Letters To The Editor

VCN has a very helpful page re: writing letters to different editors. It's time to start submitting. I hope we'll see a letter from YOU soon.

K

http://www.vcnva.org/news/uranium_lte.html

Residents Ask State to Reject Coal Mine

Karen says: We are often reminded that U mining has similarities to coal and mineral mining. Perhaps this article illustrates those similarities.

By Chuck Stinnett (Contact)
Friday, July 11, 2008

Excerpt:

"Several residents expressed concerns about damage to neighboring homes from the use of powerful explosives in surface mining."

"I feel in the permit it needs to plainly state who is liable for damages to (residents') homes," said Steve Reynolds, noting the long list of companies that have been and will be associated with the coal reserves and mining operations in eastern Henderson County."

"To get (paid for) damages, you have to prove it in a court of law," Eileen Timberlake said. "Who can afford to fight a giant coal company? You're left on your own. The state will not stand behind you. The local government will not stand behind you. (A coal company) -- once the permit is issued -- can do whatever they like, no matter your regulations."

Read the entire article here

THIS MAY BE THE MOST IMPORTANT POST YOU READ!

"Institute a moratorium on uranium mining. Call for a global phase out of nuclear power and join Germany’s initiative to fund and establish the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) to promote the use of clean, safe energy. ..."

By Alice Slater, www.abolition2000.org

A ROADMAP FOR US PRESIDENTIAL LEADERSHIP FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT

There have been recent calls by former cold war leaders, Henry Kissinger, George Schultz, Sam Nunn and William Perry, for the US to make new commitments for the elimination of nuclear weapons, as well as promising statements from leading Presidential candidates that the elimination of nuclear weapons is an issue they will address or commit to if elected. This Roadmap is designed to outline how we got to where we are today in the Nuclear Age and what would be required of a new Administration if the US was truly committed to the elimination of nuclear weapons. The Roadmap notes the offers on the table for nuclear disarmament that were spurned over the years by the US and the damaging effects of US plans to dominate and control the military use of space on prospects and possibilities for reaching agreement with Russia and China on nuclear abolition. Finally, the Roadmap addresses the undeniable momentum of nuclear proliferation as we promote so-called “peaceful” nuclear technology around our planet and argues that a genuine commitment to nuclear disarmament would require a world-wide phase out of nuclear power and support for clean, safe, sustainable energy.

PLEASE read the rest of this article by clicking here

Judge: Mining Company Liable for Pollution at Former Uranium Mine

By Warren Cornwall

Seattle Times environment reporter

One of the world's biggest mining companies is partly responsible for cleaning up massive pollution at a former uranium mine on the Spokane Indian Reservation, a federal judge has ruled.

The ruling Monday by U.S. District Judge Justin Quackenbush of Spokane was a victory for the federal government and tribal officials, who have been trying to ensure that Colorado-based Newmont Mining Corp. help pay for a cleanup that could cost $152 million.

(...)

Over 27 years, starting in 1954, miners blasted away 38 million tons of rock and uranium ore from a mountain at the center of the Spokane Tribes' remote reservation, northwest of Spokane.

Today, two cavernous craters, holding toxic ponds, sit in the middle of the mine site. A water-treatment plant filters water that leaks from the ponds to keep pollution from reaching nearby streams.

But over the years, enough contaminants, including uranium, have leached into plants and nearby creeks that one federal study estimated a person eating plants and animals from the area and using the water for sweat lodges could have a 1 in 5 chance of getting cancer.

Read the full article here

Report: Gov't tardy securing radioactive material

I wonder if the people close to the "small area" that a dirty bomb will "impact" will be worried about just the "psychological" and "economic impact". My guess is that they will also be very concerned about the death, destruction, and long term illness a small nuclear device - that's what a "dirty bomb" is, a small nuclear device - will cause. Note in this article how the government uses "weasel words and phrases". Words such as: "could", "should", "a better job", "contained to a small area" (how small is small?), "hope","only about half", "a long term goal". I'm sure you will find more than what I listed here.

Regulations don't work!

Education does not work!

You can always count on human error!

The best way to stop this deadly nuclear game is to STOP MINING URANIUM! If nuclear power plants don't melt down or explode, you still have the environmentally disastrous mining and milling at the front end and waste disposal on the back. Nuclear is not green! GV

By EILEEN SULLIVAN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The government is taking too long to secure radioactive materials across the country that could get into terrorists' hands, according to a government report.

Radioactive material used for legitimate purposes in medical equipment and food, for instance, could be used to create an explosive device known as a dirty bomb. Experts believe such an attack would be contained to a small area but could have significant psychological impact and have serious economic consequences because of cleanup problems.

The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks prompted the government to do a better job of securing nuclear and radiological materials. And nearly seven years later, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission says these materials are much more secure. But congressional investigators say it's not enough.

According to a Government Accountability Office report released Monday, new requirements to ensure that a person purchasing or carrying radioactive materials has a reason to do so is more than three years behind schedule. In a probe last year that set up a bogus company, investigators said they were able to obtain a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that allowed them to buy enough radioactive material for a small dirty bomb. Officials hope the licensing requirements will prevent this from happening again.

NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said a pilot program was completed in May, and the commission expects final guidance next month.

Further, a system to track radioactive materials as they are transported across the country has also faced multiple delays. The NRC says the system should be in place at the end of this year, but it will not be a real-time tracking system, such as used by some package delivery services.

The system will report transfers within one business day, Sheehan said. And if material goes missing as it's transported, an alarm system will notify officials, he said.

On the inspection side, government investigators found that most Customs and Border Protection officers across the country were never told of 2006 radioactive material reporting requirements by the agency's Washington headquarters. In May 2006, Customs and Border Protection changed its policy to require that officers contact authorities if they detect "more than incidental" amounts of radiation. But this was never communicated to officials in the field.

The GAO also found that there is not enough personal radiation detection equipment for Customs officials at land borders. In 2003, 8,000 out of 18,000 officers and agents had personal radiation detection devices. Currently only about half of the agency's agents and officers have the equipment because of budget constraints, agency spokesman Lloyd Easterling said.

Getting these materials secured has been a longtime goal of Minnesota Republican Sen. Norm Coleman. Coleman says he's happy there's been some progress, but it's taking too long, and it's not enough.

"I'm still not convinced they fully grasp the psychological and economic impact that even a small dirty bomb attack would have on the American public," Coleman said of the NRC.

Vermont Nuke Plant Still at 25% Power After Mishap

July 13, 2008

VERNON, Vt.—The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is sending experts to begin an investigation Monday into circumstances surrounding a leak in one of the cooling towers at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant and to verify that it is safe to continue operations.

NRC Executive Director for Operations Bill Borchardt is also traveling to the plant to consult with the inspectors and plant officials Monday and report back to Chairman Dale Klein and other members of the commission, according to a statement released Sunday.

Vermont Yankee nuclear plant remained at only 25 percent power Sunday in the wake of discovery of problems in cooling towers and continued low flow of the Connecticut River, which it draws water from.

On Friday, the plant's operators reported a leak in a pipe in one of its cooling towers, and said later that investigation revealed problems in the other tower -- broken or degraded pipe brackets on five so-called "saddles" that support the main pipe that brings river water to the top of the tower.

(...)

Last August, a cooling tower cell collapsed in a shower of wood, water and debris.

Plant owner Entergy informed the NRC that Friday's leak "occurred when the supply header, which carries 90,000 gallons per minute of water, sagged after the underlying horizontal support beam broke away from the vertical column to which it was bolted," the NRC said in the statement.

Read the full article here

Lone Star Sierra Club Sues to Void Uranium Waste License

Pat Bobeck, a former TCEQ staff geologist who left the agency due to objections to the pending WCS licensing, attests that after years of application review and WCS efforts at improvements in the application, the applicant failed to adequately characterize the site.

"The application contained inconsistencies and contradictions and a lack of detailed geologic data," Bobeck noted. "There is water there in that clay and in the siltstone and water is going to move that waste around. It's going to cause problems and there's no way around that."

AUSTIN, Texas, July 11, 2008 (ENS) - The Sierra Club has filed suit in state district court to overturn a decision by the state's environmental regulatory agency to grant a license for disposal of thousands of cubic feet of highly radioactive uranium waste material in far western Andrews County near the New Mexico border.

On May 21, the disposal license was issued to Waste Control Specialists, WCS, to bury 3,776 canisters of uranium waste that also contains uranium daughter products, radium and heavy metals such as lead and barium.

The lawsuit aims to force the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, TCEQ, to grant a "contested case" hearing on the license to the Sierra Club and several residents of Eunice, New Mexico, whose requests for such a proceeding were denied by the state agency.

The Eunice residents, living five miles from the radioactive dump site, believe that the license conditions will not protect them from windblown radioactive debris, potential traffic accidents and the possibility of leakage into the underlying aquifer.

"The granting of a license to bury radioactive waste in West Texas without the public scrutiny that a contested case hearing would provide is one of the more egregious actions taken by the TCEQ Commissioners in recent months - and that's saying a lot," said Ken Kramer, state Sierra Club director.

"Given all of the concerns raised about the WCS license by former TCEQ staff who reviewed the application," said Kramer, "it seems that a majority of the state environmental commissioners were hoping to sweep things under the rug by issuing the license without a contested case hearing."

Pat Bobeck, a former TCEQ staff geologist who left the agency due to objections to the pending WCS licensing, attests that after years of application review and WCS efforts at improvements in the application, the applicant failed to adequately characterize the site.

"The application contained inconsistencies and contradictions and a lack of detailed geologic data," Bobeck noted. "There is water there in that clay and in the siltstone and water is going to move that waste around. It's going to cause problems and there's no way around that."

"We're taking this matter to court to make sure that the problems with the proposed burial get the attention they deserve," Kramer said.

On May 21, on a 2-1 vote, TCEQ Commissioner Bryan Shaw and Chairman Buddy Garcia voted in favor of granting the license and denying the hearing request.

Dissenting, Commissioner Larry Soward said that it would be in the agency's and the state's best interest to allow a hearing to proceed to make sure that there were no merits to the argument that the site is unsafe for burial of radioactive materials.

Sierra Club member and small business owner Rose Gardner traveled from her home in Eunice in May to attend the TCEQ meeting at which the decision was made to grant a license to dispose of radioactive waste to Waste Control Specialists.

"This stinks that the TCEQ has denied my right to a hearing about something so close to where my family lives and has been living for the past half a century. We should be able to contest that!" said Gardner.

"I don't believe this is a safe site. I think that the radioactive waste would filter down through the cracks and salt domes in that clay. It'll leach right down into our precious groundwater," said Gardner. "I am concerned about what this could mean for the health and well being of my family."

Containers of K-65 waste at Fernald (Photo credit unknown)

The license allows WCS to bury uranium milling and mining waste, as well as so-called "K-65" waste, leftover highly-contaminated weapons waste that previously was stored in Fernald, Ohio.

K-65 wastes are the uranium mill tailings resulting from a uniquely concentrated 65 percent uranium ore discovered before World War II in the former Belgian Congo.

Because of a controversial decision by the U.S. Congress, the K-65 wastes were reclassified in 2003 as "11(e)(2)" byproduct materials.

The decision allowed the waste being stored at the Fernald site and at a similar storage site near Niagara Falls, New York to be disposed of at sites licensed for disposal of radioactive byproduct materials.

When the U.S. Department of Energy sought to bury these wastes at an EnergySolutions facility in Utah, the Utah Legislature was so concerned that it barred some of the waste from being imported.

Fernald experts recommended that the waste should be stablized by turning it into a glassy solid material as opposed to storing it in its present metal containers.

However the court rules, Texas will hear more from Waste Control also has an application pending with the commission for a low-level radioactive disposal license.

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2008. All rights reserved.

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jul2008/2008-07-11-093.asp

Let's Kick Nuclear Power out of the Climate Change Debate

(And Shireen says, "Let's abandon the euphemism, 'climate change.' It's global warming, folks, and that means the end of life, as we know it, on our planet. And we're responsible." Yep, Shireen...you're exactly right!)

AlterNet

July 12, 2008

By Linda Gunter

Presidential hopefuls, Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama both lay claim to some modicum of environmentalism. Unlike in campaigns past, climate change has actually been mentioned -- albeit it is still lacking a high profile -- in debates, interviews and at town hall meetings. Both candidates have demonstrated an interest in the subject and profess an intention to prioritize the necessary energy fixes once in office. Yet neither is willing to take nuclear power out of the discussion when addressing potential solutions to the climate crisis. Neither candidate appears to recognize that nuclear power is the elephant in the room that can do more to impede progress on climate change than to advance it.

McCain's position is more hawkish. He recently announced a recommendation to build 45 new nuclear reactors in the U.S. Where would the money come from? A recent attempt to steal $500 billion in taxpayer subsidies for the nuclear industry contained in a so-called climate change bill was led by McCain's friend -- the less kind might say "poodle" -- Sen. Joe Lieberman. McCain was vocal in his support of the bill as long as the nuclear industry retained the lion's share of the handouts.

Obama has hedged on nuclear power, citing the problems of waste, security and proliferation but refuses to take it off the table. He argues that he is not a proponent of nuclear energy, but talks about supporting research into "advanced" reactor technology. (McCain of course makes the apples and oranges argument that nuclear is needed to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Unless I've missed something and our cars are powered by nuclear reactors, one has nothing whatever to do with the other.) Missing from both arguments are the two most likely obstacles to future nuclear power development in the U.S.: time and cost.

The time issue ought to knock nuclear energy out of the running without the need for further debate. Simply put, climate scientists estimate that we have perhaps five to seven years in which to make meaningful changes in our energy use to curb climate change. A nuclear reactor takes close to a decade to come on line -- an optimistic estimate that does not account for the construction delays we have already seen at new reactor sites in Finland and France. The Finnish reactor is more than two years behind schedule largely due to technical flaws in the early construction phase.

Policy analysts at MIT and elsewhere have estimated that in order for nuclear energy to contribute the necessary global reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to actually make a difference to climate change, 1,500 new reactors would need to come on line worldwide between 2010 and 2050. This equates to the unrealistic goal of one new reactor every two weeks. Some experts predict the need for 3,000 new reactors to abate CO2 emissions effectively -- or one new reactor every week. Wasting time on this kind of pipedream detracts from the implementation of meaningful solutions to climate change.

Read the rest of this article HERE

German Leaks Raise More Nuclear Fears

By Julio Godoy


BERLIN, Jul 8 (IPS) - Confirmation that radioactive brine has been leaking for two decades from a German underground deposit for nuclear waste is yet another blow to the idea that nuclear power can safely increase electricity generation and simultaneously reduce emissions.


Radioactive leaks from the nuclear waste deposit Asse II near Braunschweig in Lower Saxony, some 225 km southwest of Berlin, were first discovered in 1988. The state-owned Helmholtz Institute for Scientific Research, which operates the centre, officially admitted the leaks only Jun. 16, under pressure from the German press.


Helmholtz spokesperson Heinz-Joerg Haury told German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung that researchers "did not consider that the leaks were worth a declaration to the press. We did not have the feeling that the public would be interested in knowing that radioactive brine is leaking in Asse II." (emphasis mine...SB)


Asse II, a former salt mine, is the oldest nuclear waste deposit in Germany. The abandoned mine was transformed into a deposit for nuclear waste in 1967, following the scientific hypothesis that rock salt pits are the best geological structure to store radioactive waste.


But in 1988, radioactive brine started to leak through the mine's walls. The site operator never informed the public.


Germany officially has four deposits for nuclear waste. Two other sites, Gorleben and Morsleben, are also abandoned rock salt mines. A fourth, Schacht Konrad, also in Lower Saxony, is a former iron mine.


No one has yet found a durable solution for storing nuclear waste, that remains highly radioactive for centuries.


Read the rest of the article HERE:

"Fernald's Uranium Mess Has High Price"

"Radioactive waste left in the groundwater at the former Fernald uranium-processing plant in southwestern Ohio could linger for a century, state officials estimate. That's why the U.S. Department of Energy agreed yesterday to pay a record $13.75 million to settle a lawsuit that the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency filed in 1986. The payment, the largest of its kind in state history, is considered one of the final acts of a years-long $4.4 billion cleanup at the plant, which refined raw uranium for nuclear weapons from 1951 to 1989." Spencer Hunt reports for the Columbus Dispatch July 9, 2008.

Read it here:
http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/07/09/Fernald.ART_ART_07-09-08_B1_STAMOR4.html?sid=101

Uranium Liquid Leak Reported in Southern France

The Nuclear Safety Agency says "uranium concentrations in the Gaffiere river were about 1,000 times the normal levels but were dropping rapidly". What exactly does "dropping rapidly" mean?

Regulations & monitoring only helps when the damage is done. How many people were affected by uranium concentration "1,000 times" the norm? Problem is, the folks that were/are contaminated may not know it until they get cancer in a few years. Good luck to them proving they were contaminated by this spill! Don't let this happen in Pittsylvania County! It will affect millions of people through the watershed all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. GV

Tuesday , July 08, 2008

PARIS —

Liquid containing traces of uranium leaked Tuesday at a nuclear site in southern France, and some of the solution ran into two rivers, France's nuclear safety agency said.

Authorities banned the consumption of well water in three nearby towns and the watering of crops from the two rivers. Also banned were swimming, water sports and fishing.

A spokeswoman for the nuclear safety agency, Evangelia Petit, said about 7,925 gallons of solution containing uranium spilled Tuesday at a factory at the Tricastin nuclear site. It is about 25 miles from the historic city of Avignon.

The factory handles materials and liquids contaminated by uranium, the fuel for nuclear power plants.

The liquid spilled from a reservoir that overflowed. It leaked both into the ground and into two rivers, the Gaffiere and the Lauzon, the nuclear safety agency said. It said the cause of the spill was not yet known. Local authorities said the leak happened during the washing of a tank.

The nuclear safety agency said uranium concentrations in the Gaffiere river were about 1,000 times the normal levels but were dropping rapidly.

Longest Walk 2 Travels From Clarksville to SVCC

Tuesday, July 8, 2008 10:17 AM EDT

Walking for a cause - Native Americans participating in the Longest Walk 2 walked from Clarksville to Southside Virginia Community College recently. Participants hope the walk will bring attention to the environmental disharmony of Mother Earth. The walk commemorated the Longest Walk that was held 30 years ago

Native Americans walk coast to coast to proclaim,

"All Life is Sacred - Save Mother Earth"

On Feb. 11 Longest Walk participants embarked on a 5-month journey from San Francisco to Washington, D.C. to arrive on July 11. The Longest Walk south route is being led by AIM co-founder Dennis J. Banks. It is an extraordinary grassroots effort on a national level to bring attention to the environmental disharmony of Mother Earth, sacred site issues, and to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the original longest walk. Linda Carter said two different local Indian groups are involved. Barry Carter heads the Virginia Occoneechee group. She is with the Eastern Siouan/Eastern Blackfoot Descendants Association who can trace their ancestry back to the Saponi people of Southside Virginia.

According to information provided by Carter, in 1978, when 11 bills in Congress threatened to abrogate the U.S. government's treaties with Indian tribes, hundreds of Indians walked from the West Coast to Washington, D.C. in a peaceful, spiritual effort to educate the public about Native American rights and the Native way of life. The 3,600-mile walk from the West Coast to Washington D.C. was successful in its purpose: to gather enough support to halt proposed legislation abrogating Indian treaties with the U.S. government. In addition, the walk resulted in the passage of the American Indian Freedom of Religion Act of 1978, allowing Native Americans to practice their traditional religions for the first time since 1492.

That extraordinarily successful grassroots effort now is being commemorated with a 30-year anniversary walk across America. The Longest Walk 2 is an effort to bring national attention to the harms being perpetrated against Mother Earth, the effects of environmental devastation on Native Americans and all peoples, plants and animals and the need to protect and preserve sacred sites as a means for cultural survival. The walkers are stopping in communities all across Turtle Island to listen to Native and all people's concerns, document them and deliver them to U.S. officials upon arrival in Washington D.C. on July 11. They walk behind the banner, "All Life is Sacred - Save Mother Earth."


Along the same northern route covered in the 1978 Longest Walk, the 2008 walkers' mission is "Renewing the Spirit by Walking in the Footsteps of our Ancestors," while another group walks a southern route in the Clean Up Mother Earth campaign, in which walkers will pick up trash along the way. Together, the two groups will cover a combined total of 8,000 miles on foot.

On Wednesday, June 25 the southern route brought the walkers from Virgilina through Clarksvile to Occoneechee State Park, where the Occoneechee-Saponi Tribe of Virginia received them.

On Thursday June 26 there was a private ceremony in honor of the 1676 massacre of Occoneechee people by Europeans on Occoneechee Island, the grave robbery that continued on Occoneechee Island for hundreds of years and the careless bulldozing and desecration of Occoneechee graves in 1952.

On Friday, June 27 a council meeting was held at Occoneechee State Park to share concerns about threats to the environment and local communities. Indigenous Americans across the nation and Southside Virginia citizens bear in common such threats as uranium mining and the sacrificing of agricultural lands and forests for "biofuels." This council presented an opportunity to consult in unity and solidarity in support of the protection of Mother Earth and her human communities.


On Saturday, June 28 the walkers left Occoneechee State Park for Brunswick County, walking on US Highway 58 east through Boydton and on toward South Hill. The walk will stop briefly for a prayer at the old Boydton Jail in honor of Tom Cole, an Occoneechee Indian who was lynched there in the early 1900s. The destination in Brunswick County was Southside Virginia Community College where they spent the night before heading to the Pocahontas State Park.


Carter said the walkers believe in the quote, "One people, One land" because the people and the land are interrelated.


"If you harm one, you harm the other. Protecting the environment is getting a little more attention but there is so much work to do to educate people," Carter said.


Carter said the walkers are very concerned about what they believe are threats to Mother Earth such as uranium mining in Pittsylvania County that could pollute the water and excessive clear cutting of trees.


"We are very concerned about the proposal to mine uranium because of the effect it will have on the water system. Clear cutting trees is another concern. Timber companies are cutting indigenous trees like oak and replanting the land with loblolly pines. The trees will mature in 20 years but they will not have the value of an oak or maple and they will change the ecosystem," Carter said.


Carter said some timber companies are misleading property owners and not paying them what the trees are really worth.


"For example, a person might be told his trees are worth $2,500 but in fact they are worth $25,000," Carter said.


Carter is also concerned about the issue of immigration. He said man invented the borders.


"Let's say a man travels from Tijuana to California to work and I travel from Virginia to California to work. He is an immigrant when he travels 200 miles and I am not an immigrant when I traveled 2.000 miles. I would like to see more dialogue on the immigration issue that would include the rights of the immigrants," Carter said.

http://www.vancnews.com/articles/2008/07/08/brunswick/news/news01.txt

Iraqi Uranium Transferred to Canada

WASHINGTON (AFP) — At Iraq's request, the US military this year transferred hundreds of metric tons of yellowcake uranium from Iraq to Canada in a secret, weeks-long operation, a Pentagon spokesman said Monday.

The 550 metric tons of uranium, which was sold to a Canadian company, was moved by truck convoy to Baghdad's "Green Zone," then flown by military aircraft to a third country where it was put on a ship for Canada, said Bryan Whitman, the spokesman.

"The operation was completed over the weekend, on Saturday," Whitman said.

The yellow cake was discovered by US troops after the 2003 US invasion of Iraq at the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Facility south of Baghdad, and was placed under the control of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Yellow cake is a form of processed uranium ore that can be used to make fuel for nuclear reactors, or if further enriched as fuel for nuclear weapons.

Whitman said the Iraqi government asked the United States for help in selling and transferring the uranium to another country.

Cameco, a Canadian company, agreed to buy the yellowcake for a reported sum in the tens of millions of dollars.

The cost to the United States of transferring the uranium came to about 70 million dollars, Whitman said. He said the Iraqi government has agreed in principle to repay part of the transfer costs.

The US State and Energy Departments also played roles in the months long operation, Whitman said. But the Defense Department took the lead in carrying out the transfer, he said.

It took 110 shipping containers to carry the drums loaded with yellowcake, he said.

They were transferred by convoy from Tuwaitha to a secure facility within the Green Zone, the international zone, Whitman said.

Then they were flown by C-17 military transport planes to an undisclosed third country. Whitman said it took 37 planeloads to complete that portion of the transfer.

"At this intermediate location the cargo was loaded onto a US-flagged cargo ship, a military sealift container ship, the USS Gopher State," he said.

Whitman said the arrangements for the sale began several months ago, but the transfer itself took "weeks not months."

With the transfer, no yellowcake was known to be left in Iraq, Whitman said.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gJdwqivtsu2aHPksVwQlEqSA5MFA

A Nuclear Renaissance

July 01, 2008
12:01 AM

By Garry Kranz

Nuclear power is undergoing a quiet renaissance in the U.S. Not built in large numbers since the 1980s, clean-burning nuclear plants are re-emerging as viable alternatives to other power sources as debate continues about climate change and potential damage caused by fossil fuels.

Emblematic of the renewed interest in nuclear energy is Areva NP Inc. Business is booming at the Lynchburg company, which manufactures components and sophisticated equipment for the building of nuclear reactors. These days, the company can’t manufacture products fast enough. Existing inventory is presold through 2018 as utilities gear up to meet power demand across the country.

To expand output, Areva announced a $25 million expansion last month. It’s also adding 500 jobs to its engineering/nuclear service staff, with the majority of those slots going to engineers.

By 2030, Areva expects to participate in the building of nearly 30 new nuclear plants in the U.S., says Andrew Cook, the company’s senior vice president of sales and marketing. “This expansion will provide much of the space we need to accommodate our growth,” the company’s CEO, Thomas Christopher, said in a statement.

Areva NP is the North American subsidiary of the Paris-based Areva Group, a leader in the design and construction of nuclear power plants. The company expects to play a leading role in the nuclear renaissance with its EPR (Evolutionary Pressurized Reactor) which was submitted to the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission for design review late last year.

Areva has been aggressively recruiting engineers throughout the U.S., including candidates that complete a special engineering curriculum at Lynchburg’s Central Virginia Community College. The company already employs about 2,000 people in the city and also has engineering facilities in Charlotte, N.C.Boosting interest in nuclear power is a streamlined licensing process at the Commission, new government subsidies and possible action by Congress to tax carbon emissions, which have been linked to global warming. Nuclear plants wouldn’t have to pay the taxes, since they don’t emit carbon gases.

However, one concern is that a new generation of nuclear power plants would be built at a time of rising costs for building materials such as cement, steel and copper. This could spike construction costs to as much as $5 billion to $12 billion per plant.

However, one concern is that a new generation of nuclear power plants would be built at a time of rising costs for building materials such as cement, steel and copper. This could spike construction costs to as much as $5 billion to $12 billion per plant.

Areva’s EPR plants here will be based on a design developed by the company’s France-based corporate parent. EPRs are currently being built in Finland and on France’s Normandy coast. The state-of-the-art reactor technology uses 7 percent less uranium per kilowatt hour and includes four independent safety systems, “any one of which is sufficient to keep reactors safe,” Cook says.

Cost overruns reportedly have pushed Areva’s EPR in Finland beyond its projected $4 billion construction cost. With construction commodities costs soaring, it’s likely any new U.S.-based EPRs would exceed that figure.

UniStar Nuclear Energy, a consortium of energy companies that includes Baltimore-based Constellation Energy and French utility company EDF, is seeking federal approval to erect the first EPR-based nuclear reactor in the U.S. Adjacent to Constellation’s existing Maryland plants at Calvert Cliffs, the project could break ground by the close of 2008, says Mike McGough, UniStar’s vice president of business development.

Meanwhile, the state’s largest utility, Dominion Virginia Power, is considering a third nuclear reactor at its North Anna Power station in Louisa County. The company received a site permit for a 1,500-megawatt unit (enough to power 375,000 homes) from the NRC last year. It has applied for a combined operating license to build and operate the reactor. Federal action could come as soon as 2010. At this point, Dominion says it’s just trying to get federal approvals in place and the paperwork done.

“We have not yet decided as a company to build this unit,” says David Heacock, president of Dominion Virginia Power. “That will be a business decision, a finance decision to be made at a later date.”

If the company moves ahead, 2016 would be the earliest a new reactor could go into production, he says. It would provide energy for Virginia customers, generating more than a quarter of the 4,000 megawatts of additional electricity Dominion says will be needed over the next decade.

http://www.virginiabusiness.com/index.php/news/article/a-nuclear-renaissance/1091//