear bomb research effort. The sites being examined are Los Alamos National Laboratory and town site in New Mexico, the Hanford site in Washington state, Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee and assorted sites in Dayton. The top-secret project resulted in scientific and technological advancements that ushered in the atomic age and helped the United States win the war. The Manhattan Project operated from December 1942 until September 1945 and employed 130,000 workers at its height. Research done at several laboratories in Dayton produced polonium used to trigger the first atomic explosion in 1945 and the bomb dropped over Nagasaki. Congress directed the park site study in consultation with the Department of Energy.

January 25, 2010 - Associated Press - Minn. House committee explores nuke waste concerns - Minnesota lawmakers have been debating whether to allow consideration of new nuclear power plants. Now they're revisiting concerns over what to do with nuclear waste they already have. The House Commerce and Labor Committee planned Monday to review legislation that would redirect some energy fees and establish the Minnesota Nuclear Waste Storage Commission. Its role would be to address safety concerns around waste from two existing nuclear plants in Red Wing and Monticello. The federal government has been slow to open a promised waste dump in Nevada, leaving questions over spent fuel. Meanwhile, some legislators are pushing to lift a moratorium that bars regulators from authorizating new nuclear plants as a way to feed the power grid.

January 25, 2010 - InjuryBoard.com - The New York Times Exposes Radiation Errors in New York Hospitals - An article by The New York Times yesterday revealed startling results of an investigation into radiation treatment errors at New York hospitals and illustrated two cases with tragic consequences. The article also exposed the lack of radiation error reporting regulations and government or industry oversight. The New York Times studied public and private records and interviewed physicians, medical physicists, researchers and government regulators for the article and found that, “While this new technology allows doctors to more accurately attack tumors and reduce certain mistakes, its complexity has created new avenues for error — through software flaws, faulty programming, poor safety procedures or inadequate staffing and training. When those errors occur, they can be crippling.” Their investigation found 621 mistakes involving radiation treatment errors from 2001 to 2008 at hospitals in New York State. The article states that in 133 of the cases, the devices used to shape or modulate radiation beams were left out, wrongly positioned or otherwise misused. In 284 cases, the investigation found radiation missed all or part of its intended target or treated the wrong body part entirely, including radioactive seeds implanted in the wrong location, patients receiving the wrong treatment or receiving treatment specified for another patient instead of their own.

January 25, 2010 - Vineland Daily Journal - Operations back to normal at nuke plant - Normal operations have resumed at a Salem County nuclear power plant that was temporarily shut down for repairs. The Salem 2 plant -- one of three nuclear reactors on Artificial Island -- automatically went offline at 6:20 p.m. Thursday after low water levels were recorded inside a steam generator. PSEG Nuclear, which operates all three plants, said the problem was caused by the failure of a feed-water pump that supplies water to the steam generator. The generator and pump are on the non-nuclear side of the plant. Salem 2 went back online around 6:15 a.m. Saturday, officials said, and was returned to full power later in the day. The two other plants at the site -- Salem 1 and Hope Creek -- were not affected by the pump failure and continue to operate at full power.

January 25, 2010 - Nuclear Engineering International - First criticality for Rajasthan 6 - Unit-6 of Rajasthan Atomic Power Project has reached first criticality, bringing the total number of reactors in India to 19 and the country’s installed capacity to 4560MW. The milestone was reached on 23 January 2010 at 21:53hrs. RAPP-6 is a 220MW pressurized heavy water reactor (PHWRs), one of six at the Rawatbhata site in Rajasthan, northwestern India. In December 2009, sister unit RAPP-5 was synchronized to the grid, around a month after its first criticality. RAPP-5&6 have been designed and built by Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL), a public sector undertaking under the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE). The reactors, which use natural uranium and heavy water moderator and coolant, were placed under IAEA safeguards in late 2009 and use imported fuel. Construction of four 700MW PHWRs, including two more at Rawatbhata site, has been approved by the government and is being taken up. It is expected to take 60 months to build the reactors from first concrete to criticality.

January 25, 2010 - ABC Online - Chemists discover 'Venus fly trap' of radioactive waste - SHANE MCLEOD: More than 20 years after a nuclear reactor exploded in fire and spewed radioactive dust into the atmosphere above Chernobyl in the Ukraine, much of the land surrounding the power plant remains uninhabitable. One of the radioactive isotopes that's causing the trouble is known as caesium-137. It's highly toxic, lasts for years and can cause cancer in people up to 30 years after the time it enters the body. And it's difficult to clean-up. But a team of researchers in the US has developed a new material to soak up caesium which they say works like a Venus fly trap. Ashley Hall reports. ASHLEY HALL: The explosion and fire that tore through the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986 sent a massive plume of highly radioactive dust drifting over Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia and right across Europe. When emergency crews finally brought the blaze under control the Soviet authorities built a huge concrete sarcophagus over the reactor to prevent more waste from escaping. But the radioactive dust that was released remains a big problem today, particularly because it contains the highly toxic isotope caesium-137. MERCOURI KANATZIDIS: It's a gamma ray emitter. It's very undesirable. It makes the waste very difficult to handle. So one has to remove caesium and concentrate it into a very small volume and then remove it from the rest of the liquid waste so it can be processed normally.

January 25, 2010 - Associated Press - NRC To Review Nuclear Plant Tritium Monitoring - Inspectors from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will arrive this week to review Vermont Yankee's groundwater testing program after a tritium leak was found at the plant. The Vermont Yankee nuclear plant also is stepping up its sampling program. Plant spokesman Rob Williams says new well drilling at the Vernon reactor began this weekend — to be followed within days by expanded testing. Plant officials say there's no threat to the public health from the radioactive tritium found in a groundwater monitoring well and a concrete enclosure containing underground pipes. Tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, has been linked in high amounts to cancer, birth defects and genetic mutations.

January 23-24, 2010 - Webmuenster took the weekend off.

January 22, 2010 - Symmetry Breaking - Fermilab seeks new associate director, Steve Holmes focuses on Project X - The increasing momentum behind the proposed Project X experiment has swept Steve Holmes into a new position at the laboratory and put in motion the search for a new associate director. Holmes is beginning the transition out of the associate laboratory director for accelerator post, which he has held for the past decade, so that he can focus solely on Project X. He has been acting project manager for Project X since August 2008, but rarely able to dedicate more than 15 percent of his time to the intense proton source. “I’ve been here a long time and frankly, the lab could probably benefit from fresh blood in this office,” Holmes said. “I would like to dedicate myself full-time to Project X. I think that is the most important thing I can do for the lab right now.” To the Project X team he brings project manager experience shepherding the Main Injector to fruition and institutional knowledge of how the Project X proposal has evolved since its 2004 inception. Holmes has put together a strong team that has generated during the last year an initial configuration document, cost estimate and details of how Project X would further a proposed muon collider. He hopes the experiment receives the first stage of DOE approval, Critical Decision-0, by the end of FY2010. “I don’t think we can have a world-leading, sustainable, competitive particle physics program based solely on accelerators that are based overseas,” Holmes said. “I think if we build Project X, this will be the base of our program for 30 years.” Holmes will handle the day-to-day work of Project X, including guiding it through the DOE requirements for experiment approval and construction.

January 22, 2010 - Review-Messenger - Nuclear ‘Renaissance’ or ‘Retreat’? France is not the Example - It is perhaps no accident that the nuclear power industry chose a French word – “renaissance” – to promote its alleged comeback. Attached to this misapplied moniker are a series of fallacious suggestions that nuclear energy is “clean,” “safe” and even “renewable.” And, in keeping with its French flavor, a key argument in the industry’s propaganda arsenal is that the U.S. should follow the “successful” example of the French nuclear program. France serves as a convenient sound bite for politicians and others advocating a nuclear revival (hypocritically evoked by many of the same people who insisted on “Freedom Fries” at the start of the Iraq War). A failure to challenge this facile falsehood has cemented the myth of a French nuclear Utopia in the minds of the public. It masks a very different reality. France gets 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear power. However, this alone does not constitute a success. Rather, it results in the production of an enormous amount of radioactive waste that, as is the case for all other nuclear countries, has nowhere to go. France has no operating geological repository for nuclear waste. To date, therefore, it has resorted to reprocessing, a highly contaminating chemical process that separates uranium and plutonium while releasing large quantities of liquid and aerial radioactivity into the environment. These wastes have rendered the seabed near the French La Hague reprocessing center on the Normandy coast equivalent to radioactive waste. Liquid radioactive contamination from La Hague has been found in the Arctic Circle, while radioactive gases such as krypton 85 have been tracked around the world. However, contrary to myth, reprocessed French waste is not “recycled.” The hottest waste, about 4 percent of the total, is stored at La Hague, along with about 81 tonnes of separated – and proliferation-friendly – plutonium (1 percent of the total). The remaining 95 percent, mostly uranium, is stored at another nuclear center, Pierrelatte, in southern France. Rather than “recycled," this waste is simply transferred from La Hague operator, Areva, to the French electricity utility, Électicité de France (EDF). France does not have the technology to re-enrich this uranium but some of it is exported to Russia which does.

January 22, 2010 - Philadelphia Daily News - Report finds high rate of thyroid cancer in eastern Pa.; blames nuclear power plants - Residents of eastern Pennsylvania might not know it, but they're living in the middle of a thyroid-cancer hot spot, according to a public-health advocate. The eastern side of the state lays claim to six of the nation's top 18 counties with the highest thyroid-cancer rates, according to figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Pennsylvania ranked as the No. 1 state in thyroid-cancer cases between 2001 and 2005, 12.8 cases per 100,000 residents. (New Jersey comes in at No. 5 with 11.8 cases per 100,000.) Joseph Mangano, the executive director of the Radiation and Public Health Project research group, said yesterday that he believes the spike in cancer is due to the high number of nuclear plants in the area. At a news conference at City Hall where thyroid-cancer survivors and physicians also spoke, Mangano said that within 100 miles of eastern Pennsylvania, 16 nuclear reactors are operating at seven nuclear plants, the highest concentration in the country. The emissions from the Limerick and Three-Mile Island plants don't come close to those from the 1945 bombing of Hiroshima or the 1986 Chernobyl accident, but "that doesn't necessarily mean [it's] safer," Mangano said. "Not only have we documented an epidemic of thyroid cancer in the area, but we have raised a red flag for more and more detailed study of the relationship between the reactor emissions and thyroid cancer," Mangano said. Mangano, who published his findings in the International Journal of Health Services, said that the only known cause of thyroid cancer is exposure to radiation, specifically radioactive iodine, "one of the 100 man-made chemicals" produced by nuclear energy.

January 22, 2010 - Associated Press - Company's missing nuclear gauge found - State environmental officials say a nuclear density gauge has been found after a Pittsburgh-area engineering company noticed it was missing earlier this month. The Department of Environmental Protection says the device, used to measure material density during construction projects, was found by an Economy Borough road crew worker along a road Thursday. That's about 15 miles northwest of Pittsburgh. The DEP says no radioactive materials leaked, and the public wasn't in danger. Jeff Zell Consultants Inc. in Coraopolis noticed the device was missing Jan. 4. The DEP is investigating whether the company violated its license to have and use equipment containing radioactive materials by waiting 10 days to report it missing.

January 22, 2010 - DG News - Ultrasound Plus Proteomic Blood Analyses May Help Diagnose Early-Stage Ovarian Cancer - Noninvasive contrast-enhanced ultrasound imaging, combined with proteomic analyses of blood samples may help physicians identify early-stage ovarian cancer, according to a study published in the February issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology. "The fact that so many women are not diagnosed until their disease is advanced confirms the inadequacy of pelvic examinations and standard ultrasound in detecting early-stage ovarian cancer and the dire need for a validated screening method for the detection of early-stage disease," said lead author David A. Fishman, MD, Division of Gynecologic Oncology, New York University (NYU) School of Medicine, and the Cancer Screening and Prevention Program, NYU Cancer Institute, New York, New York. "The ability to detect ovarian cancer by a simple blood test has long been the holy grail of screening tests," he said. "Although a single biomarker blood test would be ideal and simple, it is not possible at present." The study of proteomics and new analytical techniques using mass spectrometry has led to the discovery of hundreds of unique proteins that may serve as biomarkers and aid in the detection of early-stage cancer. "This new discovery sheds light on the possibility that highly discriminatory proteins may be used for the detection of ovarian cancer," said Dr. Fishman. "However it is necessary to verify any information found by proteomic analysis with an imaging technique." Researchers have discovered that contrast-enhanced ultrasound may play a complementary role to confirming or refuting newly discovered biomarkers' ability to accurately detect early-stage ovarian cancer. "We also found that the contrast agents may significantly improve the diagnostic ability of ultrasound to identify early microvascular changes that are known to be associated with early-stage ovarian cancer," said coauthor Arthur C. Fleischer, MD, Radiology and Radiological Sciences, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee.

January 22, 2010 - Calgary Herald - Some full-body scanners not without cancer risk: experts - As airports around the world make wider use of full-body scanners in an attempt to improve security, a debate is stirring about the health risks of exposing millions of people to small doses of radiation, which some experts say could contribute to a few additional cancer deaths a year. Of particular concern are the "backscatter scanners" being installed in the U.S. and being considered for Britain, following the foiled plot to blow up an airplane bound for Detroit on Christmas Day. Given that Canadians routinely travel to both countries, radiation experts are scrambling to understand the backscatter scanner's rare but potential risks, especially for flight crews, frequent flyers and such vulnerable groups as pregnant women, babies and young children, who are more sensitive to radiation's damaging effects. Full-body scanners that are already in some airports use a different type of imaging technology called "millimetre wave," which uses less powerful, non-ionizing radiation that does not pose the same hazards. All scanners being installed in Canadian airports are millimetre-wave machines, meaning passengers who travel within the country need not worry about extra radiation risks, said Dr. James Fraser, president-elect of the Canadian Association of Radiologists. "They use quite low-power radio waves that are fairly commonplace in our surroundings all the time," said Fraser, a radiology professor at Dalhousie University. The situation is different with the backscatter machines being installed in U.S. airports, which use radiation-emitting X-rays to create a three-dimensional image of a person's body that would detect hidden objects, such as weapons or explosives.

January 22, 2010 - DOTmed - A Clear Image: A look at current happenings with X-ray tubes and image intensifiers - Radiology departments are doing their best to keep down costs and an influx of X-ray tube choices and image intensifier (II) upgrades has made that a little easier over the last year or two. "The Diagnostic Imaging industry is in the middle of a revolutionary change, as digital imaging becomes the standard on radiology and fluoroscopy systems," says David Hurlock, International Marketing Manager for Varian Medical Systems. "Diagnostic Imaging is where photography was 10 years ago, with the transition from analog imaging to digital imaging gaining speed. Image intensifiers, film, and CR are being replaced by flat panel digital detectors."  Today, hospitals have more tube choices than they did just a few years ago, and many healthcare professionals are not giving in to the belief that they must switch from image intensifiers to flat panel technology right away. Looking at both segments of the imaging industry, the companies that are successful are those that are helping to maximize equipment life and provide lower cost solutions in replacing or installing X-ray tubes. "Driving down diagnostic imaging costs per procedure is the most important challenge facing the industry today," Hurlock says. "Equipment costs have to be justified by lowering the cost of individual examinations. A large capital cost can be justified, as long as it lowers the per patient procedure cost."

January 22, 2010 - The Heartland Institute - Yucca Mountain Decision Ignores Science - In President Barack Obama’s speech to the National Academy of Sciences on April 27, 2009, he said: “Under my administration, the days of science taking a back seat to ideology are over. Our progress as a nation--and our values as a nation--are rooted in free and open inquiry. To undermine scientific integrity is to undermine our democracy.” While the overall tone was the strongest pro-science White House position in years, the actions of the Secretary of Energy on the issue of the Yucca Mountain Project are not in line with this edict. Seldom in history has such a small piece of real estate been subjected to such thorough and comprehensive [study]. And yet the selection of this site has been mired in political controversy from the very beginning. What has been ignored in the controversy are the extensive scientific analyses conducted in support of a proposed repository, along with both national and international peer reviews. The site has been studied exhaustively for 30 years now, and as much as $10 billion has been expended in scientific research. Yucca Mountain was one of nine sites initially studied for the first repository under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (NWPA). Its identification as a potential site followed early work by the U.S. Geological Survey showing that disposal in the unsaturated zone would offer advantages in deep geologic disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level radioactive waste (HLW). The conclusion was based on the premise that, because water was the medium that would eventually transport radionuclides away from the repository, a repository site in an environment with limited water would be a benefit to repository performance that was provided by the natural system.

January 22, 2010 - Burlington Free Press - Nuclear plant relicensing decision should go ahead, Douglas says - Gov. Jim Douglas said he continues to view the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant as an important part of the state’s economy and thinks the Legislature should act on the plant’s license extension this session. Despite revelations of a tritium leak and that Vermont Yankee’s owners misinformed the state about the pipes that might be involved in the leak, Douglas said Thursday he supports a legislative vote to allow the state Public Service Board to decide the plant’s future after its license expires in 2012. “I believe they can trust the Public Service Board to make the right decision considering all this information and everything else that will come out,” Douglas said Thursday during his weekly news conference. He said his administration’s input to the Public Service Board on the decision would depend on the outcome of the pending issues over tritium. He acknowledged, however, that if the Legislature were to vote immediately, it would likely be against sending the case to the Public Service Board. “Perhaps not taking it today would be prudent,” he said. “I’m not sure whether there’d be confidence.” Legislative leaders have said they are unlikely to vote before an oversight panel has a chance to review the misinformation Vermont Yankee provided and report back in February. That panel will reconvene Monday.

January 22, 2010 - Ireland Online - Weapons firm ceases bible reference printing on gun sights - An American defence contractor said today it would stop stamping bible references on combat rifle sights sold to the US Army and Marines and the Australian and New Zealand military. In Britain, the Ministry of Defence had bought 400 of the sights for the Army's Sharpshooter assault rifle, unaware of the biblical references. The references to Bible passages raised concerns that the citations broke a US government rule that bars proselytising by American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, which are predominantly Muslim countries. In a statement, Trijicon of Wixom, Michigan, said it was also providing free modification kits to the armed forces to remove the citations from the telescopic sights already in use. The US Marine Corps and US Army have bought more than 300,000 Trijicon sights. A spokesman for US Central Command initially said the Trijicon sights did not break the ban and compared the citations on the sights to the "In God We Trust" inscription on US currency. But yesterday Army general David Petraeus, Central Command's top officer, called the practice "disturbing". "This is a serious concern to me and the other commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan," General Petraeus told an audience at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.  In a statement issued later, General Petraeus said "cultural and religious sensitivities are important considerations in the conduct of military operations". New Zealand announced yesterday that it would remove the citations from the sights and Australia is considering the situation. The inscriptions are not obvious and appear in raised lettering at the end of the stock number. Trijicon's rifle sights use tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen, to create light and help hit the troops' target.

January 22, 2010 - The Sun Chronicle - Former Metals and Controls employees can apply - Some former employees of Metals and Controls Corp. who worked with radioactive material for nuclear weapons and later became ill with certain cancers may be eligible for benefits from the federal government. The U.S. Department of Labor issued a press release Thursday announcing that employees at Metals and Controls who worked at the company between 1952 and 1967 have been added to the federal government's Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program. Metals and Controls was purchased by Texas Instruments in 1959. Employees who qualify would have became ill with one of 22 specific cancers and had to have worked at least 250 days in an eligible job to qualify. If a determination is made that a former employee is qualified, he or she would be able to receive compensation and medical benefits. Survivors of qualified workers may also be entitled to benefits. The government released the information in an effort to get in contact with former employees who may be eligible.

January 22, 2010 - Times Argus - AG probing Yankee official - Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell is investigating whether a top Entergy official misled state regulators last year when he testified under oath that the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant does not send radioactive water through underground pipes. Sorrell had no comment Thursday when asked if there was an investigation, but Gov. James Douglas broke the news Thursday morning during his weekly press conference as reporters questioned him about the administration's faith in Entergy. When asked how he could trust Entergy officials after they gave inaccurate information under oath to the Vermont Public Service Board about their use of underground pipes – infrastructure now suspected of leaking the radioactive isotope tritium – Douglas mentioned Sorrell's investigation. "That is the method of ensuring accurate testimony," Douglas said, noting the PSB, the state's utility regulation arm, swears in witnesses in before they testify, "and the attorney general is looking into this and if there was misrepresentation that rises to a level of being worthy of charges, we'll pursue it." Entergy, the owner of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, had hoped to win lawmakers' favor this year as the Legislature considers allowing the Vernon reactor to operate for an additional 20 years after 2012, when it is now scheduled to shut down. Instead, the company is now being forced to apologize for what it calls misstatements to lawmakers, state regulators and others about its use of underground pipes carrying radioactive water. Even Douglas, a strong supporter of Vermont Yankee, said the company needs to "rebuild the trust that has been broken with Vermonters."

January 22, 2010 - Deutsche Welle - Radiation leak at Germany's sole uranium enrichment facility - The facility in Gronau is one of a kind in GermanyA radiation leak at Germany's only uranium enrichment facility has left one man in hospital. Although there was no danger of exposure to the surrounding population, some groups are calling for the plant's closure. An accident at Germany's sole uranium enrichment facility in North Rhine Westphalia has left one worker in hospital under observation. The incident occurred at the plant in the town of Gronau, when a room in the uranium enrichment facility was accidently exposed to radioactive material. The worker was in the room when the accident occurred, and was taken to the hospital as a precaution. He is expected to be released Friday. According to the plant's operating company, URENCO, the radiation levels in the room after the incident were below acceptable operating levels, but there was no danger at any time to the surrounding population. The air in the room was filtered before being released, free of radiation, outside the facility.

January 22, 2010 - Northumberland Today - Eldorado Town looks at the legacy of LLRW - Jokes about Port Hope glowing in the dark, and the more serious concerns about building a final resting place for low-level radioactive waste, are well known, but how many people in the region know the history that has left this legacy? 4th Line Theatre founding artistic director Robert Winslow hopes to fill in the blanks in this summer's production ofEldorado Town: The Port Hope Play,written by Charles Hayter. "It's always good to take on something challenging, " Winslow said in an interview withNorthumberland Today. His plan is to mount the production in the barnyard of the 4th Line Theatre located on his farm, using the quadrangle of buildings and stylized staging to replicate the Eldorado Mining and Refining (gold) company that was expropriated by the Canadian government as a wartime measure, and that eventually became the Cameco Corporation of today on the shore of Lake Ontario in Port Hope. The play focuses on: the background of the company from about 1930 to 1946 with the discovery of radium by brothers Gilbert and Charles LaBine; building a refinery in a former seed company plant located in Port Hope; the importance of radium in fighting cancer; and then the biproduct of radium refining, uranium, used in the creation of the atomic bomb and fueling nuclear reactors. "It sounds like an exciting and ground-breaking time," Winslow says of the discovery of "pitchblende" by Gilbert LaBine at Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories and the subsequent scientific developments. With the production of radium and uranium from pitchblende, Canada was taken into the atomic age and Gilbert LaBine was made an member of the Order of Canada and the British Empire.

January 21, 2010 - Minneapolis Star-Tribune - Prairie Island nuclear plant reports radioactive tools missing - A half-dozen tools containing radioactive material have gone missing at the Prairie Island nuclear power plant. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission reported the incident Tuesday, a day after Xcel Energy, the plant's operator, informed the agency. The agency reported that the missing tools were discovered last month during an inventory of the plant in Red Wing. Although the tools contain levels of radioactivity that exceed some NRC regulations, an agency inspector found them "not to be of concern from a radiological standpoint." Operators of the Prairie Island nuclear power plant twice violated federal nuclear safety rules in 2008, but the violations did not pose a safety threat to the public or plant workers. State regulators last fall approved Xcel's request to increase power and radioactive waste storage at the plant.

January 21, 2010 - Momsword.org - A place to heal oneself at aquae sulis Bath, England  - In Bath, Avon, UK there is something there that people have to experience. When I lived in the UK, I traveled to many cities in England and one of the city I loved was Bath, England. Why? Because of the Roman Baths. This hot spring bubbling at the rate of 120 degrees Fahrenhite has many mythological associations to it. The Bath, previously belonging to the South Western England was thought of as the worship place of Goddess Suli – The Goddess of Water. She offered her deities the water of heaven to cleanse themselves but with the Roman Invasion in England, they started calling the bath the gift of Goddess Minerva – The healing diety. experts have found that the bath water contains minerals like iron, magnesium, potassium, copper and radium, which when bathed in absorbs into the body curing skin diseases. yes it is true. I had a headache (sinus) when I arrived there, so when I went into the Aqua Suils, not the actual Roman bit but (from what I remember) the restaurant part, you can try the water. So my friend who was with me and I drank it and instantly I felt better. My sinus headache was gone and any pain I had in my body, was gone.

January 21, 2010 - Modesto Bee - Kings County landfill says no to radioactive materials - Radioactive waste from a former nuclear and rocket-research site near Los Angeles will not be dumped in a Kings County landfill. Waste Management, which runs a hazardous-waste landfill in the Kettleman Hills, notified the California Environmental Protection Agency this month that it won't accept hazardous waste from Boeing's Santa Susana Field Lab. Kettleman City is about 50 miles southwest of Fresno, along Interstate 5.   The decision was announced by Waste Management's senior district manager Robert Henry in a letter sent to state EPA Secretary Linda Adams. Fear over radioactive waste from the Boeing site has been a key point for opponents of a landfill expansion. In a statement, Maricela Mares Alatorre of the Kettleman City group People for Clean Air and Water called the decision "a great victory for our community." Waste Management spokeswoman Helen Herrera said the decision was not related to the landfill opponents, but to community concerns and regulatory issues over the types of waste the landfill can accept. In his letter to Adams, Henry cited "uncertainty and community concerns about levels of radioactive constituents" in waste from Santa Susana. From 1947 to 2006, Santa Susana — about 30 miles north of downtown Los Angeles, in Ventura County — was used to test rocket engines for the space program. Until 1988, some of the site was used for nu- clear energy research.

January 21, 2010 - Lower Hudson News - Nuke plant may dismiss guard whose gun went off - The Indian Point security guard who fired his weapon inside a building at the nuclear plant could be fired, company officials said Wednesday. "Disciplinary actions can include termination upon the completion and review of the incident," said Jerry Nappi, a spokesman for Entergy Nuclear, which owns and operates Indian Point. The security guard, whose name was not released by plant officials, has been suspended without pay indefinitely since the gun went off about 4 p.m. Saturday. Nappi declined to say what caliber handgun the guard fired, but said it was a lone bullet that was accidentally shot and ended up piercing a nearby wall and falling "harmlessly" in the next room. He said the building was empty. The handgun was issued by the plant as part of the guard's regular equipment and guards routinely are trained in handling firearms, officials said. The shooting occurred in a newly renovated office building on site that was empty at the time. The guard was supposed to be in that building at that time, Nappi said. "There's a review ongoing to look at what happened," Nappi said. "The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and state troopers in Cortlandt were notified. At this juncture, it has been determined to be an accident, not a criminal matter."

January 21, 2010 - The Warren Record - Uranium threat to local lakes under study - A $437,000 study being conducted by the city of Virginia Beach, Va. will examine what might happen to the water quality in Lake Gaston and Kerr Lake if a proposed uranium mine in Chatham, Va. were struck by a Probable Maximum Precipitation (PMP) storm. "The state is attempting to get a study going through the National Academy of Science," said Virginia Beach Director of Public Works Thomas Leahy. "But that study will not look at site specific issues or do any modeling of possible catastrophic events." Leahy said the study being conducted by Virginia Beach is designed to supplement the work of the National Academy of Science by looking at what would happen if a major storm flooded the proposed uranium mining site and washed radioactive materials downstream. The study focuses on PMP storms, a theoretical storm that produces the greatest depth of precipitation for a given duration that is physically possible in a particular geographical location. "PMP storms, while not common, can occur on the eastern ridge of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and it is very important that somebody model this type of storm," Leahy said. "Our study will model the transport of large quantities of mill tailing downstream and attempt to assess where they would end up and what they would do to the water quality. "I have no idea what finding will come back. It is conceivable that because Kerr is so large it may raise the water radiation but not by a significant amount. If the study came back and said nothing would happen, that would be a cause of relief for Virginia Beach."

January 21, 2010 - Burlington Free Press - High levels of tritium found in Vermont Yankee trench; Nuclear plant, state knew of contamination for a week - Water containing high levels of the radioactive isotope tritium was found last week in a concrete tunnel at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, officials revealed Wednesday. Tests showed 2.1 million picocuries of tritium in a sample taken from 150 gallons of water in the tunnel that connects a radioactive storage room to outside tanks, said Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Neither the standing water nor the tritium is supposed to be there, he noted. Also Wednesday, officials said that tests results released Tuesday from a second monitoring well at the plant were inaccurate because the test was conducted incorrectly and the level of tritium in that well is not elevated.

January 21, 2010 - Kerryman.ie - Prime Time show on Radon - While Radon Gas is a real live threat to communities the length and breadth of this country, Castleisland is often focused upon when the problem is discussed at a national level. The highest readings of Radon Gas anywhere in Ireland were detected in a house here in Castleisland after the untimely deaths of several occupants of that house. The town has featured in a couple of such television airings associated with the gas over the past decade. And so it is with a Prime Time look at the silent killer gas on this Thursday night on RTE 1 after the 9pm news. Footage for the programme was filmed here in town and surrounding areas on Thursday last. There were several stories of cowboy operators advertising and carrying out all kinds of remedies and repairs for frightened and vulnerable householders in the wake of the last round of publicity. No doubt there will be one or two more coming out of the woodwork in the wake of this one.

January 21, 2010 - Blue Ridge Now - Learn about nuclear power - To The Editor: Duke Energy Carolinas' application to build two nuclear power plants on the Broad River near Gaffney, S.C. has been accepted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Hendersonville is approximately fifty miles from the site of the two Westinghouse AP1000 Pressurized Water Reactors. Should nuclear power be part of the United States Energy Plan considering the cost and the environmental impact? The Four Seasons Sierra Committee invites the public to our Jan. 28 meeting at 6:30 p.m. for meet and greet and 7 p.m. for the program at the Henderson County Main Library. Our guest speaker is Dr. Donald Richardson, pathologist (retired). Dr. Richardson is a graduate of Dartmouth and UNC-Chapel Hill Medical School, and practiced pathology for 35 years in Virginia. He has served on the National Board of Physicians for Social Responsibility and is now a regional member. The topic is Nuclear Power: Man and Radiation. Please join us. Barbara A. Barnett, Hendersonville, Four Seasons Sierra Committee.

January 21, 2010 - The Comet 24 - Autistic daughter at risk from Letchworth phone mast, court told - An engineer who claims plans for a mobile phone mast right outside his home threaten the health of his autistic daughter must wait to hear the outcome of his High Court test case challenge to the proposal. Alan Cox, of Hitchin Road, Letchworth GC has asked Judge Robin Purchas QC to quash planning permission granted by a Government planning inspector to T-Mobile (UK) Ltd for a 10-metre high column with three mobile telecommunications antennae on the grass verge immediately adjacent to his home. Mr Cox, a chartered engineer and member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, whose professional experience includes microwave transmission, says that the proposal puts his 26-year old daughter at risk. She has suffered lifelong severe neurological problems resulting from a brain injury at birth, and is autistic and hypersensitive. She spends most of the time in the house, where her mother is her full time carer. Mr Cox says he is concerned what further effect low level microwave radiation will have on her. He says that the planning application was formally opposed by four people on health and visual impact grounds, and that a petition against it received 31 signatures. North Herts District Council rejected the application, finding that the proposal would be inappropriate development and out of keeping with the nearby lampposts, one of which it would replace. It found that ancillary equipment cabinets would be unacceptable street clutter.

January 10, 2010 - BiomedME - The Future of the European Nuclear Imaging Equipment Market is Promising - Bharatbook.com added a new report on “Europe Nuclear Imaging Equipment: Market Analysis and Opportunity Assessment” gives valuable insight on the pipeline products within the Europe nuclear imaging equipment market. "Europe Nuclear Imaging Equipment: Market Analysis and Opportunity Assessment" This report is an essential source of data and analysis on the Europe nuclear imaging equipment market with complete coverage by categories. The report provides market landscape, competitive landscape and market trends information on two market categories – gamma camera, single photon emission computed tomography, and positron emission tomography. The report identifies the key trends shaping and driving the dynamism in the Europe nuclear imaging equipment market. The report also provides insight on the prevalent competitive landscape and on the emerging players which are expected to bring significant shift in the market standing of the existing leaders. The report also provides valuable insight on the pipeline products within the Europe nuclear imaging equipment market.

January 21, 2010 - Tri-City Herald - More Hanford downwinder claims will go to trial - More Hanford downwinders could be going to trial to have their claims heard in a 19-year-old case. Almost 2,000 plaintiffs have pending claims, many of them asserting that past emissions of radioactive material from the Hanford nuclear reservation were carried downwind and caused cancer or other thyroid disease. Some people also believe they developed other cancers from eating contaminated fish. On Wednesday, Judge William Fremming Nielsen of Eastern Washington District Federal Court in Spokane said that he would select 30 of the claims for hypothyroidism, or underactive thyroids, to proceed to trial as soon as October. In addition, about 32 claims filed for thyroid cancer will be considered for settlement with the help of a mediator. Nearly a year ago Nielsen indicated that trying cases in individual trials would be too time consuming and costly. Just 10 claims have been resolved through litigation since the case was filed in 1991 and some jury decisions since have been reversed by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

January 21, 2010 - East Lothian Courier - Nuke waste debate returns - East Lothian could become a permanent storage site for radioactive nuclear waste if Scottish Government proposals to deal with the country's "nuclear industry legacy" are approved. A new consultation document 'Scotland's Higher Activity Radioactive Waste Policy' was published by the Government last Friday, which argues for the creation of permanent "near surface, near site" underground storage units close to existing nuclear facilities, reducing the need for waste to be transported long distances. The government has said that no specific locations had been identified at this stage but Scotland's current nuclear sites are located at Torness, by Dunbar, Rosyth, Hunterston, Chapelcross and Dounreay. In June 2007 the Scottish Government announced that its policy for the long-term management of higher activity radioactive wastes arising in Scotland was to "support long-term near surface, near site storage facilities so that the waste is monitorable and retrievable and the need for transporting it over long distances is minimal". Announcing the consultation, Environment Secretary Richard Lochhead MSP said: "The nuclear industry's legacy is higher activity radioactive waste that we have been left to manage at great expense. "This is not a legacy we chose to be burdened with but it exists and we must now focus on finding a responsible solution for managing it."

January 21, 2010 - ANSAmed - Hammamet to host first Arab inspectors meeting - To examine problems related to differing legislation, nuclear control and security, as well as regulations for accident prevention and the handling of radioactive waste. These are the major issues to be dealt with in the first meeting of Arab nuclear inspectors, organised in Hammamet by the Tunis-headquartered Arab Atomic Energy Agency (AAEA). Experts and heads of control agencies and governments from 21 Arab, European and North American countries will be taking part. The aim is to draw up a three-year cooperation project in order to make national infrastructures safer, with special reference to control institutions specialised in stability, security and guarantees in Arab countries. The cooperation programme is part of the implementation of the Arab strategy concerning peaceful uses of atomic energy decided in the Doha summit in March 2009. Other objectives of the Hammamet meeting are the examination of human resources, training and the implementation of specialised structures and bodies, as well as improvement in national structures for atomic security. The Arab Agency for Atomic Energy was founded twenty years ago and aims to ensure the coordination of Arab countries in sectors linked to the use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes and its security.

January 20, 2010 - Business Week - Exxon Hid Radiation Risk to Workers for Decades, Witness Says - Exxon Mobil Corp., the largest U.S. energy company, “knew or should have known” that drilling pipes it sent to a Louisiana pipe yard were contaminated with dangerous radioactive material, a witness testified today. Paul Templet, a former secretary of Louisiana’s Department of Environmental Quality, told jurors in a civil trial in state court in Gretna, Louisiana, that internal Exxon memos showed the company had information beginning in the 1930s about cancer- causing radium in the residue, or “scale,” that built up inside its pipes. Templet testified as the first witness for 19 former pipe workers who are suing Exxon, claiming they were exposed to radiation and now fear they may get cancer. Templet said Exxon failed to report the contamination to his former agency until as late as 1988, endangering workers who cleaned the pipes at a Louisiana work site. “If you keep the information from the workers, you’re creating a big problem,” Templet told the 12 jurors and their four alternates. Exxon denies it did anything wrong and claims none of the 19 plaintiffs has suffered any radiation-related health problems. The workers are all former employees of Intracoastal Tubular Services, or ITCO, at a site in Harvey, Louisiana, near New Orleans.

January 20, 2010 - Associated Press - Exelon, GE Hitachi to produce cobalt-60 at Clinton - Exelon is working on a pilot project to make a radiation product used to treat some cancers and sterilize food. The project is a partnership with GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy to produce cobalt-60. Exelon's power station in Clinton will be the site for the project announced Tuesday. Cobalt-60 is a byproduct of nuclear reaction operations. The main sources for the U.S. supply are Canada, Argentina and Russia, but Exelon says those supplies are dwindling. Exelon says the project won't affect the Clinton plant's ability to safely produce electricity. The project's first supply of cobalt-60 will be available for commercial use in about four years.

January 20, 2010 - Ft. Wayne Journal Gazette - Once-feared laser turns 50; No longer ‘death rays,’ beams’ use ubiquitous in 21st-century life - This year marks the 50th anniversary of one of the most portentous events in the history of science: the creation of the laser. Like many a transformative development, it was met initially with thunderous public indifference, although there were a few mutterings about “death rays.” A number of techno-pundits regarded the upstart gizmo as basically a glorified parlor trick, a “solution looking for a problem,” as Charles Townes, who won the Nobel Prize for pioneering the idea, later wrote. Half a century later, lasers check out our groceries, read and write CDs and DVDs, guide commercial aircraft, enable eye surgery and dental repairs, provide worldwide communications, survey the planet, cut metal for tools and are now poised to ignite nuclear fusion, among scores of other uses. Who knew? Certainly not Albert Einstein, who had predicted the laser effect way back in 1917. By then, physicists understood that virtually all the light you see is produced by a process called spontaneous emission. Zap a few atoms with the right amount of energy – including from light itself – and their electrons will absorb the energy and jump up to excited levels, the original “quantum leap.”

January 20, 2010 - Democrat & Chronicle - Health checkup: Another look at screening mammography - At the end of 2009, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) changed a number of recommendations for health care screening. Perhaps none of these was more controversial than the one regarding mammography. With one announcement, all that was accepted and practiced for years had been tossed out, creating enormous anxiety for both patients and physicians. So what exactly did the USPSTF recommend? A direct quote from their Web site is as follows: "The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends screening mammography, with or without clinical breast examination (CBE), every one to two years for women age 40 and older." I do not have the space to discuss the recommendations on self breast examination, however this statement represented a significant change from previous recommendations of annual mammography beginning at the age of 40. Reading further into the text of the recommendation, it is apparent that the strongest recommendation is for biennial mammograms between the ages of 50 and 70. Part of the basis of this recommendation was on modeling that the USPSTF did to evaluate the benefit and harm of mammography. The benefit of testing is obviously the early detection of malignancy; harms were considered false positive mammograms, unnecessary biopsies and overtreatment for disease that would not be life-threatening. Modeling data suggested that women between the age of 40 and 49 had a small benefit from annual mammography, however women 50 and older had little change in cancer deaths averted but had a nearly 50 percent reduction in false positive mammograms and unnecessary biopsies when mammography was conducted on a biennial basis. Interestingly, the USPSTF position now parallels the European and English mammography recommendations. Unfortunately the modeling did not use "mixed" regimens.

January 20, 2010 - Northern News - Radiation Roulette? - Beam me up, Scotty! Though CT scans and airport scanners are generations away from the transporters of Star Trekfame, they are now a part of everyday life. And while they may detect everything from cancer to concealed weapons, a growing number of people are also questioning their potential harm. "Radiation is all around us," explains Dr. Edward A. Lyons, president of the Canadian Association of Radiologists (CAR). "One year of natural background radiation (from the sun's rays hitting the Earth) is equivalent to 110 chest X-rays." There is further radiation in everything from cellphones to computer terminals, television sets and smoke detectors. Even granite countertops in kitchens give off radon gas. Radiation around us is no big deal, however. And the latest on those airport scanners is that the radiation emitted by "backscatter" X-ray machines (one of the kinds to be used) bounces off the skin, so exposure is very low. Your luggage, passing through a more traditional X-ray machine, is absorbing more in its screening than you will be. As for medical radiation, time was when the most we faced was the result of an occasional chest or dental X-ray. But today's diagnostic machines are much more powerful. "One abdominal CT scan is equal to 500 chest X-rays," says Lyons, a Manitoba radiologist who received the Order of Canada for his contribution to health care.

January 20, 2010 - Business Ghana - Bangladesh finds 8 potential heavy minerals in sea beach sand - Bangladeshi scientists have found eight potential heavy economic minerals in sands of the sea beach in the country and their reserve is estimated 1.76 million tons. Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission (BAEC) Chairman Mosharraf Hossain told Xinhua on Tuesday at an interview that the scientists of the commission are working on the sea beach for decades, and discovered eight heavy minerals in recent time through exploration in the beach of Bangladesh's tourist capital southeastern Cox's Bazar district, 391 km of capital Dhaka. He said the scientists found a total of 17 mineral sands deposits containing 23 percent heavy minerals and estimated reserve of them is 4.35 million tons. But only eight are economically viable for exploration. The heavy minerals found are: Ilmenite, Zircon, Rutile, Magnetite, Leucoxene, Kyanite, Garnet and Monazite. Economical viability of the heavy mineral deposits depended on the utilization of Ilmenite, which is the most dominant component in sands approximately one million tons of the total 1.76 million tons of eight minerals, Hossain said, adding that the marketing of the Ilmenite in its present form is not possible because of its quality is a bit low with 40 percent of titanium oxide against the commercial grade Ilmenite containing 55 percent.

January 20, 2010 - Associated Press - 2nd Vt. Yankee well tests positive for isotope - Elevated levels of radioactive material has been found in a second monitoring well at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, and the first well where an isotope was originally found is showing a higher concentration, the company said Tuesday. Plant spokesman Robert Williams said new tests of water from the first well showed tritium concentrations had grown from 17,000 to 22,300 picocuries per liter since the original discovery was announced nearly two weeks ago. The second well showed a concentration of 9,540 picocuries per liter. The Environmental Protection Agency safety standard for tritium in drinking water is 20,000 picocuries per liter. The news came as criticism continued over Vermont Yankee's admission last week that it had misled state regulators and legislators by saying repeatedly last year that the plant did not have underground piping that could carry radioactive tritium.

January 20, 2010 - Deutsche Welle - Three out of four Germans not safe from nuclear power accidents - Three out of four Germans live near a nuclear power stationNuclear power stations pose a threat to three out of four Germans, according to a new study published Tuesday by the German Environmental Foundation. But the government has recently decided to extend nuclear power. The figures are based on the foundation's 'Nuclear Power Atlas,' which counts the number of people living within a 150-kilometer (93-mile) radius of each of the 17 nuclear power stations in Germany - putting them in immediate danger in the event of a nuclear accident. Between 5.4 million and 11.8 million people were counted within the various zones, which cover most of the western and southern regions of Germany. The city of Bremen, within 150 kilometers of six nuclear powers stations, is particularly at risk. According to a foundation statement, the numbers are considered conservative, as "in the case of a big accident a lot more people could be affected by the radioactive fallout." Foundation board member Hans Guenter Schumacher concluded, "It's not just irresponsible, but inhuman that nuclear power stations continue to be operated in a country as densely populated as Germany when millions of people could be endangered by an accident."

January 20, 2010 - Business Report - First Uranium environmental clearance withdrawn - First Uranium has been notified that the authorisation for its uranium tailings facility has been withdrawn, it said on Wednesday. In a statement, the company said the North West provincial government's department of agriculture, conservation, environment and rural development had decided to withdraw the environmental authorisation. The facility was designed to accommodate future tailings deposition capacity requirements at the company's mine waste solutions tailings recovery project in SA. Uranium tailings are a waste by-product of uranium mining. The raw uranium ore is brought to the surface and crushed into a fine sand and the uranium-bearing minerals are then removed. The leftover radioactive sand -- or uranium tailings then have to be stored. "The decision to withdraw the environmental authorisation was unexpected as the company had in December 2009, secured the withdrawals of two of three previously filed third-party appeals."

January 20, 2010 - EngineerLive - Fluid mud density measurement saves harbour dredging costs - In just one outing, a mud density probe has saved Associated British Ports (ABP) over £70000 in dredging costs. It is easy to determine nautical depth where the bottom of the water area is bedrock. In most cases, however, the 'bottom' is composed of soft material such as silt or fine sediments which gradually increase in density with depth. Tidal currents or storms continually erode cohesive sediments and carry them into navigation channels. As the wave energy dissipates, initially mobile suspensions stagnate to form denser static suspensions, often called 'fluid mud', or sometimes 'slib' or 'sling mud'. Such static suspensions can appear very suddenly after a storm. They may have two or more layers and may reach up to three metres in depth, which can take them significantly higher than the channel datum. Experience in the Netherlands and elsewhere indicates that although manoeuvring characteristics may change somewhat, ships can still navigate safely through fluid mud containing up to about 15 per cent by volume of dry sediment, corresponding to a density of around 1200kg/m3. The challenge is to detect the depth at which the fluid mud reaches this critical density. A standard leadline will always indicate the greatest depth, usually at a mud density of over 1300kg/m3, while an echo sounder with a 210 kHz transducer will indicate the least depth, where the density is around 1060km/m3. This appears to be the case regardless of the consolidation of the silt.

January 20, 2010 - Malaysia Sun - Japanese to receive UK radioactive waste - Highly radioactive waste from the UK is being shipped back to Japan. The waste, from the Sellafield nuclear complex, is a by-product of nuclear fuel which was sent to the UK from Japan for reprocessing during the 1980s and 1990s. The reprocessing involved extracting reusable uranium and plutonium from the nuclear fuel, which left behind a liquid waste. Over the next decade, the UK intends sending other high-level waste back to European countries.

January 20, 2010 - Environmental Expert - Berkeley lab awarded $12.8 million in stimulus funds for health research  - Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has been awarded $12.8 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for research into cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, radioactive decontamination and a variety of other health conditions. The grants bring Berkeley Lab’s total Recovery Act funding to more than $240 million in areas covering energy, computing and general science, as well as infrastructure projects. The NIH grants will go to 14 individual research projects ranging from disease investigation to the development of tools for medical researchers. “The Recovery Act grants from NIH have allowed us to create quite a few new positions for scientists, technicians, research associates and postdoctoral fellows, as well as retain some jobs,” said Joe Gray, Associate Laboratory Director for Life Sciences. “We’re helping to train the nation’s next generation of scientists while also doing important research in critical areas of human health that we may not have been able to do without these funds.” The largest individual award is $4.2 million for a two-year research project to develop treatments for contamination by radioactive actinide particles, such as those from fallout from a nuclear accident or a so-called “dirty bomb.” Berkeley Lab’s Glenn T. Seaborg Center (GTSC) has been working for years on oral therapeutics to treat internal actinide contamination, and this work has taken on more urgency in recent years as threats of nuclear terrorism have become more plausible. Previously, the main at-risk population had been nuclear power plant and defense workers.

January 19, 2010 - Bellona - With no panel to study alternative US nuke waste sites, could Yucca Mountain's bones be creaking back to life? - A year since US President Barack Obama effectively killed the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository – and his 2011 budget is expected to barely keep the lights on as the Energy Department clears out the offices – the administration and the energy department have so far failed to launch the blue-ribbon panel promised some nine months ago to study alternative nuclear waste proposals. Meanwhile, 60,000 metric tons of US civilian and military waste continue to pile up, and high-level nuclear observers from the non-governmental sector are getting a little nervous. The build up of waste may also land the US government in hot water with the industry as Yucca Mountain has, for the past 20 years, been the Congressionally mandated end of the road for US spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste. US Energy Secretary Steven Chu has said, with little challenge, that waste generated by America’s 104 nuclear power plants can be stored safely on-site for the next 100 years. He also stands behind the plan to shut down Yucca for good, maintaining a mere $25 million for the 2011 budget to close out the agency’s Yucca Mountain office, much of which would go toward the retention of “critical knowledge and data.” Even this figure has led to a bit of a tussle between the Energy Department and the White House, which wants to zero out all funding for Yucca in the coming year’s federal budget, White House Budget Director Peter Orszag said in a statement to Bellona Web this week. But very few steps have been taken since Chu told a Congressional panel last March that he plans to appoint a panel to examine further sites for the permanent internment of US nuclear waste, telling them famously that, as far as Yucca went, America “could do better.”

January 19, 2010 - NJ Today - Lawmaker Wants Stricter Standards For Disposal Of Unused Radioactive Material - A state lawmaker is pushing for stricter standards for the disposal of unused medical equipment after the National Nuclear Security Administration announced the recovery of two obsolete medical irradiators from a warehouse in Rahway last week. “It’s not everyday that nuclear safety officials buzz through town and haul away radioactive materials, and it’s even scarier to think that this dangerous stuff was just sitting around in a warehouse,” said Assemblywoman Linda Stender (D-Union.) “That’s unacceptable for both our community’s health and our national security. We cannot have it.” The devices, which were used for medical research during their useful lives, contained more than 3,000 curies of Cesium-137 at the time of their recovery, federal officials said. Due to their high activity and portability, radioactive sealed sources such as these irradiators could be used in radiological dispersal devices, commonly referred to as “dirty bombs,” according to federal officials. “Properly disposing of more than 3,000 curies of Cesium eliminates the threat this material poses if lost or stolen and used in a dirty bomb,” said National Nuclear Security Administration Administrator Thomas P. D’Agostino. “This recovery is part of NNSA’s comprehensive strategy to keep dangerous nuclear and radiological material safe and secure and protect the American people by further enhancing our nation’s nuclear security.”

January 19, 2010 - Baltimore Sun - Don't sacrifice privacy; improve technology - In light of the alleged "briefs bomber's" attempt to destroy an airplane on Christmas Day, a debate over the line between security and privacy has once again reared its head. The government's most fundamental responsibility is to keep its citizens safe. After this attempted attack, President Barack Obama correctly engaged in an examination of how the bomber got on the plane, and he began studies on how to prevent future attacks. Regrettably, before these full examinations are finished, some security experts and Transportation Security Administration officials have expressed a desire to expand the use of full-body imaging machines at airports around the country (Baltimore-Washington Thurgood Marshall International Airport already has some machines installed). Some of these experts even want to go as far as to require every man, woman and child to go through these machines. One positive will come from placing these screeners at airports around the country: Teenage boys will be more eager than ever to join their fathers at "Take your kid to work day. " But seriously -- what is the price we are willing to pay for security? The best way for the public to understand how these machines work is to think about the piercing power of Superman's X-ray vision. Armed with that power, someone stationed in a little booth will look at "virtually naked" images of every person who enters the machines.

January 19, 2010 - York Weekly - Toxic gas kills more than any other substance - The New Hampshire Radon Program at DES is offering free radon air test kits (while supplies last) to New Hampshire residents during the month of January in recognition of National Radon Action Month. Radon gas kills more people in New Hampshire on an annual basis than anything else that the Department of Environmental Services deals with. Many people ignore the warnings about radon gas, maybe because radon has no color, taste, or odor. Radon is a naturally occurring radioactive gas that can build to high levels in residential homes. It is the second leading cause of lung cancer after cigarette smoking, and the leading cause of lung cancer in non-smokers. Testing is the only way to know if your home or well water has elevated radon levels. Equipment is available for homes that may need to reduce elevated radon levels. To get a free radon air test kit go to des.nh.gov and search for "radon" and fill out the application form. Call 271-6845 for more information or help with the application process. For more information, contact the New Hampshire Radon Program at 271-6845 or Owen.David@des.nh.gov.

January 19, 2010 - North Platte Telegraph - Blue Cross seeks tighter review of scans - MRIs for aching backs and CT scans for headaches might be ordered by doctors a little less frequently this year. Beginning in March, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Nebraska will ratchet up its scrutiny of certain diagnostic scans. Doctors ordering nonemergency, outpatient MRIs, CT scans and two other kinds of diagnostic imaging must first contact a Chicago firm to review them. Blue Cross, the state's largest health insurance provider, joins a growing group of insurance companies and states seeking tighter review of expensive diagnostic tests. The reviews are designed to contain costs and make sure the scans are necessary, although some worry that they are a step toward rationing care. Nebraska's Medicaid program has begun requiring prior approval for high-cost outpatient imaging. The State of Iowa's Medicaid program will start to do so in March. Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield in Iowa and South Dakota has contracted with the same Chicago company, American Imaging Management, for prior review of diagnostic imaging since 2005.

January 19, 2010 - Lancaster Eagle Gazette - Cost for looks might escalate; Local salon owners have wary thoughts about proposed tanning tax - A proposed national tax on tanning salons would cost residents 10 percent more each visit. The tax increase could cripple local businesses and would force at least one to close, they say. If the Senate's sweeping health care bill becomes law, each trip to the tanning salon would cost 10 percent more starting in July. Add in sales tax, and local customers would pay almost 17 percent tax each visit. Forever Young Spa and Tanning owner Susan Lundy said many of her more than 800 customers would drop the luxury if the tax were implemented. "It would put me out of business," Lundy said of her Baltimore salon at 1055 W. Market St. "We are a small little community and we are not wealthy. To take away the small things that we reward ourselves with, such as 15 minutes in a tanning bed, is wrong." A 5 percent tax on elective cosmetic surgery was scrapped and replaced with a 10 percent tanning bed tax in a late December draft of the bill.

January 19, 2010 - Adelaide Now - No help for nuclear vets - The Rudd Government has refused to help Australian veterans who are suing the British Government over radiation exposure during atomic bomb tests in the 1950s and 60s. A group of survivors and their families are joining a class action after 800 British nuclear veterans were granted permission to sue their own Ministry of Defence for compensation. Many of the soldiers, wearing just a hat, shorts and boots, were exposed to radioactive fallout and were later treated for radiation sickness. They were never told of the risks they faced. In 1993, the Keating Labor government accepted a £20 million ex-gratia compensation payment from Britain to settle all future Maralinga claims. That is about $109 million in today's money. A condition of that settlement was that any future compensation won by Australian veterans would be paid by the Australian Government. Not one dollar of the money has gone to the 8000 Australian soldiers who were ordered into the desert, although since 2006 many have had cancer treatments paid for by the Federal Government. Australian Nuclear Veterans Association president Ric Johnstone said he could not understand why successive governments continued to cover up the atomic test issue. The 76-year-old former RAAF airman, who spent 12 months at Maralinga in 1956 and was involved in four atomic tests, says he is alive only thanks to medical science.

January 19, 2010 - Chicago Tribune - Joliet seeks hike in EPA radium limits; Higher levels of substance would end up in area soil - Joliet is pushing the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency to more than double the concentration of cancer-causing radium it's allowed to dump onto farmland in the south suburbs, expanding the potential for deadly radon gas in these increasingly urban communities. Radium is a naturally occurring radioactive element abundant in deep-water wells in northern Illinois and throughout the Midwest. Cities such as Joliet that rely on these deep wells spend millions of dollars each year to remove radium from their drinking water. Some communities pay to dump radium in a landfill, but Joliet and others use a cheaper alternative, mixing it with waste material that is sold to farmers as fertilizer. About 21,000 tons of Joliet's radium-enriched fertilizer has been dumped on area farms since 2005 The city is petitioning the state EPA to allow it to dispose of more than twice the level of radium that's currently allowed. If granted, it would be 10 times higher than what was considered safe just five years ago — rekindling concerns about the long-term exposure of concentrated radium on the soil.

January 19, 2010 - Philadelphia Inquirer - Mistakes were made - The acknowledgment by Philadelphia VA Medical Center officials of violations in a prostate-cancer program is a necessary step toward restoring the hospital's credibility. VA officials on Friday admitted violating federal radiation rules that are meant to protect patients from harm. An undersecretary for health at the Department of Veterans Affairs said the failure of hospital staff to report the substandard treatment showed "a lack of safety culture." The violations included failing to properly train staff and not reporting mistakes as quickly or fully as required. The announcement was awkward and surprising, coming about a month after Philadelphia VA officials had disputed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's finding that the hospital committed eight safety violations. But it is also an indication that the Philadelphia VA is trying to move forward and learn from its mistakes. That must happen if the public is to regain confidence in the hospital, which treats nearly 60,000 veterans per year. It's not clear why VA officials changed their tune; the hospital is facing sanctions by the NRC. Discrepancies between these new admissions and earlier statements defending the hospital's actions still need to be explained. An Inquirer investigation brought to light problems with the VA program, which treated prostate-cancer patients with a procedure known as brachytherapy. It involves implanting tiny radioactive seeds into the prostate gland to kill cancerous cells. When done properly, the treatment is highly effective. But problems arose among many of the 114 veterans treated with brachytherapy at the Philadelphia VA from 2002 to 2008, when the program was shut down. Some seeds were placed incorrectly - for example, too close to a patient's rectum - and had to be retrieved.

January 19, 2010 - Tri-City Herald - Vit plant mixing hazards raises worries  - Inadequate mixing of some radioactive wastes at the Hanford vitrification plant could cause a criticality or a build-up of flammable gas that could cause an explosion, according to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. But the Department of Energy believes the problem can be resolved. It initiated tests on the mixing system planned for parts of the vitrification plant after a panel of experts in 2006 identified it as one of 28 technical issues that needed to be studied. It's the last major and complex issue to be resolved for the plant, which is half-completed. DOE has been testing the mixing systems at the M3 Mixing Test Platform installed at Mid-Columbia Engineering near the Hanford nuclear reservation. It expects to have testing completed in April, including confirming any modifications that need to be done to the mixing system. That's ahead of a legally binding Tri-Party Agreement deadline to have the work completed in June. At issue is keeping heavy particles in high-level radioactive waste mixed with the rest of the waste in tanks at the vitrification plant, which is being built to turn the waste into a stable glass form for disposal. The waste is left from the past production of plutonium at Hanford for the nation's nuclear weapons program.

January 19, 2010 - Northumberland Today - Demolition to start this week - The cleanup of low-level radioactive waste in Port Hope is getting a kick-start this week. Demolition of buildings located at 192 and 196 Toronto Rd. has been moved ahead from spring, said Bob Neufeld, manager of stakeholder relations and communications with the Port Hope Area Initiative Management Office (PHAI MO), on Friday. "We're hoping the work will begin this week, but it depends on the weather," Neufeld said. The house at 192 Toronto Rd. and the former manse and garage structures at 196 Toronto Rd. have been vacant for several years and are beginning to show signs of disrepair. "They are being demolished to make way for the future construction of the access road between Toronto Rd. and the site of the new long-term low-level waste management facility, which will be built on the site of the existing Welcome Waste Management Facility," Neufeld said. The opportunity to move forward with the demolition presented itself, and Neufeld said they're doing so immediately. The demolition work will carried out by JMX Contracting Inc., which has been awarded a contract and will work under the supervision of Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC) as the federal department responsible for all major contract work associated with the PHAI MO. The work is scheduled to take approximately 21 days to complete, depending on weather conditions, Neufeld said.

January 19, 2010 - Capital Times - Debating the merits of nuclear power  - Wisconsin has two nuclear power plants: a pair of generating units at Point Beach, near Manitowoc; and the Kewaunee plant, located in Carlton, about 35 miles south east of Green Bay. One of the Point Beach units went into commercial service in 1970 and is the third oldest plant in the nation. The Kewaunee plant went on line in 1974. The two facilities have had a few problems with their water systems throughout the years. In 2002, a problem was found at Point Beach with the system that cools the reactors. The Kewaunee plant was taken off line in February 2005 for a design weakness but is back in operation. Still, opponents of nuclear power argue it remains dangerous and costly, and that renewable sources are a better choice environmentally. Peter Bradford, who from 1977 to 1982 served as commissioner of the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, thinks the United States shouldn’t worry about where its electricity will come from in the coming decades. He says policymakers had similar concerns in the 1970s, but natural gas ended up filling the void.

January 18, 2010 - Minnesota Public Radio - Is Prairie Island safe enough to produce more electricity? - Xcel Energy has asked for permission to produce 15 percent more electricity at Prairie Island nuclear power plant at a time when plant has been required to correct its safety record. Critics wonder if the plant is safe enough to produce more power. Prairie Island is one of only a handful of nuclear plants in the country, under special scrutiny from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, that have been required to fix systemic human error problems. The safety lapses identified by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission did not result in an immediate threat to safety, of workers or the public, but they suggested a problematic pattern, according to Steven West, who supervises nuclear regulatory reviews in the midwest. "If only one person makes a mistake and we catch that or the licensee or utility catches it, that's easy to take care of, to correct and fix," West said. "But if you start seeing multiples of that, it indicates a larger problem, and it's more difficult usually for the utility to correct that."

January 18, 2010 - Lincoln Journal Star - NPPD makes progress to recover $159 million it gave U.S. government - The Nebraska Public Power District and other utilities received good news last week in their attempt to recover billions of dollars given to the U.S. Department of Energy over two decades to build a permanent storage site for spent nuclear fuel and other radioactive waste. The Department of Energy had argued that the lack of a federal storage facility constituted an "unvoidable delay" and that's why it failed to meet its statutory obligations to remove spent nuclear fuel from commercial nuclear power plants across the nation. On Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., said the federal government cannot use that argument. According to Bloomberg News, the U.S. Court of Appeals reversed a lower court's finding and ruled that another appeals panel had the authority to bar the Department of Energy from using the defense in contract disputes. "We've been eagerly awaiting this decision," NPPD attorney Jay Silberg told the news agency. Dozens of lawsuits by utility companies against the government have been held up pending the ruling, he said. "We have a lot of cases that are stuck on appeal or stuck on remand. We're really very, very pleased." NPPD and other electric utilities were required by Congress in 1982 to collect spent nuclear fuel on site while a permanent storage facility they would help fund was built at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The companies paid more than $27 billion into the fund over the years, but the storage facility was never built. President Barack Obama last year decided that nuclear waste can never be stored at Yucca Mountain, rejecting the $58 billion project after 20 years of planning.

January 18, 2010 - Wall Street Journal - German Government To Take Much Of Atomic Plan Profits - The German government wants to collect "at least half" of the unanticipated profits power companies stand to make if the phase-out date for the country's nuclear reactors is extended, Economics Minister Rainer Bruederle said. In an interview published Monday, the Handelsblatt newspaper quoted Bruederle as saying the government must decide "as quickly as possible" whether and how long the life of the country's 17 nuclear plants will be extended. The center-right government led by Chancellor Angela Merkel wants to scrap a law dictating that the plants be closed by 2022, and extend the deadline until renewable energy sources can be expanded. Government leaders and officials from the four companies that operate nuclear plants in Germany--RWE AG (RWE.XE), EnBW Energie Baden-Wuerttemberg AG (EBK.XE), E.ON AG (EOAN.XE) and Vattenfall Europe AG (VTT-XE)--are scheduled to discuss nuclear policy in Berlin on Thursday. Because the companies have been operating under the assumption that the plants must be closed, they stand to reap large unexpected profits if their reactors' lives are extended. Coalition lawmakers have said much of the profit would be diverted to renewable energy and energy storage research projects. Bruederle said consumers must also benefit from the windfall. "Relief for power customers is a more important aspect," Bruederle said.

January 18, 2010 - Cebu Daily News - Mammogram controversy - There is public uproar and protests from the medical community against the US Health and Human Services Department about the recent guidelines issued by the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), an outside consultant “group of experts who make health recommendations based on best available evidence,” which call for women “to start mammogram every-other-year screening for breast cancer at age 50 unless they are more comfortable with starting earlier.” This was a change from the annual screening starting at age 40 recommended by the previous guidelines. If the new guidelines are officially adopted, women who are younger than 50 opting to have a screening mammogram will not be covered by their health insurance. The change is “ill-advised and dangerous ... and a step backward and represents a significant harm to women’s health,” according to the American College of Radiology and the Society of Breast Imaging. The two associations claim that the new guidelines will lead to “countless unnecessary breast cancer deaths each year.” They advocate the return to the former guidelines: annual screening starting at age 40, and starting at age 30 (or earlier) for higher risk women.

January 18, 2010 - Construction & Maintenance - Radon gas linked to 100,000 deaths worldwide each year - The World Health Organization recently published new documentation that links radon gas to more deaths throughout the World than previously estimated. According to the studies, radon causes approximately 15% of all lung cancer deaths making radon the #1 cause of the cancer for non-smokers. Air Quality Control, the nation's largest radon remediation contractor, encourages the media to help promote awareness of this national health threat. The Environmental Protection Agency has designated January as National Radon Action Month. According to recent reports from the World Health Organization, radon gas is responsible for approximately 20,000 deaths in the U.S. and 100,000 deaths worldwide each year. This equates to about 15% of all lung cancer deaths. Statistically, radon is the leading cause of lung cancer for non-smokers and the second leading cause for smokers. The EPA recommends that action should be taken to reduce indoor radon levels when the reading is 4.0 (picocuries per liter.) The World Health Organization recently lowered their limit or "action level" for indoor radon levels from 4.0 to 2.7 in response to several worldwide studies that point to health risks at lower exposure levels of the gas. More than 100 scientists from 30 countries participated in the World Health Organization International Radon Project and assisted in the publishing of the Handbook on Indoor Radon which was released earlier this year.

January 18, 2010 - Times Daily - Radon levels high - There's no Alabama law that requires home builders to check for radon; there's no requirement that every home be tested for the tasteless, odorless and colorless gas. Radon is the second-leading cause of lung cancer in the United States. People who smoke have a higher chance of developing lung cancer where radon is found. Radon is in the air and around us, but when it gets trapped in a building, it greatly increases the chance of lung cancer. Both old and new homes can have a radon problem. These homes can be well-sealed, drafty or homes without a basement. Radon can enter your home through well water. At least one out of 15 homes in the United States is estimated to have high levels of radon gas. Alabama has high potential radon levels. "All we have is education," said Patricia Smith, regional agent for the Alabama Cooperative Extension System. "More and more people are finding out about the risks of radon and that it's the second leading cause of lung cancer, behind smoking." Northwest Alabama, particularly parts of Colbert and Lauderdale counties, are known hotbeds for radon. Smith has been taking her message of education and testing across the area, encouraging residents to get the $5 test to determine if they're at risk. Radon is a natural byproduct of uranium decay. It's found below the limestone and granite layer of bedrock here and in other parts of the country. Radon gas can seep through the cracks in the geological layers and eventually make its way to the surface. It also can get trapped in homes that sit over fissures in the rock. In Lauderdale County, Smith said Killen has the highest levels of radon, while in Colbert County the problem is more widespread.

January 18, 2010 - VOCM.com - MOU Signed on Radiation Therapy Wait Lists - Atlantic health ministers have signed a Memorandum of Understanding concerning radiation therapy wait lists. Health Minister Jerome Kennedy says it allows the provinces to work together in the event one of them cannot meet the four-week wait time benchmark. He says in the event a patient in one province cannot receive radiation treatment in eight weeks, he or she will be able to travel to another province to get the treatment. Kennedy says another concern addressed during last week's meeting of the ministers concerned mental health and addictions services. He says Nova Scotia's minister suggested an Atlantic summit on mental health, and Kennedy eagerly agreed to that.

January 18, 2010 - The Standard - Information vs. radiation - Full body diagnostic screening scans, advertised as diagnostic tools and aimed at the worried well, are not a good idea, says Dr. Lyons. "Because you are radiating the whole body in these scans it's like receiving more than 500 chest X-rays worth of radiation." CT scans may also find things in the body that end up being benign and of little significance: This only leads to further investigation, and further radiation.

January 18, 2010 - Fort Worth Business Press - Hospital offering low-dose radiation scanners - Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Southwest Fort Worth now has a low-dose radiation computed tomography (CT) scanner that cuts patients’ radiation exposure by up to 40 percent compared to traditional scanners. The 64-slice scanner has adaptive statistical iterative reconstruction to produce high-speed, high-quality images. “This technology enables us to drastically reduce radiation levels and administer just the dose required to achieve quality images,” said Dr. David Robinson, medical director of radiology at Texas Health Southwest, in a release. “This is especially important for patients who may need multiple imaging tests, such as cancer patients, and for women of child-bearing age.” For more information about the scanner or to schedule an appointment, call 817-433-1700.

January 18, 2010 - Russia-Info Centre - Once more troubles on nuclear power plant - The nuclear power plant of Balakovskaya (Saratov Region www.russia-ic.com/regions/5140) has taken its nuclear unit N4 out of the service for the purpose of preventive measures. According to the press service of the power plant, the “a little malfunctioning in the heat-mechanical equipment of the second circuit” is to be eliminated. The reparation works are planned to have been finished by January, 20, midnight (MSK). The background radiation in the city of Balakovo and in the area around the Balakovskaya nuclear power plant is within the mark. It does not distinguish from the natural radiation level.

January 18, 2010 - Dow Jones - Areva Stops Nuclear Recycling For EDF Pending New Deal  - French nuclear engineering group Areva SA (CEI.FR) has ceased recycling and transporting spent nuclear fuel for utility giant Electricite de France's power plants pending the signing of a new contract. A spokeswoman for state-owned Areva said the recycling stoppage began Jan. 1 and that a new contract is expected to be signed by the end of the month, which will allow the company to resume its recycling services for EDF. The Areva spokeswomen said her company is continuing to supply EDF with fuel for its power plants and that the situation over the spent fuel is one of timing for a new contract. Financial daily La Tribune reporter earlier Monday that Areva has asked the government to arbitrate the situation. EDF also is controlled by the French state. Meantime, EDF confirmed that the previous contract for the transportation and treatment of spent nuclear fuel had lapsed Dec. 31. An EDF spokeswoman declined to comment on when a new contract could be signed.

January 18, 2010 - Regional Times - Elite US troops are ready to retrieve Pak nuclear assets if stolen - Pakistan’s strategic assets are as safe as that of any other nuclear weapon state and these assets are fully safeguarded and are secure under the protection of a well-established command and control system, a Foreign Office (FO) spokesman said on Sunday. When his attention was drawn to a news story published by “Times Online” on January 17 regarding the safety of Pakistan’s strategic assets, the spokesman dismissed its contents as “outlandish musings by an academic”. Talking to a Private TV Channel, he dismissed the report terming it as a conspiracy theory, saying that Pakistan nukes are safe and militants nor any other group are capable enough to take over the atomic assets. The spokesman also rejected the suggestion that there is any danger of Pakistan’s strategic assets falling into the wrong hands. Earlier, according to UK English daily “Times Online” in its report on Sunday said that the US army is training a crack unit to seal off and snatch back Pakistani nuclear weapons in the event that militants, possibly from inside the country’s security apparatus, get their hands on a nuclear device or materials that could make one. The specialized unit would be charged with recovering the nuclear materials and securing them.

January 18, 2010 - Radio Taiwan - Fourth nuclear reactor in trial stage - Taipower said that Taiwan's fourth nuclear power plant is already in the trial stage. After a year's trial, if all goes well, it will be able to be used for commercial purposes at the end of next year. Taipower also said that its other three nuclear power plants are growing in efficiency. Taiwan's six reactors can produce nearly 400 billion units of electricity a year. This makes up around 20% of Taiwan's national energy consumption, making Taiwan the 15th largest user of nuclear power in the world.

January 18, 2010 - Mid-Hudson News - Entergy, Utility workers union extend contract talks - Entergy and the Utility Workers Union of America (UWUA) Local 1-2 agreed Sunday night to extend contract negotiations for the union’s approximately 430 workers at the Indian Point nuclear power plant. Negotiations will resume Monday at 11 a.m. The existing contract expired at midnight Sunday but both parties agreed to continue negotiations. “This extension allows workers to stay on the job and demonstrates the progress we have made in closing the gap toward a final contract that is beneficial to the union, its members at Indian Point and Entergy,” said Indian Point site vice president Joe Pollock. “I look forward to continuing our good-faith negotiations with Harry Farrell and the UWUA and ultimately achieving a final agreement in the near future.”

January 18, 2010 - Family Security Matters - Advanced Nuclear Energy – The Solution to the Malthusian Prediction - Thomas Malthus’ 1798, ”Essay on the Principle of Population,” predicts that population growth, spurred by societal improvements, eventually will outstrip natural resources leading to universal famine, and the demise of civilization – population growth is exponential, while growth of food production is linear. For 200 years, his dire prediction has been forestalled by a parade of technological accomplishments based on cheap, dense fossil energy, that has provided astonishing, albeit unequal advances in man’s comfort and well-being. Now, cheap, energy dense fossil fuels are becoming scarcer. Readily available oil is estimated to last approximately 40 years, natural gas, somewhat longer, and coal reserves, at the projected consumption rate, will last about 150 years. But emissions from man’s burning of fossil fuels are thought by many to be the root cause of current global warming. The EPA has declared carbon dioxide an endangerment, and a misguided and alarmed society, given the chance, would vote for carbon dioxide elimination. Regardless of whether fossil fuel emissions cause global warming, we will continue to deplete fossil resources, and eventually must seek alternative ways to satisfy energy demand – we must turn to technology again and ask what alternatives afford the best chance of fulfilling future energy demand to avert the Malthusian prediction.

January 18, 2010 - Brattleboro Reformer - NRC mulls new dry cask security measures - If a rule that is under consideration is accepted by the commissioners of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, nuclear power plant operators around the country will be required to evaluate the effects of a land-based or waterborne vehicle bomb attack against their dry cask storage facilities. Operators could also be required to calculate whether the potential dose that could be received by an individual on or beyond the storage site’s controlled area boundary would not exceed 5 rems. If in the evaluations it is determined an operator can’t limit the 5 rem dose at the boundary, it would have to expand it. Those that can’t expand the boundary would have to consider the use of security barriers and armed security personnel to prevent an attack on the dry casks, which is called a "denial" protective strategy. When asked how the dry casks are protected at Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon, a spokesman said that most of its security measures are not public information. "However, Vermont Yankee, and the rest of the nuclear industry, are committed to a strong response capability and remain confident that appropriate safeguards are in place that meet federal regulations," said Rob Williams. In addition, he said, Yankee will continue to work with federal regulators to improve its security programs.

January 18, 2010 - Augusta Chronicle - Durable bamboo might protect SRS soil - Bamboo is legendary for its ability to grow anywhere and resist efforts to kill it. Now some of the U.S. Energy Department's top scientists are experimenting with the invasive plant to determine whether it could help protect buried nuclear waste. The U.S. Energy Department is testing two species of invasive bamboo to gauge its suitability as a vegetative cover for nuclear waste burial sites. "The concept of using bamboo as a cover species is new," said Eric Nelson, a scientist in Savannah River National Laboratory's Environmental Analysis Section. "In the past, people have mainly looked at grasses and perennial covers." Buried radioactive waste at Savannah River Site is usually topped with layers of soil and then planted with a vegetative cover to prevent erosion or unwanted intrusion from seeping water. "The problem with grasses is that they require maintenance and fertilization to keep it healthy," Dr. Nelson said. "Bamboo is very adaptable to colonizing areas without much care at all. It's also very aggressive." Although there are more than 1,000 species of bamboo, just two -- P. bissetii and P. rubromarginata -- were selected for testing in a one-acre plot in 1999. Then they were ignored and allowed to grow and spread, Dr. Nelson said. The two species have root systems that remain in the top few inches of soil but also have the ability to withstand cold climates. "These are very slender and probably only get to be 12 or 14 feet tall," he said. "They're not as big as the stocky plants you see at old home sites."

January 18, 2010 - Expert Club - Sukhumi is trying to divert attention from the loss of weapons-grade uranium - Sukhumi is trying to divert attention from the fact of loss of weapons-grade uranium-235 from the territory of Abkhazia and plans of Russia to turn the occupied region into dump of its radioactive waste. That was a comment made by the president of the Club of Experts Levan Kiknadze on the interview of Abkhazian "director" of the Sukhumi Physical-Technical Institute Anatoly Markolia to the news agency Interfax. In particular, Markolia denied information of the Club of Experts that IAEA experts had not been allowed to SFTI burial grounds during their stay in Abkhazia, and maintained that "at present there is no radioactive waste and burial places nowhere in Abkhazia, including the territory of the Sukhumi Physical - Technical Institute. With this regard, Levan Kiknadze said that the words of Anatoly Markolia are meant to ignite a dispute over minor issues and divert attention from the main one, in particular, from the world's first ever fact of loss of highly enriched uranium - a fact that the "director" of SFTI prefers not to mention. "Meanwhile, at that time this fact was confirmed by commission of the Ministry of Atomic Energy of Russia, - said the president of the Club of Experts - Mr. Markolia better than anyone knows that because of this unprecedented event then "Director" of SPTI Rasim Kamlia - a relative of the separatist leader Vladislav Ardzinba - and other officials were fired.

January 18, 2010 - Environmental Data Interactive - Radon killing 20,000 Americans per year - The USA's environmental regulators have gone on the offensive against radon, flagging up the risks the radioactive gas can pose in homes and schools. The Environmental Protection Agency has flagged up January as National Radon Action Month saying the gas is a real threat, with an estimated 20,000 people dying every year in the US from radon-related lung cancer. This year the EPA is using three initiatives to highlight the problem - a poster competition for schools, a video-based publicity campaign and links with new WHO guidance. Last September, EPA joined the World Health Organisation's first global call-to-action on cancer risk from radon. WHO's Handbook on Indoor Radon represents collaboration by 30 countries seeking to understand and overcome the risks posed by radon while demonstrating the consensus that radon is a global public health risk. The WHO guidance also helps countries establish or expand radon programmes.

January 18, 2010 - Leaf Chronicle - Sen. Lamar Alexander's vision for new nuclear plants faces obstacles - Since Sen. Lamar Alexander first began pushing the idea last spring of building 100 nuclear plants over the next 20 years, the proposal has increasingly become part of the national debate about the best way to generate electricity while lowering emissions that contribute to climate change. But Alexander's push also has prompted a pushback from environmental groups and others who say that its apparent simplicity belies a host of obstacles ranging from financing to what to do with the waste leftover from nuclear power generation. Here are some of the obstacles to Alexander's proposal and his response: Cost. Estimates for new reactors range from $5 billion to $10 billion per unit but one of the Catch-22's of the current debate is that estimates are difficult. "Reliably projecting construction costs of new U.S. nuclear plants is impossible because the nation has no recent experience to draw on," a 2009 report by the Union of Concerned Scientists states. Estimates of construction costs have quadrupled in recent years, said Ellen Vancko, nuclear energy and climate change project manager for the group. In the 1970s and 1980s, cost overruns for nuclear plants averaged more than 200 percent. A study the group commissioned estimated that these overruns combined with plant cancellations cost taxpayers, customers and shareholders more than $300 billion. Critics argue there are cheaper alternatives than nuclear, starting with conservation.

January 16-17, 2010 - Webmuenster took the weekend off.

January 15, 2010 - Atlanta Journal-Constitution - Surprise — TSA body scanners will retain and transmit nude images - The federal government is hell-bent on installing full-body x-ray scanners in airports across the country in the wake of the failed, Christmas Day bomb attempt by the Nigerian Brainiac. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has directed that the government will spend tens of millions of our dollars to purchase and install the fancy-dandy, but largely un-proven, ”back-scatter” machines as quickly as possible. In an effort to quell serious privacy concerns that have been raised about the graphic images the devices create, the government repeatedly has assured the public that the images revealed to Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees manning the consoles, cannot be retained or transmitted. Well, surprise, surprise — the government is not telling us the truth. In fact, the specifications for the manufacture of the machines mandates that they have the ability to store images on hard disk storage, and that they possess the ability to send the images. Of course, the transmission of such data creates the obvious possibility that hackers could access the data and print out or view the images. The images themselves portray people without clothes on, and include relatively clear depiction of genitalia. The information establishing that the full-body scanners will have the ability to retain and transmit the images they capture was obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a well-known and highly-regarded public interest research center in Washington, D.C. The organization has sought additional information regarding the machines, but remains engaged in a dispute with TSA over its release.

January 15, 2010 - Reno Gazette-Journal - Domestic well monitoring program for mine site revised - The EPA plans to start a revised domestic well monitoring program in March 2010, it was announced at last Thursday's Yerington/Anaconda Mine stakeholders meeting. That program, according to Jacquelyn Hayes, a project manager with EPA who is new on the Yerington project, will consist of quarterly sampling of wells for residents who are not currently receiving bottled water from Atlantic Richfield Co. (ARC) and those who have not yet had their wells sampled. ARC currently provides bottled water to residents in the nearby area just north of the mine whose water supply show uranium concentrations that exceed 25 micrograms per liter or whose maximum contaminant level (considered safe drinking level) is 30 micrograms/liter (which is federal level). The revised program also includes semi-annual sampling for residents who are receiving bottled water now, as part of a program ARC began in December 2003. In addition, the analyte list would be expanded to include gross alpha, gross beta, radium-226 and radium-228, her reported indicated.

January 15, 2010 - Associated Press - Purdue researchers test new nuclear power plant design to ensure it stands up to strong quakes - Purdue University researchers are testing a new design for nuclear power plants to make sure it can survive strong earthquakes. The Purdue team will test components of an "enhanced shield building" designed by Westinghouse Electric Co. to contain the main system components of nuclear power plants. That building consists of an inner steel-wall containment vessel and an outer radiation shield made using a technology called steel-concrete-composite construction. Conventional design for those buildings use reinforced concrete strengthened with steel bars. But the new design uses a sandwich of steel plates filled with concrete. The Purdue researchers are concentrating on how seismic forces affect the concrete-filled walls, the connection between the walls, and the structure's reinforced-concrete foundation.

January 15, 2010 - OnMedica - Radiation exposure may increase risk of stroke and heart disease - Exposure to moderate levels of radiation may increase the rates of heart disease and stroke, according to new research. Several studies have shown that high doses of radiation to the heart or head and neck from radiotherapy cause an excess of deaths from heart disease or stroke in later years. But it is uncertain whether radiation exposures at relatively low dose levels (under 1 Gy) also increase the risk. To investigate this further, Dr Yukiko Shimizu and colleagues from the Radiation Effects Research Foundation in Japan examined the risk of heart disease and stroke in 86,611 atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki who have been followed up for 53 years, from 1950 to 2003, as part of the Japanese atomic bomb survivor Life Span Study. Each member of the group had received an estimated radiation dose from 0-4 Gy (86% received less than 0.2 Gy) at the time of the bomb. Other risk factors for circulatory disease that could have affected the results, such as smoking, alcohol intake, education, occupation, obesity and diabetes were also taken into account. The researchers found an elevated risk of both stroke and heart disease at doses above 0.5 Gy, but the degree of risk at lower doses was unclear.

January 15, 2010 - BBC News - Herschel space telescope restored to full health - Europe's billion-euro Herschel Space Telescope is fully operational again after engineers brought its damaged instrument back online. The observatory's HiFi spectrometer was turned off just three months into the mission because of an anomaly that was probably triggered by space radiation. The Dutch-led consortium that operates HiFi has now switched the instrument across to its reserve electronics. It says the failure event has been understood and cannot happen again. "We've had 30 people working on this," said Dr Frank Helmich, the lead scientist on HiFi, from the SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research. "I don't watch much television but I know Crime Scene Investigation and this was just such an investigation - but in space! We found out what happened and then we designed all the mitigating measures," he told BBC News. The European Space Agency (Esa) telescope was launched from Earth last May.

January 15, 2010 - M&C - Czech nuclear safety watchdog opposes airport body scanners - The Czech Republic's State Office for Nuclear Safety would not permit Czech airports to install full-body scanners, deeming their use unwarranted at the moment, an official said Friday. The office's director, Dana Drabova, said the agency would change its stance if the government concluded that a risk of terrorism outweighs radiation safety precautions. 'Each exposure to radiation must be justified,' Drabova told the German Press Agency dpa. While the whole-body scanners emit tiny amounts of ionizing radiation, Drabova said, scientists say that 'each dose' comes with a risk of triggering cancer. She said that other technologies, such as thermo cameras, could produce similar scanning results without exposing people to radiation.

January 15, 2010 - Sudbury Star - Chalk River to be offline until April - Medical experts, business and opposition politicians say they're dismayed to learn of another potential delay to the restart of the crippled Chalk River nuclear reactor. Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. says repair work on the 52-year-old NRU reactor "is progressing at a slower pace than originally anticipated." The reactor was to return to service by the end of March, but AECL warned on its website that the timeline "could extend into April." That has prompted a revamp of plans for the reactor, which produces up to 40% of the world's medical isotopes. The NRU was shut last May after a heavy water leak. Although the leak occurred in only one place, five other sites in the reactor vessel were identified as suffering from corrosion. Those repairs are to be completed in February. Then the reactor undergoes complex start-up procedures. The first medical isotopes could be produced within 10 days of its return to service. "We're getting into a series of repairs that are probably more challenging than we've encountered before," said company spokesman Dale Coffin, adding "we're still optimistic that end-of-March return-to-service date is going to hold." But "there's always the risk that it could extend." A slippage into April could leave a serious gap in Canada's medical isotope supply.

January 15, 2010 - Rutland Herald - State goes after Entergy Administration criticizes Yankee for 'misinformation' - The Douglas administration sharply criticized Entergy Nuclear on Thursday for failing to give accurate information about underground radioactive pipes at Vermont Yankee, saying last year's independent evaluation of the plant is now in question, as well as its support for relicensing the reactor. In letters to the Public Service Board and Entergy on Thursday, the Department of Public Service said inaccurate information about radioactive pipes at the Vernon reactor had serious ramifications. "The record is wrong and we are re-evaluating our position," said Stephen Wark, deputy commissioner of the Department of Public Service. The letters faulted Entergy for not providing accurate information to the department, the board and its consultants in 2008 and 2009, including Nuclear Safety Associates, which helped coordinate the 2008 independent evaluation of Vermont Yankee for the Legislature. To date, the Douglas administration has been a strong supporter of Yankee's relicensing, saying its continued operation was key to the economic health of the state. Wark said the department's formal case supporting Entergy before the Public Service Board now had to be re-evaluated, though he hesitated to say its support of Yankee was on hold.

January 15, 2010 - Bloomberg News - Germany Prepares Plan for Crumbling Nuclear-Waste Repository  - German regulators will recommend today how to manage 126,000 barrels of nuclear waste stored at a crumbling repository in central Germany, a Federal Office for Radiation Protection spokeswoman said. The atomic regulator has been weighing options for the facility including repackaging the waste and storing it at another repository, creating safer chambers to store the material or filling the entire mine with concrete. The nuclear agency wants the waste to be transferred from the site known as Asse to Germany’s Konrad repository, Koelner Stadt-Anzeiger said today on its Web site. The regulator has said the repository risks collapse and recommends politicians “make haste” to move the waste, the newspaper said. Asse stores about 126,000 barrels of what the agency calls weak and mid-radioactive waste such as contaminated equipment and clothing from nuclear workers from 1967 to 1978. The regulator took over operating Asse a year ago after the former manager failed to report unauthorized storage of contaminated material and groundwater seepage that threatened the structure.

January 15, 2010 - Newark Star-Ledger - Nuclear agency sweeps up radioactive equipment from Rahway company - The National Nuclear Security Administration swept into a Rahway warehouse last week to secure Cesium-137, a radioactive substance, from unused medical equipment. Securing radioactive material is something the administration, part of the Department of Energy, has done about 24,000 times since the late 1990s, but the organization is mounting a new push to encourage hospitals and research facilities to register to have outdated equipment picked up by the government in a timely fashion. The goal is to keep Cesium and other radioactive material under tight security. The agency didn’t release any information about the operation until a week later, once the equipment, medical irradiator machines, was treated and safely housed thousands of miles away, west of the Mississippi River. It also did not give the name or address of the Rahway company in order to protect it from those trying to illegally acquire radioactive substances. The Cesium in Rahway was only about the size of two rolls of quarters, but in the wrong hands, it could be used in an explosive that could cause billions of dollars in economic damage and possible injuries and deaths for civilians, according to Kenneth Sheely, a deputy director for the government agency. “Properly disposing of more than 3,000 curies of Cesium eliminates the threat this material poses if lost or stolen and used in a dirty bomb,” said Thomas P. D’Agostino, the administrator of the federal agency in a statement Thursday.

January 15, 2010 - Atlanta Journal Constitution - Fund Yucca Mountain - If President Barack Obama plans to live up to his promise of “science over politics” in determining policy, he will not discontinue funding for a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev. Between 1983 and 2009 the federal government collected nearly $33 billion in fees and interest from electric utilities and their ratepayers for the express purpose of disposing of used nuclear fuel. Georgia ratepayers have contributed nearly $680 million of that amount. Just when it appeared this country had a viable solution, the president is expected to eliminate funding for the Yucca Mountain project for apparently no reason than “because I said so.” When Obama assumed office a year ago, he said his administration would be based on the precepts of preserving the integrity of science in public policy-making. As documented in the license application submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2008, more than 25 years of studies conducted at a cost of more than $8 billion indicate that a Yucca Mountain repository, to be built beneath a barren ridge in the Mojave Desert, would meet stringent Environmental Protection Agency standards and NRC regulations for public safety. But the president’s fiscal 2010 budget stripped all funding from the project except the bare minimum required to review the repository license application. The trade press now reports that the FY 2011 Department of Energy budget request will zero out the budget and DOE will withdraw the license application.

January 15, 2010 - KCUR - Disputed Nuke Plant Gets Tip of Hat - Plans for a half billion dollar nuclear weapons parts plant are moving toward a vote of the Kansas City Council. The Transportation and Infrastructure Committee of the council today recommended full council approval of a development agreement. The committee heard from anti nuclear weapon activists, from contractors and school districts, from health advocates and others representing individual viewpoints and groups. The new site for the National Nuclear Security Agency would be Missouri Highway 150 and Botts Road in South Kansas City. The NNSA is a branch of the United States Department of Energy. For decades, NNSA oversaw a 3 million square foot complex on Bannister Road operated by Honeywell Federal Manufacturing and Technologies. Honeywell has conceded there were workplace hazards due to unforeseen effects of chemicals including the metal-hardening element, beryllium. Site manager Mark Holacek testified before the council committee that there will be no such hazards at the new plant proposed for the Botts Road location.

January 15, 2010 - Bay Area Indymedia - "If it was Au(instead of DU), the Army would have found it!" - In an almost 6-hour-long tele-video conference with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission(NRC) on January 13, four courageous citizen-activists from Hawai'i gave impressive testimonies to challenge the U.S. Army's application for a permit from the NRC to essentially create toxic waste dumps, in situ, at Schofield and Pohakuloa training areas, for the undetermined amounts of highly poisonous Depleted Uranium(DU) deposits created by more than 4 decades of military live-fire training exercises in the Hawai'an archipelago. Each of the 4 activists provided powerful presentations of different perspectives on how the Army has been a perversely negligent custodian of the training areas it has been occupying--with many questions of the occupations' illegality. Moreover, the Army has repeatedly ignored the Hawai'i County Council's resolutions on stopping live-fire exercises while an independent monitoring system--with local community experts in charge of a transparent process--was to be fully funded and operating as of the end of 2008. Instead, the Army has intentionally limited the scope of the investigation of DU residues, and taking zero action to seek out evidence of aerosolized DU particles, leading petitioner C. Harden to comment that, "If it was Au(gold)--instead of the DU--that was in the soil, the Army would definitely have found it!" In addition, Lt. Kent Herring, representing the USA occupation Army, gave ambiguous and conflicting numbers of DU weapons' "spotting rounds"(admitting only to the Davy Crockett anti-tank weapon system and neglecting dozens of other DU weapons systems in the U.S. military arsenal) that the Army allegedly fired at both Schofield and Pohakuloa Training Area(PTA). In fact, the Army colonel's testimony was so convoluted and misleading that repeated recesses had to be granted to the 2 Army presenters(to apparently no effect on their rambling deliveries!), that the "green" Herring resembled more like the Inspector Clouseau of the popular movie Pink Panther! However, the most egregious performances were actually delivered by the 2 NRC staffers that spoke to the NRC lawyers. The 2 young staff bureaucrats spoke with such servile deference to the Army's position that they appeared to be aiming for high-level appointments to the Pentagon's press office.

January 15, 2010 - Salt Lake Tribune - EnergySolutions: State OK not needed for blending radioactive waste - If the Nuclear Regulatory Commission allows EnergySolutions to blend more potent radioactive waste with the type of materials it already takes, the company won't need additional state approval to dispose of it in Utah, a company official said Thursday. Tom Magette, a senior vice president at EnergySolutions, said at a public meeting with NRC staff in Rockville, Md., that the blended waste would still fall under the Class A category allowed by the license for its Tooele County landfill. "I don't know what would trigger" the company to have to notify the state or seek its approval, Magette said. The Salt Lake City-based company is seeking authority from the NRC to mix higher concentrations of low-level radioactive waste with lower classified concentrations --a process called downblending -- and then dispose of the materials in Utah. The company wants to build a plant called ResinSolutions at its site in Oak Ridge, Tenn., that would blend Class B or C waste -- currently banned in Utah -- with Class A so that the concentration would still fit under the lower classification. NRC regulations currently forbid blending higher-level waste with lower-level waste for the purpose of disposal, but the agency is studying whether to tweak its rules. Magette, speaking later, said the state would have a hard time justifying any law that forbids blended waste.

January 15, 2010 - Deseret Morning News - Moab tailings removal hits milestone, 136 containers shipped - The U.S. Department of Energy Moab Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action Project last week shipped 136 containers of mill tailings, the maximum number that can be transported in a single train. The load was sent from Moab to a disposal cell 30 miles north near Crescent Junction. The shipment held about 4,700 tons of tailings, bringing the total quantity shipped to more than 680,000 tons. More than 40 percent, or 278,000 tons using federal stimulus funding. "Through the dedicated teamwork of many, we reached this milestone early," said Donald Metzler, federal project director. "This is a key marker in our effort to maintain safe, sustained shipments at this level." In addition, construction of an underpass on State Route 279, which cuts across the Moab project site, was completed in December. The underpass is used by trucks hauling tailings containers to and from the rail loading area, helping to curtail more than 500 potential interactions with highway traffic each day. The underpass was also paid for by federal stimulus dollars.

January 15, 2010 - Las Vegas Sun - White House, Energy Department clash over Yucca Mountain cuts - The Department of Energy and the White House are at odds over how steep to cut the Yucca Mountain budget for fiscal 2011, according to reports. Energy Secretary Stephen Chu is balking over the White House plan to slash the budget for the nearly-doomed nuclear waste dump north of Las Vegas, according to reports in Energy Daily and the Wall Street Journal. Apparently, the White House wants to zero out the $46 million in the Energy Department's request in the president’s new budget due next month. Chu sent a letter to White House budget director Peter Orszag last month arguing that at least $25 million was needed to close out the Yucca Mountain office, including for the retention of “critical knowledge and data.” Obama has pledged to stop the Yucca Mountain project, and severely cut last year’s budget for the proposed waste facility. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said Obama will zero out funding in 2011.

January 14, 2010 - The Gateway - Health and privacy among concerns with airports’ new full body scanners - X-ray vision is usually the stuff of science fiction, available only to comic book heroes like Superman, who wield the ability to selectively “see” through certain objects in order to find bad guys, fight crime, and make the world a better place. In the real world, science has developed technology that appears akin to the superhero power, but in reality is much less refined and directed. Clark Kent’s idealized penetrative gaze cuts a couple of corners when it comes to physics. Still, recent applications have a similar goal, albeit one that's more contested and controversial: airport surveillance. Last week, the federal government announced that airports across Canada would be introducing full body scanners — large portals that use electromagnetic radiation to detect a weapon or bomb a traveller may have concealed beneath their clothing — to enhance security measures for U.S.-bound flights. The investment was sped up in response to the December 25 attempted bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253, en route to Detroit from Amsterdam. According to the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority, the purchased portals belong to a new generation of scanners that use millimetre-wave radiation, which, electromagnetically speaking, is comparable to the microwave.

January 14, 2010 - The Morning Sun - Winter is ideal time to test your home for radon - The old saying, 'what you don't know can't hurt you' certainly doesn't apply when it comes to the presence of radon in your home. Radon is a silent killer that invades nearly one in eight Michigan homes, according to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). Radon has no warning symptoms; it can't be seen, smelled or tasted and contrary to popular belief does not cause headaches, nausea, or fatigue. It is the second-leading cause of lung cancer among non-smokers is the second-leading cause of lung cancer in the United States, results in more than 21,000 new lung cancers and kills nearly 15,000 Americans each year. This naturally occurring radioactive gas is found in almost any kind of soil or rock. It travels through the ground to the air above, and into your home through cracks and other holes in the foundation, floor or walls (sump openings; crawlspaces; floor/wall joints; space around plumbing, wiring, or ductwork; etc.). Any home - old or new - may have a radon problem. "There is only one way to know for sure if your home has an unsafe level of radon," said Robert Graham, Medical Director for the Mid-Michigan District Health Department (MMDHD), "and that is to test, and now is the ideal time."

January 14, 2010 - Tri-City Herald - DOE looking for risky remains at Hanford - Work has begun with federal economic stimulus money to solve the mystery of what's buried in one the most hazardous burial grounds of the Hanford nuclear reservation. The 618-10 Burial Ground "received some nasty stuff from the labs in the 300 Area where they did everything done at Hanford but at a small scale," said Larry Gadbois, scientist at the Environmental Protection Agency, a regulator on the project. The six-acre burial ground includes 94 pipes buried vertically that allowed trucks to drive up and quickly drop radioactive and chemical waste underground. Most were made by removing the tops and bottoms of 55-gallon drums and then welding five of them together to form pipes. The 618-10 Burial Ground also includes 23 trenches. Many records of what they contain were destroyed in the early 1990s. Now Washington Closure Hanford and the Department of Energy are trying to determine what they hold using the remaining records and by testing, starting with a method that doesn't require opening or cutting into the vertical pipe units. "For the safety of the workers going forward, we need to know exactly what's underground," said Cameron Hardy, DOE spokesman.

January 14, 2010 - Associated Press - Utah appeals decision on radioactive waste - The state of Utah and an interstate compact that regulates low-level radioactive waste are challenging a court's ruling that the compact cannot regulate a private radioactive waste site in the state. They will argue their case in the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver Thursday. EnergySolutions Inc. wants to import up to 20,000 tons of low-level radioactive waste from Italy, process it at a Tennessee site, and dispose of about 1,600 tons of it at its facility in the western Utah desert. A federal judge in Utah last year ruled that the Northwest Compact couldn't keep the waste out of Utah. The Northwest Compact covers Utah and seven other states.

January 14, 2010 - Travel Daily UK - British travellers in support of scanners - 66% voted that airport scanners were a good idea as they would speed up security checks and improve security, whilst 30% said that they disapproved, largely on health and privacy grounds. (4% gave other answers). Over 400 people voted in the poll, and the results clearly showed that most travellers were in favour of the scanners. Barry Smith, Skyscanner co-founder and business director commented: “As long as the machines are safe and any potential privacy issues can be solved, travellers are in favour of anything which will make flying safer and security checks faster. If it saves me from having to take my shoes off, empty my pockets and remove my belt, I’m all for them.” The Skyscanner poll did reveal that some travellers had concerns over the safety of the scanning machines, specifically the health issues of being x-rayed. However, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) say the technology is harmless, and that the amount of radiation produced is minimal, equating to what a person would naturally receive in just two minutes of flying on an airplane. Other respondents believed that the scanners would not increase passenger safety; Skyscanner user Vasco Sotomaior left a message on Skyscanner’s Facebook page explaining his reasons for being against the scanners: “There’s no use for them. The threat exists, but it is so little that it doesn’t justify them. The current measures are more than enough”. Trials with the body scanners are already taking place in some airports and train stations across Europe and the US, including Manchester Airport in the UK. The technology blurs facial details ensuring that passengers cannot be recognised and images are viewed by staff in walled-off rooms where they cannot see travellers who are being checked. Passengers who prefer not to be scanned will be able to opt for the traditional pat down check instead.

January 14, 2010 - Daily Observer - Sorry, Uncle Sam, I refuse to be ionized - "Don't even think of agreeing to it," I said recently to a friend who is a frequent flyer to the United States. I was referring to the recent announcement that Canadians will be subjected to full body scans. It's the latest attempt to ensure aviation safety, but how safe is this ionizing procedure to the passenger? Thirty years ago I reported in this column a shocking discovery. Some X-ray machines were exposing patients up to 60 times the amount of radiation needed for some procedures. X-ray equipment was often old, rarely calculated for radiation exposure, and some technologists were incompetent. The column resulted in a big crackdown by government health authorities. Now Transport Canada reports that more than 40 scanners will be installed in Canadian airports. Fortunately, all of these scanners will use "millimeter wave" technology. This means travellers will be exposed to radio frequency waves that produce a three-dimensional image of a person's body to detect hidden weapons or explosives. Radio waves are not the same as harmful X-ray ionizing radiation to be used in the U.S. X-rays that use ionizing radiation can trigger sufficient energy to displace electrons from an atom. Experts say this has the potential to cause mutations in cells that can lead to malignancy. But no one can be sure how much exposure is needed to cause this change. And U.S. authorities have not announced how much radiation their scanners will emit. I'm sure that they will downplay the risk of ionizing radiation to the flying public. I vividly remember this reaction 30 years ago, and I have no doubt the same scenario will play out today.

January 14, 2010 - Earth Times - Surface Encounters Macomb County Puts Consumers at Ease Regarding Radon in Granite Countertops - Surface Encounters of Macomb County recently released a report to put consumers at ease regarding the danger of radon exposure from granite countertops. Radon is a radioactive gas that is colorless, odorless and tasteless. It is formed by the breakdown of uranium, a natural radioactive material found in soil, rock and groundwater. When radon escapes from the ground into the outdoor air, it is diluted to low concentrations and is not a concern; however, in an enclosed space it can accumulate to high levels and break down to form additional radioactive particles called progeny that can contaminate the air you breathe. Customers who visit Surface Encounters often ask about the possibility of radon exposure from granite countertops. Some believe that certain colors of granite pose more of a threat than others. Others believe that granite countertops can contain “hot-spots” that emit life threatening levels of radon. Sal Dellacasa, store manager, said, “Granite countertops have been a very popular addition to homes since the 1990’s. If any reputable studies showed that they were a serious health threat, then they would have either been outlawed by now or necessary steps would be taken to cure the problem.”

January 14, 2010 - Associated Press - Senate Panel Passes Nuclear Power Bill - Lawmakers in Kentucky will again consider lifting a moratorium on construction of nuclear power plants in Kentucky. The Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee approved legislation on Wednesday that would reverse a 1984 law barring construction of nuclear plants in Kentucky until a permanent waste storage facilty is in place. The measure now goes to the full Senate for consideration. Independent state Sen. Bob Leeper of Paducah has unsuccessfully pushed the legislation for the past three years as a rank-and-file lawmaker. His promotion last year to chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee could improve his chances of getting the bill signed into law.

January 14, 2010 - Lewisboro Register - What's in the water? Analysis finds some radioactivity  - Lewisboro’s water systems may be slightly radioactive, but it’s likely not enough to be worrisome. A recent analysis of water systems across the nation by The New York Times shed light on a host of readings in Lewisboro’s nearly two dozen water systems that were higher than may be healthy, but not necessarily higher than legal limits. The most common contaminant in Lewisboro’s water appears to be isotopes of radium, a radioactive element found in uranium ore. “I don’t want to have people in Lewisboro unduly alarmed,” said town Wetlands Inspector Bruce Barber. “People should be aware that there can be many different minerals and chemicals in their drinking water.” According to The Times’ analysis, many of the town’s water systems — including Oakridge, Lake Katonah, Wild Oaks, Truesdale Lake, Michelle Estates, and the Twin Lakes — had at least one test since 2004 that detected some amount of radium, and some tests also found radioactive alpha particles or, in a couple of systems, uranium. The amounts found were all small — with the exception of Oakridge, below legal limits — but were marked by The Times as having a potential health effect. “There is no concern here,” said Assistant Commissioner Paul Kutzy of the Westchester County Department of Health. “There is nothing that residents have to do with regard to their drinking water quality.”

IEM - Consulting and Services for Today's Business Climate