September 2008; July 2008 August-2008 October 2008 link to Sustainable energy News

Nuclear deal has ominous implications

Mira Kamdar Washington Post Sunday September 21 2008

While news services have been abuzz over elections, perhaps the most important development in the world has been unfolding with almost no attention. India and the United States, along with deep-pocketed corporations, have been steadily pushing along a lucrative and dangerous new nuclear pact, the U.S.-India Civil Nuclear Agreement. Both governments have been working at a fever pitch to get the pact approved by the 45-country Nuclear Suppliers Group, which governs the world's trade in nuclear materials, and before the U.S. Congress for a final vote before it adjourns this month.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh says the deal will let his country, which refuses to sign either the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) or the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, take "its rightful place among the comity of nations.''

I understand why today's democratic, globalized and modernizing India wants recognition and respect, and I agree that it needs more energy. But this foolish, risky deal is not the way to get any of these things. India's democracy has already paid a crippling price, and now the planet may too.

The historic deal will allow U.S. nuclear companies to again do business in India, something that has been barred since 1974, when New Delhi tested its first atomic bomb. (India tested nuclear bombs again in 1998, spurring Pakistan to follow suit with its own tests days later.) The pact will also lift restrictions on other countries' sales of nuclear technology and fuel to India while asking virtually nothing from India in return. All that will undermine the world system that India so ardently seeks to join.

The deal risks triggering a new arms race in Asia: a miffed and unstable Pakistan will seek nuclear parity with India, and China will fume at a transparent U.S. ploy to balance Beijing's rise by building up India as a counterweight next door. The pact will gut global efforts to contain the spread of nuclear materials and encourage other countries to flout the NPT that India is now being rewarded for failing to sign.

The U.S.-India deal will divert billions of dollars away from India's real development needs in agriculture, education, health care, housing, sanitation and roads. It will also distract India from developing clean energy sources and reducing emissions from its coal plants. Instead, the pact will focus the nation's efforts on an energy source that will, under the rosiest of projections, contribute a mere eight per cent of India's total energy needs, and won't do that until 2030.

So what will the deal accomplish? It will generate billions of dollars in lucrative contracts for the corporate members of the U.S.-India Business Council and the Confederation of Indian Industry. The Bush administration hopes that it will help resuscitate the moribund U.S. nuclear power industry and expand the use of this "non-polluting'' source of energy, a pillar of the George W. Bush energy policy. The deal will let the real leaders of the global nuclear-power business -- France and Russia, both of which eagerly support the deal -- reap huge profits in India. And the pact will provide spectacularly profitable opportunities to India's leading corporations, which are slavering for their share of the booty.

How much? The Washington Post estimates more than $100 billion US in business over the next 20 years, plus perhaps tens of thousands of jobs in India and the U.S.

This is what the U.S.-India nuclear deal is really all about. This is what the non-proliferation regime that has kept the world safe from nuclear Armageddon for decades is being risked for: cash.

Industry groups have lobbied tirelessly in Washington to bring U.S. lawmakers on board.

Singh and his ruling Congress party pulled out all the stops to get a skeptical parliament to approve the deal, and the corrosive effects on India's democracy will be felt for years. India's complicated coalition politics will become even more chaotic, with political leaders ready to switch alliances at the drop of a pin -- for the right price. The big losers will be its people, as India's already dismal efforts to fight poverty sink even deeper into graft and corruption.

More ominously, the deal will tell other would-be nuclear powers -- and nuclear rogues -- that the old barriers to non-proliferation need not be taken seriously. They certainly have not been taken seriously by the U.S. Other, less high-minded powers will surely follow the short-sighted example being set by New Delhi and Washington. Russia has emphatically signalled that it has had enough of global norms that it considers unfair and is keen to return to old-fashioned realpolitik.

India's nemesis and neighbour Pakistan is outraged that India has been offered a deal it won't get. The United States relied on Gen. Pervez Musharraf's dictatorship to keep the nuclear arsenal in check, but today's weak, squabbling civilian government is ill-equipped to defeat the Islamist terrorist groups only too eager to get their hands on a loose Pakistani nuke.

Australia should not sell uranium to Russia,

a parliamentary committee says.

BBC web site September 21 2008

It said the $800 million deal should not go ahead until Russia assuaged doubts about the separation of its civilian and

military uses of uranium.

The deal was signed by former Prime Minister John Howard and Russian leader Vladimir Putin last year.

The committee said assurances were needed on Russia's compliance with, and long-term commitment to, the Nuclear

Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Opposition members of parliament supported the uranium sales. They argued Australia would benefit from the trade,

and said safeguards against any future military use of the uranium were adequate.

But the report presented to parliament on Thursday recommended that "further consideration is given to the potential ramifications for this agreement".

The committee said any facilities taking Australian uranium should be inspected by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Russia has insisted that it would only use Australian uranium for civilian purposes, to generate power at home, and would

not export it for use elsewhere.

Some reports of the committee's findings suggested that opposition to the deal was strengthened by Russia's recent

incursions into Georgia.

Australia's Foreign Minister Stephen Smith warned earlier this month that if Russia failed to withdraw its troops from

neighbouring Georgia, Australia might withhold approval of the new agreement.

Australia has 40% of the world's known uranium resources and exports the product to more than 30 countries under strict conditions.

Researchers tackle uranium pollution mystery at Hanford

By Annette Cary, Tricity Herald staff writer Sept. 18,2008

Scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory believe a research project using 35 newly drilled wells will help explain the baffling behavior of uranium contamination at Hanford.

A decade ago, Hanford officials believed uranium contamination at the nuclear reservation just north of Richland along the Columbia River was a problem that time would solve.

After the most contaminated soil was dug up and hauled to a landfill for low-level radioactive waste in central Hanford, they expected the uranium-contaminated ground water below it to naturally dissipate.

Instead, levels of contamination remain at up to three times the drinking water standard in the ground water.

"The plume here has been far more persistent than expected," said John Zachara, PNNL chief scientist who is leading a team of experts in underground geochemistry, hydrology and microbiology on the research project.

They're hoping that with the array of new wells equipped with sophisticated monitoring devices they will be able to get to the bottom of the mystery of how uranium behaves deep underground.

"We're looking at some very aggressive technology," said Mike Thompson, Department of Energy hydrogeologist.

With the $13 million research project, scientists believe they will learn more about how, where and when uranium binds to the soil, moves with the ground water, then binds with the soil again, with some of it eventually reaching the Columbia River.

Among the key issues are the daily and seasonal fluctuations in the level of the Columbia River, creating what Thompson describes as a washing-machine action in the uranium contamination.

Scientists want to know more about how the different chemistry of the river water and ground water from various sources affects the uranium contamination, how the ground water moves and how thin layers of sediment in the soil bind and release the uranium.

"Sites like these are complicated scientifically and the action is below ground where you can't look at it," Zachara said.

During World War II and the Cold War when plutonium was made at Hanford for the nation's nuclear weapons program, the 300 Area just north of Richland was used to make uranium into fuel for reactors. As a byproduct of the process, 60 tons of dissolved uranium was released into the ground in disposal ponds and trenches in the 300 Area.

The vast majority of uranium contamination was in the top 15 feet of soil, which has been dug up, Thompson said. But the lighter contamination deeper in the soil appears to be acting as a persistent and long-term source to keep recontaminating the ground water near the Columbia River.

This summer the national lab research project began with the drilling of 35 wells 60 feet deep that form a triangle centered on the location of the first disposal pond used for the release of uranium-contaminated water. Each side of the triangular array of wells is about 65 yards long.

They're equipped with sensors that can detect temperature and measure electrical resistivity. That allows an in-depth look at information such as the consistency of underground soil and the underground movement of water from different sources -- rain, ground water and river water.

The first use of the wells calls for injecting tracers of salt and varying temperatures into the ground to follow their movement.

Later tests are proposed to include reinjecting contaminated ground water from the uranium plume to observe the behavior of the uranium.

DOE's goal is to understand enough about the properties of the 96 acres of ground water contaminated with uranium at the 300 Area to find ways to restore it to drinking water quality.

Although the uranium enters the river just upstream from the Richland city water uptake, the river almost immediately dilutes the contamination to easily meet standards for drinking water.

The research project is planned to be completed in five years. It's being paid for with a competitive grant the national lab won in DOE's Field-Scale Subsurface Research Challenge.

More trouble for Cameco at Port Hope

Northern Miner Daily News Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Cameco (CCO-T, CCJ-N) has been given the green light to restart operations at its Port Hope uranium hexafluoride conversion plant,

which was shut down in July 2007 when contaminated soil was found beneath the plant, but the company might have to close the plant

again within a month.

Cameco's supplier of hydrofluoric acid (HF) has terminated its contract leaving the company without the key ingredient needed to

produce uranium hexafluoride (UF6).

The company has enough HF to resume operations at a reduced rate for the next month but has not yet located an alternate supplier.

The previous supplier is willing to ship HF to the Port Hope plant, but for a significantly higher price.

Cameco claims the supply company wrongfully terminated the contract and is looking for another supplier but HF is not available on a spot basis nor is it readily available or deliverable without a preapproved

transportation plans.

Total remediation costs for the contamination will total about $50-55 million; about 20 million (including $17 million in 2007) will be expensed

and the remainder capitalized.

The money was spent on the investigation for the cause and effects of the subsurface leakage, to rehabilitate the plant and install a system of

wells that collect impacted groundwater in the area surrounding the plant and the harbour.

Nuclear power doesn't benefit Britain, other nations

The Statesman Journal,(Oregon) September 6, 2008

LONDON — Professor Emeritus John C. Ringle ("U.S. would benefit from nuclear power, "Opinion, Aug. 21) asserts, "France, Great Britain, Japan and Russia derive great benefit from reprocessing, " and concludes, "We [The US] should be doing the same."

I write from London, England. I cannot speak for France, Japan or Russia, but I can enlighten your readers that the chemical separation of plutonium from uranium and fission products in irradiated nuclear fuel through the process called nuclear reprocessing has not proved a great benefit to Britain.

It has resulted in significant radiological pollution of the Irish Sea, angering our neighbors -- Ireland, for several decades -- as well as Nordic neighbors -- Norway, concerned over radiological pollution of their pristine fishing waters. [This pollution comes from the Sellafield nuclear establishment in Northern England where all of Britain's reprocessing activities have taken place.]

Sellafield's most modern reprocessing plant, called THORP [THermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant], has been closed for over three years, following an accident in plutonium processing in July 2004. It is being slowly recommissioned, at a huge financial cost, despite many objections, including from Ireland.

There are indeed atomic advocates who, such as Prof. Ringle, want to try to make profitable re-use of the British reprocessed plutonium stocks. Recently the British National Nuclear Laboratory claimed the stockpile of over 106, 000 kilogrammes (106 metric tons) would be worth some £160 billion (around $300 billion) if converted to new nuclear fuel. (London Times, Aug.18, http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/utilities/article4553489.ece).

[Postulating] This value of potential energy benefits is absurdly large. This laboratory [whose creation was announced at the Sellafield Visitors Centre on July 23rd 2008] is populated by many former scientists from British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL), which used to own and operate Sellafield.

The British Government's agency, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, which owns the British civil plutonium stockpile, is currently consulting interested parties, including environmental groups, over plutonium disposition -- including whether the stockpile should be deemed a future energy source, or a liability.

I would recommend your readers consult a recent report on the history of reprocessing at Sellafield (published by the International Panel on Fissile Materials, a group led by senior academics from Princeton University) [and written] by a researcher and campaigner -- also a former police officer -- who has lived in the shadow of the plant for over 30 years, and who now runs an anti-atom group, Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment (CORE). [This report] may be accessed at: http://www.ipfmlibrary.org/rr05.pdf

Prof. Ringle might also become enlightened as to the realities of the failures of reprocessing in Britain if he reads this volume by this anti-nuclear group, about which in general he is so disparaging in his opinion article.

David Lowry, Ph.D., is an environmental policy and research consultant,

member, Nuclear Waste Advisory Associates, contributing author to

"The International Politics of Nuclear Waste" and "Nuclear or Not?"

German mine used for nuclear waste leaking

BERLIN, Sept. 3 (UPI) -- Radioactive water is leaking from an old salt and potash mine in Germany that had been converted to a storage facility for nuclear waste.

The discovery of the leak has reopened debate about nuclear power, theerman magazine Der Spiegel reports. German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel described the mine as "the most problematic nuclear facility in Europe."

The Asse II mine in Lower Saxony shut down in 1964. Three years later it reopened as an "experimental" nuclear facility.

Official records indicate that 130,000 barrels of low- and mid-level nuclear waste are stored in the mine, Spiegel said. But there are reports that nuclear fuel rods and plutonium were dumped there as well and that some of the barrels have rusted through.

Radiation levels have been measured there at eight times the safe level, Der Spiegel said. Local officials said they fear that salt water leaking from the mine could end up in public water supplies.

After an interim report was released, Renate Kunst, leader of the Green Party in the German parliament, filed a criminal complaint against the Helmholtz Center for Health and Environment and the state mining office in Lower Saxony, the two agencies responsible for the mine, Der Spiegel said.

AECL sits on pile of unused bomb-grade uranium

U.S. says it wants radioactive material back; agency won't say what it will do

Ian MacLeod, The Ottawa Citizen Friday, September 05, 2008

Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. is sitting on a stockpile of orphaned bomb-grade uranium it doesn't want to talk about.

Since the Crown corporation pulled the plug in May on further development of two troubled MAPLE reactors at its Chalk River nuclear laboratories, officials have debated how to deal with the estimated 45 kilograms of highly enriched uranium (HEU) the United States exported to Canada for production of medical isotopes in the now-doomed reactors.

Whatever the options are now for the uranium, AECL isn't saying.

"We haven't made a final decision yet. For commercial and security reasons, I'm just not at liberty to discuss any details," spokesman Dale Coffin said yesterday.

David McIntyre, of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which authorized the export licences to ship the uranium to Canada, confirmed yesterday that his agency contacted AECL after it announced the death of the MAPLEs on May 16. But he, too, would not discuss the issue further.

The main barrier between terrorists and a nuclear catastrophe is the difficulty in obtaining uranium or the alternative bomb-making essential, plutonium.

The estimated quantity of fissile uranium at Chalk River is enough to build at least one nuclear bomb.

Non-proliferation advocates fear terrorists could strike and steal the material or carry out an act of radiological sabotage at the Upper Ottawa Valley site, two hours northwest of Ottawa. But it wouldn't be easy.

The site is guarded by an undisclosed number of armed Nuclear Response Force guards manning a series of defensive rings that become increasingly fortified with delay features moving toward the 100-acre main compound. And CFB Petawawa is next door.

Though he was reluctant to comment further yesterday, Mr. McIntyre said he was quoted correctly by a U.S. nuclear industry trade magazine in May saying if a viable option can't be found for the highly enriched uranium, such as possibly using it for isotope production in the aging NRU reactor at Chalk River, the material should be returned to the U.S.

Alan Kuperman, director of the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention program at the University of Texas and a longtime critic of Canada's continuing commercial use of uranium for isotope production, said using the pre-fabricated uranium targets intended for the MAPLE -- the Multipurpose Applied Physics Lattice Experiment -- reactors would require extensive modifications before it could be used in the NRU. What's more, the NRU already receives a steady supply of other U.S. uranium that is far more readily useable.

That means the MAPLE uranium is surplus to AECL's needs, "and it's U.S. policy to retrieve all excess material," Mr. Kuperman said yesterday. "That stuff has to come back as soon as possible."

And that may, in fact, be the plan, he said.

"My sources were telling me that AECL had agreed to the U.S. request that these targets must be returned forthwith, that's my understanding. If there's any hedging on that front now on the Canadian side, my guess is it's because some industry diehards are thinking they're going to get the MAPLE reactors actually started.

"If you believe the announcements that the MAPLE project is cancelled, and given that the U.S. is supplying fresh HEU for the NRU target, there's no conceivable reason to want to keep the MAPLE targets in Canada except to present a tempting target to terrorists.

"If anyone is trying to keep hope alive, then the returning of the MAPLE targets would be the stake in the heart, a clear sign the project is not going to come back from the dead."

The MAPLEs project was terminated after AECL bowed to seemingly insurmountable technical problems and enormous cost overruns.

For years, AECL and Ottawa's MDS Nordion, the world's leading producer of medical isotopes and former partner in the MAPLEs project, have weathered criticism over the use and stockpiling of uranium at Chalk River. An estimated 20 tonnes of "civilian" highly enriched uranium is stored around the world, primarily to fuel more than 100 research reactors in dozens of countries, some with questionable security.

Uranium: Natural and enriched Natural uranium found in the Earth's crust consists almost entirely of an atom called U-238. About 0.7 per cent is a related atom, or isotope, called U-235. Its nucleus can release energy by splitting into smaller fragments, which then hit and split other U-235 atoms, and so on. Enriching uranium means ensuring there is enough U-235 to maintain that chain reaction. Low-enriched uranium is considered anything with less than 20 per cent U-235. Uranium enriched to three to five per cent, for example, is used to fuel reactors that generate electricity. When the U-235 component is enriched to 90 per cent or more and the atoms are fissioned in the controlled conditions of a nuclear reactor, some important medical isotopes --namely Mo-99 -- are created. When injected into the body, it and other isotopes emit harmless amounts of radiation that can be traced by special equipment and quickly reveal disease and illnesses. U.S. physicians alone use them at least 50,000 times a day and an estimated 15 million to 20 million nuclear medicine procedures are performed annually. The MAPLEs HEU is enriched to 93.3 per cent. Twenty-five to 50 kilograms is enough to make a simple nuclear bomb. The weapon that destroyed Hiroshima was built with about 60 kilograms of 80-per-cent enriched uranium.