Kansas to let nuclear plant guards "shoot to kill"

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius signed a bill on Wednesday authorizing security guards to shoot to kill to protect the state's lone nuclear power plant.
"There's no doubt that nuclear facilities are a potential target for terrorists," said Sebelius in a press statement. "Kansas has one nuclear plant, Wolf Creek, and we must make sure it's properly protected. Allowing guards to use deadly force in certain circumstances increases the security of the plant, and of our state," said Sebelius.
The law is called the "Nuclear Generating Facility Security Guard Act."
Texas and Arizona have similar laws and the Kansas measure grew out of the legislature's joint committee on campus security, according to the Kansas governor's office.
The Wolf Creek nuclear power station generates 1,200 megawatts of electricity, which can power about 1 million homes.
A spokesman at the governor's office was not able to say whether there had been attacks on the Wolf Creek plant since it began operation in 1985 in Burlington in Coffey County, about 100 miles southwest of Kansas City.

ABC News: No Radiation From Japan Nuclear Waste Fire

ABC News: No Radiation From Japan Nuclear Waste Fire

Fire Breaks Out at Nuclear Waste Incinerator in Western Japan, but Officials Say No Radiation Leak
By KOZO MIZOGUCHI
The Associated Press
TOKYO - A fire broke out at a nuclear power plant's waste incinerator in western Japan on Wednesday, but officials said no radiation leaked into the atmosphere. Two workers were injured.
It took firefighters wearing protective suits nearly two hours to reach the blaze because of thick smoke, and another two hours to put out the flames at the facility in Oi, about 235 miles west of Tokyo, said Manabu Kobana of Kansai Electric Power Co.
Sensors inside and around the plant showed no signs of a radiation leak, police said. All four pressurized water reactors at Oi were operating normally, and workers at the plant reactors remained at their stations during the fire. No one was evacuated.
"We don't believe the reactors were at any time exposed to danger," Fukui police official Ritsuo Eto said.
Two workers who were inspecting the facility were rushed to a hospital after inhaling smoke, but they were not in critical condition and were not exposed to radiation, fire officials said.
Resource-poor Japan is heavily dependent on its nuclear program, but the public has been increasingly wary of reactor safety following a series of malfunctions and accidents.
The cause of Wednesday evening's blaze located at the waste incinerating facility between the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors was still under investigation. But flames seemed to have come from an area in the facility where the ash from incinerated trash is packed into steel barrels, Kobana said.
The waste processed at the facility includes employee uniforms, rags and other trash from the plant and may contain "minuscule" levels of radiation, Kobana said.
Japan's 55 nuclear reactors supply about one-third of the country's electricity, according to the Natural Resources and Energy Agency, though residents are wary of the plants' safety record.
In 2004, five workers were killed when a corroded pipe at a reactor in western Japan ruptured and sprayed plant workers with boiling water and steam in the country's worst-ever nuclear plant accident. No radiation escaped from that reactor, which has since resumed operations.
In 1999, a radiation leak at a fuel-reprocessing plant northeast of Tokyo killed two workers and triggered the evacuation of thousands of residents. That accident was caused by two workers who tried to save time by mixing excessive amounts of uranium in buckets instead of using special mechanized tanks.
The government has said it wants to build 11 new plants and raise electricity output generated by nuclear power to nearly 40 percent of the national supply by 2010.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

French govt backs long-term nuclear waste burial - Forbes.com

French govt backs long-term nuclear waste burial - Forbes.com

PARIS (AFX) - Industry Minister Francois Loos said the government has decided to propose long-term burial of France's stock of highly-radioactive nuclear waste, following a 15 year review of the options for dealing with spent fuel from the country's network of nuclear reactors. The burying of nuclear waste in rock formations several hundred meters below the earth's surface, known as 'deep geological disposal', would provide France with a secure solution for waste that will remain toxic for hundreds of thousands of years, Loos said at a press conference. 'Wastes have been produced over the past 40 years; they are there, and it's up to us to manage them,' Loos said, adding that new taxes will be levied on nuclear plant operates, mainly Electricite de France, to fund additional research on radioactive waste disposal. Already, provisions are being constituted to finance nuclear waste management, and Loos said that for a typical French family's annual electricity bill of about 600 eur, about 10 eur is set aside to cover disposal costs. A final burial site will be chosen by 2015, and Loos reaffirmed that France will not allow storage of high-level nuclear waste from other countries. But environmental groups were quick to attack the government's plan, saying that public opinion is largely against long-term burial, which has been tested at a laboratory near the city of Bure in Eastern France for several years. Cap 21, the ecology party headed by former environment minister Corinne Lepage, condemned a 'dangerous and unacceptable project,' saying that studies have not demonstrated the long-term safety of deep burial, which could begin leaking radioactivity over the thousands of years they would have to be stored. Loos said Parliament will begin debating the proposed law on April 6, and hopes a final vote on the project will be made before the end of the summer.

Nuclear confusion: help or hindrance?

Ethical Corporation: Columnists - Climate change - Nuclear confusion: help or hindrance?

In this second article on climate change, Janus pleads for an open and fact-based debate on whether or not nuclear power has a future role to play
“Desperate times call for desperate measures”, an old saying goes. The world needs more energy for development – the International Energy Agency sees demand rising by 52% between now and 2030. But if governments want to combat climate change, fossil fuel use – which provides by far the largest (and rising) share of primary energy – will have to be reduced. So what, if any, is nuclear’s role, and how should it be assessed?After decades without new build in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development area, it is no secret that nuclear power is back on the agenda. The main drivers are rising concern about climate change, oil and gas prices, and energy security. But already the debate has become stereotyped. Depending on whom you listen to, we should either be building many more reactors, or phasing them out over the next decades.Here is a set of questions that the nuclear industry should answer if it is to make a convincing case.

Uranium?Uranium, like oil, is a non-renewable resource. By some accounts, there are less than 50 years of relatively cheap uranium left at current rates of use. One German institute puts the figure as low as 20 years. Uranium prices have risen sharply in the past years. The World Nuclear Association expects that demand will exceed supply in the period to 2015, meaning further price rises. If nuclear power is scaled up, energy planning will need to be explicit about fuel prices and reserves. Reprocessing, and other fuels such as thorium, offer possibilities. However, as the experience with nuclear fusion research has shown – where billions have been invested over decades without lighting a single bulb – caution is needed.Time?Being the most complex piece of energy kit yet invented, construction of a nuclear power station takes time. Finland’s decision to proceed with a fifth nuclear plant is illustrative. First proposed in 2000, the 1600 MW Olkiluoto plant was approved in 2002. Construction started in early 2005 and it is expected to go into commercial operation in 2009, with a 50 to 60 year lifetime. In other words, it can be nearly a decade before nuclear power is displacing coal. Is this fast enough to meet greenhouse gas reduction targets, and still meet energy needs? And that is not taking into account the fact that most existing reactors are 25 to 40 years old and will need to be shut down and decommissioned in the coming decades. Money?In the 1950s and 1960s, the full economic costs of nuclear power were largely hidden, being partly covered by defence budgets and other government investment. With decommissioning, insurance underwriting, waste storage and disposal, spent fuel shipment and the like, nuclear’s costs have never been fully built into energy costs. With reactors costing several billions of dollars apiece, the opportunity/cost arguments become vital. Given that much of the capital investment will be public money or guaranteed – private investors will not step up without some form of subsidies – is it too much to ask what other energy services a fully-costed nuclear reactor would buy? What, for example, could energy efficiency or renewables deliver for the same money? The work in this area of energy efficiency guru Amory Lovins deserves a close review. Security?Ever since the September 11 attacks on the US, the potential risk of nuclear power plants has had to be reassessed. Apart from releases of radioactive materials as a result of a terrorist attack, the nuclear cycle offers the determined and disaffected various options, including “dirty” bombs and potentially even a nuclear weapon. While International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards have done basically a good job in tracking nuclear use, the current confrontation with Iran highlights the dilemmas. If it were decided to expand nuclear power, a serious strengthening of the international safeguards regime – from mine to long-term disposal – would seem to be essential. Public support?It is a long time since large-scale public demonstrations against nuclear power. But it has been a long time since there was a proposal to build new nuclear capacity in the OECD region, Finland aside. While the public appears to let by-gones be by-gones as far as existing reactors are concerned, no one really knows what the response will be to a proposal to build new plants.CO2 budget?Nuclear is being sold as part of the answer to climate change. However the mining, processing and enrichment of uranium require fossil fuels. Nuclear reactors and long-term containment sites need huge quantities of steel and concrete, production of which is also greenhouse gas intensive. If the “nuclear is good for the climate” argument is to be convincing, a sound greenhouse gas life-cycle analysis will be needed to show how nuclear stacks up against other energy sources and systems. Nuclear has a carbon footprint: let’s see it and let’s see how the carbon cost avoided stacks up against the other options.Technology?Ever since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, the nuclear industry has pinned its hopes on “inherently safe” next generation reactors. The problem is that there is limited experience of these. China has built a 10 MW high-temperature gas-cooled pebble bed reactor (HTR-10), which is claimed to be “passively safe”. It is reported to have plans to put a full-scale 200 MW version on line this decade, at an estimated cost of US$300 million. China’s nuclear industry has not disguised its hope to sell the 200 MW reactors throughout China, and to world markets. If the technology proves cost-effective and safe, low-cost competition from China seems likely to add a new element to the economics of the debate. For the time being, nuclear power is a part of the energy mix. If nuclear is genuinely a contribution to efforts to deal with climate change, as ecologists like James Lovelock contend, it should be considered. The case, however, is yet to be made and the unseemly rush in this direction at present brings to mind the old adage that “fools rush in where angels fear to tread”

Terror risks of nuclear fuel

Terror risks of nuclear fuel csmonitor.com

By Mark Clayton Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
The Bush administration's plan to deploy a high-tech fuel to power a new generation of nuclear reactors worldwide has a potentially explosive problem:
It is too easy for terrorists to grab and turn it into a nuclear bomb.
That's the criticism expressed by nuclear scientists and in several little-known federal studies about the technology underlying the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, unveiled last month. Administration officials tout GNEP for technological breakthroughs that dramatically reduce the nuclear waste from civilian reactors and, at the same time, greatly reduce the risk of nuclear proliferation.
Using GNEP's new fuel technology, called UREX-Plus, the United States could safely end its three-decade moratorium on reprocessing spent nuclear fuel intended to keep plutonium from spreading, officials say. "The goal of GNEP is recovery of the energy in a way that doesn't promote weapons," Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman told a US Senate committee last month.
Knowledgeable critics have said from the outset that the new reactor fuel envisioned in GNEP is not so very hard to turn into bombs. But what has not been widely known is that their views are echoed by the US Department of Energy's own studies. According to a 2004 study conducted for an Energy Department blue-ribbon commission, for instance, the UREX-plus technology was only slightly more "proliferation resistant" - difficult to turn into bombs - than the PUREX process used by other nations. The US has often criticized PUREX for its vulnerability.
"The bottom line is that UREX-plus is not much more proliferation resistant - by their own estimates," says Henry Sokolski, former deputy for nonproliferation policy at the Defense Department in the first Bush administration.
To be proliferation resistant, nuclear material should be so radioactive it would be deadly to handle, nearly impossible to divert without detection, and fiendishly difficult to refine into weapons fuel. UREX-plus falls well short by all three measures, according to federal reports.
For example: Any such reactor fuel should be so radioactive that it would be "self-protecting." The National Academy of Sciences calls for a "spent fuel standard" for plutonium. That means it should be so radioactive - emitting 1,000 rads per hour at arms-length - that anyone trying to steal it would receive a lethal dose of radiation within 30 minutes. It also means it should be as difficult to transport as a 12-foot-long assembly of nuclear fuel rods weighing half a ton or more.
But UREX-plus, as developed and as presented to Congress until recently, would emit less than 1 rad per hour, according to a November report from the Energy Department's Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Even using the lower standard for plutonium developed by the International Atomic Energy Agency, that's 1/100th of the necessary level for self-protection.
The UREX technologies "would still produce a material that is not radioactive enough to deter theft and could still be used to make nuclear weapons," says Edwin Lyman, a physicist with the Union of Concerned Scientists.
"UREX-plus is just PUREX with lipstick," adds physicist Frank von Hippel, former assistant director of national security in the White House Office of Science and Technology:Supporters say critiques are outdated
Government scientists say UREX-plus is much better than critics say it is.
"There's only one step where this material has low self-protection, not up to the max, and then it's heavily guarded," says Phillip Finck, deputy associate laboratory director at Argonne National Laboratory in Argonne, Ill., and the administration's top scientific spokesman on UREX. "This process, UREX-plus, is much more proliferation resistant than things developed in the past."
And the Energy Department's 2004 study that rated UREX-plus only slightly above PUREX "should be performed again in view of the real technological changes since then," he adds.
Nevertheless, Dr. Finck in a presentation to congressional staff last Friday proposed a major change to UREX-plus that would add the radioactive element europium to the mix. That change is intended to boost the fuel's self-protection level, but it would also require additional refining capability at each "advanced fast-burner" reactor site, costing many billions more than the price tag US Energy Secretary Bodman offered in congressional hearings last month, several experts say.
So far, the government has proposed spending $250 million on GNEP planning and development. If GNEP gets the green light, it would cost another $3 billion to $6 billion over five years to get engineering scale demonstration facilities going and perhaps $20 billion to $40 billion overall, Bodman says.
But with the US needing dozens of reactors and reprocessing plants to meet demand, the cost could rise into hundreds of billions of dollars, according to early Energy Department estimates and the National Academy.
Radioactivity isn't the only defense against terrorists and rogue states. Another key is whether the plutonium-based fuel can be measured accurately. Plutonium is a sticky substance that gets caught in nooks, and crannies, like drains. The more accurately it can be tracked, the less likely an employee at a civilian reactor could divert small amounts without getting caught, a strong point for UREX-Plus, Finck says.
But the plutonium in UREX-plus would be in powder and liquid forms and mixed with other materials, known as minor actinides or MAs. And this mixture, which is intended to make it harder for terrorists to extract the plutonium, could make it very hard to measure, government scientists say.
"Even small concentrations of MAs in plutonium mixes could complicate the accuracy of the plutonium measurement if not properly taken into account: consequently, safeguards of plutonium could be affected," Los Alamos scientists wrote in a 1996 study.
A third test of a fuel's proliferation potential is whether it can be readily used as bomb fuel with little further refinement. With PUREX, the reprocessing technology now used by Britain, France, Russia, and Japan, it's clear that its plutonium oxide output could be swiftly and easily converted to metallic plutonium for a bomb, experts say.
By contrast, UREX-plus fuel "is not attractive or useable as weapons material," said Clay Sell, deputy secretary of Energy at a press conference unveiling the GNEP program last month.
But that's not what several energy Department scientists have concluded. They found that plutonium-based reactor fuels with various impurities can still be used in a crude or even an advanced nuclear weapon.Fuel could become bomb, study says
A "subnational group using designs and technologies no more sophisticated than those used in first-generation nuclear weapons could build a nuclear weapon from reactor-grade plutonium," a 1997 DOE study found. The explosion would be on the scale of the bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, in World War II. But even a "fizzled" explosion would mean a one-kiloton explosion, enough to devastate the core of a major US city.
True, that study did not evaluate the "minor actinides," elements included in UREX-plus, such as americium and neptunium. But more recent DOE analysis indicates such elements are not much, if any, real obstacle to the fuel's use in a weapon. Indeed, UREX-plus would contain americium and neptunium, nuclear elements with explosive properties any terrorist or a rogue state could well appreciate, government physicists say.
"As nuclear weapon design and engineering become more common in the world, it becomes possible to make nuclear weapons out of an increasing number of technically challenging explosive fissionable materials," including the likes of americium, wrote a DOE scientist in a 1999 report.
Such fears are largely unfounded, counters Finck at Argonne. "Theoretically, yes, you could use it [in a bomb.] But it would be an extremely difficult process. I can't comment further on that."
Common security measures, he adds, such as close-in surveillance cameras, real-time computer tracking of material, guards, guns, and fences at UREX-plus reprocessing plants, in tandem with technical challenges would make the fuel very difficult to steal.

Russia, U.S. push nuclear power at G8 energy meet

Reuters AlertNet - Russia, U.S. push nuclear power at G8 energy meet

MOSCOW, March 16 (Reuters) - Russia and the United States called on Thursday for the world to embrace nuclear power to guarantee stable supplies of energy and cut emissions of harmful greenhouse gases.
The two, former Cold War foes who still control the world's biggest arsenals of nuclear weapons, made their atomic appeal at a meeting of energy ministers from the Group of Eight nations in Moscow.
"We are hopeful of a very substantial rebirth of the global nuclear industry," U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman told a post-meeting news conference.
A statement issued by Russia, chairing the G8 for the first time this year, supported "safe and secure" nuclear power as a key alternative in an era of soaring oil prices.
"Atomic energy alternatives must be accessible to other countries, including developing countries," Russian President Vladimir Putin told energy ministers in the Kremlin.
Environmentalists expressed horror at the nuclear push by Moscow and Washington, which came little more than a month before the 20th anniversary of the world's worst nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, Ukraine.
Russia is also at the centre of international controversy over its plans to supply nuclear technology to Iran, suspected by the United Nations' nuclear watchdog of seeking to build an atomic bomb.
"The nuclear industry is desperate to secure funding of billions from the taxpayers of the G8," said Shaun Burnie of Greenpeace International.
"If they succeed we will fail in securing a sustainable energy future and will fail to prevent dangerous climate change."
Ministers from G8 members France, Canada and Italy backed the nuclear call. But Germany, now phasing out nuclear power, and Japan, hit by leaks from its Tokaimura nuclear plant in 1997 and 1999, expressed reservations.
FOSSIL FUELS RULE
Russia, the world's largest producer of oil and gas, also used its G8 chairmanship to promote fossil fuels, marking a major departure from the climate change agenda set at the bloc's summit last year.
"Despite the increased presence of alternative sources in the energy mix, fossil fuels will remain the basis of the world energy industry for at least the first half of the 21st century," a Russian statement said.
The statement, which did not reflect a joint G8 position, contrasted with the line taken at last year's summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, which focused on cutting greenhouse gas emissions and promoting renewable energy.
It also appeared to depart from commitments made by Russia as a signatory of the Kyoto Protocol to curb output of carbon dioxide -- blamed by environmentalists as the main cause of global warming.
Environmentalists have posted what they say is a leaked energy strategy paper being prepared for the G8 summit in St Petersburg on the Internet. Russian officials have not confirmed the draft's authenticity.
"My hope is that the end product won't look like the draft," said Jennifer Morgan, director of the global climate change programme at the World Wildlife Fund. "I am counting on Germany, France and Britain to ensure that this text is put into shape."
PROMOTING DIALOGUE
Russia invited officials from energy consuming giants China and India and oil producer cartel OPEC to promote a global energy dialogue ahead of the July 15-17 G8 summit.
But critics accuse the Kremlin of using its massive energy supplies as a political weapon, adding to the world's energy woes at a time when oil prices exceed $60 per barrel.
Some participants at the talks criticised the Russian statement's failure to acknowledge the impact of a recent gas crisis in Europe.
Russia's gas monopoly Gazprom , which supplies a quarter of Europe's gas, shocked the continent in January by briefly cutting supplies in a pricing dispute with Ukraine.
Russian Industry and Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko dashed hopes of breaking Gazprom's monopoly this week, saying Moscow would not ratify the European Energy Charter, which would entail opening access to its pipelines to third parties.

Safe nuclear power supply strategy to be prepared for G8 summit

RIA Novosti - World - Safe nuclear power supply strategy to be prepared for G8 summit

MOSCOW, March 16 (RIA Novosti) - A joint strategy to supply the world's poorest countries with nuclear power without risking nuclear proliferation could be developed for the Group of Eight leaders' summit, to take place in July in St. Petersburg, Russia's industry and energy minister said Thursday.
Viktor Khristenko said after a meeting of G8 energy ministers that initiatives proposed by Russia, the U.S. and France were being currently discussed.
"We hope that during the preparation for the summit all these proposals will gain a more harmonious form, and that there will be a mutual understanding of how we will cover such risks," he said.
President Vladimir Putin said in late January that Russia was ready to build an international center "to offer nuclear fuel cycle services, including [uranium] enrichment under the control of the IAEA."
In February, U.S. President George W. Bush proposed allocating $250 million from the 2007 budget on an international program to produce and deliver nuclear fuel for other countries' nuclear power plants.

EC official questions nuclear as efficient, economic choice

EC official questions nuclear as efficient, economic choice

London (Platts)--16Mar2006

The costs for new nuclear power are "huge," and from an economic perspective
it may not be the best choice for helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,
a European Commission official told Platts March 14.

"From a pure market perspective, you have to look at what is really economic
and efficient," said Lars Mueller, a policy officer with the EC Environment
directorate general. "There are huge costs for nuclear power, if you include
the costs for waste, and the waste problem is not solved in any country.
Neither is the problem of decommissioning." He did not give any cost figures.

As a policy officer, Mueller ranks just below EC commissioners. He is involved
with negotiations with European Union states about areas such as emissions
trading and makes recommendations to the EC commissioners.

Mueller was in Stockholm speaking at a public hearing on climate change
organized by members of the Permanent Standing Committee on Environment and
Agriculture in the Riksdag, or parliament.

Mueller said he was doubtful of Finnish claims that the 1,600-MW EPR being
built at Olkiluoto for Teollisuuden Voima Oy, or TVO, is the most economic way
to get more baseload power. "I would be interested to hear how they justify
the investment," he said.

Finland has said that nuclear is economical since TVO is a cooperative that
sells power at cost to its owners and that the owners would be willing to pay
a small premium for security of supply. TVO also has said it can run the unit
as least as efficiently as its existing reactors, so electricity from the new
unit would not cost any more.

Mueller added that the decision to build a new unit in Finland was made for
"policy reasons, not economic reasons," noting Finland's desire to reduce its
energy dependency on neighboring Russia.

Finnish political and utility sources admit that they want to reduce
dependence on Russian electricity and are willing to pay a premium for that.
But they also say they believe that a new nuclear unit can be cost competitive
for the cooperative shareholders in TVO, compared to their other choices for
buying electricity.

Mueller said, however, that given the lack of commercially viable renewable
technology, nuclear cannot simply be ruled out. But countries that choose not
to use it, and opt instead for renewables, must "seriously step up investment
in these technologies."

The market, he said, "should play a major role in giving the answer as to what
type of energy we have in the future."

He also called for "big money" to be put into programs for energy efficiency
in countries such as China and India where economic growth is creating huge
demand for more power.

During his talk, Mueller said that European Union, or EU, states must do more
to cut greenhouse gas emissions, as well as develop plans for adapting to a
certain amount of climate change which he said is inevitable.

While he said that one way to cut emissions may be with carbon capture and
storage technology, he noted that it carries "many legal questions. There are
liability issues that need to be sorted out."

EU states also need to be thinking now about what kind of program should be
set up to combat climate change after the second phase of the EU Emissions
Trading System ends in 2012, Mueller said.

Despite uncertainty over what will happen to the system after that date, and
worries about whether the EU can sustain the system if countries such as the
US don't participate, Mueller said he is convinced that "we will have
emissions trading after 2012. The question is what kind of trading we will
have. But the directive is there and this is one of our key measures."

Concern over Russian plan to sell nuclear reactor fuel

FT.com / World / International economy - Concern over Russian plan to sell nuclear reactor fuel

By Guy Dinmore in Washington and Neil Buckley in MoscowPublished: March 15 2006 18:43 Last updated: March 15 2006 18:43
Russia on Wednesday defended its plans to sell nuclear fuel to India as western governments and advocates of arms control voiced concern that international guidelines were being weakened at a critical juncture for the global system of nuclear non-proliferation.
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Controversy over the deal highlights the complexities facing the Bush administration in promoting its Global Nuclear Energy Partnership – a plan to marry energy security with arms control by providing for an elite club of industrialised nations to supply developing countries with nuclear fuel before taking it back.
Ahead of Thursday’s meeting of Group of Eight energy ministers in Moscow, Samuel Bodman, US energy secretary, on Wednesday called for international support for the plan, saying the US and Russia had a special responsibility to be “good stewards of the enormous nuclear legacy of the cold war”.
But Russia, the host of the G8 meeting, has upset fellow members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group by deciding supply 60 tonnes of nuclear fuel to India, which is not a member of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT).
A spokesman for Sergei Kiriyenko, head of Russia’s federal atomic energy agency, insisted the delivery of uranium would comply with the NSG’s guidelines on nuclear fuel exports, which permitted such deliveries under an exception clause when safety was at stake. Russia considered this delivery to India to be covered by that clause, the spokesman added, echoing a similar stance by India’s foreign ministry. A spokeswoman for Mr Bodman, in Moscow, said Russia’s plan to supply India with fuel had not been discussed during a meeting with Mr Kiriyenko.
The Russian agency’s spokesman said India’s Tarapur reactors were now operating with fuel that had been burned out beyond the projected levels, which affected its safety, since India did not have sufficient enrichment capacity to replace the fuel itself.
Despite such assurances, member states of the NSG – an informal association that sets guidelines for trading in nuclear materials – were generally unhappy with Russia’s decision although there was little they could do about it, diplomats said.
“There is general discontent with Russia,” a senior diplomat said, dismissing the argument that Russia had to supply fuel for safety reasons. “But these are guidelines not rules,” he said of NSG principles intended to stop the supply of nuclear material to states such as India, Pakistan and Israel that have not signed the NPT.
India’s foreign ministry said the Russian decision conformed with the July 18 agreement between President Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Washington. Mr Bush then, the Indian foreign ministry in New Delhi noted, committed the US to working with “friends and allies to adjust international regimes to enable full civil nuclear energy co-operation and trade with India, including but not limited to expeditious consideration of fuel supplies for safeguarded reactors at Tarapur.”
The US State Department expressed concern over the deal. But analysts noted that its criticism was much more muted than in 2001 when the US protested at Russia’s decision then to supply fuel to Tarapur, which is under UN safeguards.
“The US is in an extremely awkward position,” commented Daryl Kimball, head of the Arms Control Association, a non-partisan group that promotes effective arms control policies. “Through its agreement with India last July, the Bush administration has ceded much of its authority and credibility to object to actions by states that break NSG rules.”
Mr Kimball warned that China, also a member of the NSG, would likely argue that it should be allowed to restart its nuclear trade with Pakistan.
Such concerns were voiced by opponents of the US-India agreement, which, if approved by Congress, would allow India to enter the global nuclear market and keep its weapons and some facilities beyond international inspectors.
“If Russia goes forth with the sale of nuclear material to India without consensus from the NSG, this will begin a new era in which the rules that governed nuclear trade for decades are gradually swept away,” said Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat.
Adam Ereli, a State Department spokesman, said on Tuesday that deals to supply India with fuel should move forward “on the basis of steps that India will take, but has not yet taken” under the nuclear deal that was settled during President Bush’s visit to India this month.
Separately, the G8 is considering a plan to promote a broad expansion of civil nuclear power, part of Russia’s focus on international energy security. According to a leaked draft of its “action plan” on energy, the G8 will call for the development of a new generation of nuclear reactors that can reduce the risk of nuclear proliferation and eliminate problems with radioactive waste.

Blair may give Britain new nuke weapons

United Press International - Security & Terrorism - Blair may give Britain new nuke weapons

LONDON, March 13 (UPI) -- The British government is considering developing a new nuclear deterrent and may even have started to deploy it.
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has failed to confirm or deny a report that a new British nuclear weapons system is already being secretly developed.
Asked about the report in this week's Sunday Times newspaper about a replacement for the Trident submarine-launched nuclear missile system, Straw said: "We are giving consideration to the development of a new system."
Plans to replace Trident, which some estimate will cost £20 billion, are expected to be drawn up by the next British general election. And Blair has promised MPs the "fullest possible" debate before any decision, the British Broadcasting Corporation reported Monday.
The Sunday Times said an anonymous senior British source had told it work on the weapon has already been underway since Blair was re-elected to a thrid consecutive term of office in May 2005. According to the paper, the research is being carried out at the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston, Berkshire.
The Sunday Times said British government scientists wanted to produce a warhead using proven components to avoid breaching a ban on nuclear testing.
Straw said Britain was "entitled to have a nuclear weapons system," and had reduced the numbers of systems it had from three to one.
Blair's official spokesman later said: "We are in a process of thinking about thinking about it," but he added, "not this month and not next month," the BBC said.
Last month Blair told a committee of senior MPs there would be the "fullest possible" debate on any decision to develop a new nuclear warhead. But he said his Labor Party was committed to keeping Britain's nuclear deterrent.

Uranium to soar with nuclear revival

The Standard - China's Business Newspaper

Nuclear energy's revival can best be seen in uranium, which outperformed the metals markets in 2005 and may do so again this year.Tuesday, March 14, 2006Nuclear energy's revival can best be seen in uranium, which outperformed the metals markets in 2005 and may do so again this year.
Uranium is poised to climb 27 percent to US$50 (HK$390) a pound in the next six months because "there's not a lot of uranium available," said Jean- Francois Tardif, who put 8.4 percent of his C$300 million (HK$2,005) Sprott Opportunities Hedge Fund LP into uranium. The Toronto-based fund jumped 39 percent in 2005, when its peers on average returned 9.3 percent, according to Hedge Fund Research of Chicago.
Wellington Management of Boston, which oversees US$521 billion, in the fourth quarter raised its stake in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan-based Cameco, the largest uranium producer. The fund holds 13.6 percent of Cameco worth C$2 billion, according to Bloomberg data.
The Anglican Church in Sydney took uranium off a list of unethical investments last year, and its funds benefited from a 23 percent gain in BHP Billiton, the No4 uranium miner.
Uranium last year gained 76 percent, beating all but one of the 19 commodities in the Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index. Only sugar jumped more.
Not even zinc, the favorite this year among commodity specialists surveyed by Bloomberg News in January, will keep pace with uranium.
Analysts surveyed then said zinc would offer the best return from the six primary London Metal Exchange markets, advancing 21 percent.
Just 60 percent of the uranium consumed in the world's nuclear reactors is mined each year. Without supplies from stockpiles and recycled from Russian warheads, the energy industry wouldn't have enough uranium to keep all of its plants running.
Demand for nuclear power is increasing in China and India because of rising prices for oil, gas and coal. Finland is building a new reactor, and utilities in France and the United States are considering additions. Concern that the burning of fossil fuels contributes to global warming is accelerating the push.
Bob Mitchell, the manager of a hedge fund that invests in wholesale uranium, is so bullish that he turned down offers from mining companies to buy his entire inventory. He wouldn't identify the companies or give details on his holdings.
"I remain a buyer of uranium," said Mitchell, of Adit Capital Management in Portland, Oregon. Mitchell said he began buying uranium in November 2004 at US$20 a pound amid reports that some power companies were moving to replenish their inventories. Uranium ended last week at US$39.25 a pound, according to Metal Bulletin.
Speculators "have taken out whatever slack exists in the market," said James Cornell, president of RWE Nukem, a trader of uranium and unit of RWE of Essen, Germany's second- largest utility. Investors are "getting to available supplies of uranium before the utilities."
After three decades of stagnation, the nuclear industry may receive more than US$200 billion of investment by 2030, according to the International Energy Agency in Paris. As well as the 24 reactors now being built, another 41, with a capacity of almost 43,000 megawatts, have been ordered or are planned, according to the World Nuclear Association in London.
China, which plans to increase its nuclear generation fourfold by 2020, has agreed to safeguards sought by the government of Australia before it will allow uranium exports, the Australian Financial Review said Monday.
"Both sides are satisfied with the results of the negotiations and are confident of a successful outcome," a spokeswoman for Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said Monday in Canberra.
A 1,000-megawatt nuclear power station in the United States can power about 740,000 average households, based on US Energy Department and World Nuclear Association data.
Such a plant would use a tonne of uranium fuel every two weeks, with about nine tonnes of uranium oxide needed to make the fuel.

Demand for nuclear power keeps uranium rising - Marketplace by Bloomberg - International Herald Tribune

Commodities: Demand for nuclear power keeps uranium rising - Marketplace by Bloomberg - International Herald Tribune


MONDAY, MARCH 13, 2006
WELLINGTON A revival in demand for nuclear energy is benefiting uranium, which outperformed the metals market in 2005 and could do so again this year.
Uranium is poised to climb 27 percent to $50 a pound in the next six months because "there's not a lot of uranium available," said Jean-François Tardif of the Sprott Opportunities Hedge Fund.
Uranium gained 76 percent last year, beating all but one of the 19 commodities in the Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index. Only sugar jumped more.
Not even zinc, the favorite among commodity specialists surveyed by Bloomberg News in January, is expected to keep pace with uranium.
Miners produce just 60 percent of the uranium consumed in the world's nuclear reactors each year. Without supplies recycled from Russian warheads, the energy industry would not have enough uranium to keep its plants running.
Demand for nuclear power is increasing in China and India as prices for oil, natural gas and coal rise. Finland is building a new reactor, and utilities in France and the United States are weighing similar steps. Concern that burning fossil fuels adds to global warming is accelerating the push.
Bob Mitchell, who manages a hedge fund that invests in wholesale uranium, is so confident about its prospects that he rejected offers from mining companies to buy his entire inventory. He declined to identify the companies or give details on his holdings.
"I remain a buyer of uranium," said Mitchell of Adit Capital Management. Uranium ended last week at $39.25 a pound, according to Metal Bulletin.
Speculators "have taken out whatever slack exists in the market," said James Cornell at uranium trader RWE Nukem. Investors are "getting to available supplies of uranium before the utilities."
After three decades of stagnation, the nuclear industry may get more than $200 billion of investment by 2030, the International Energy Agency said.
Christopher Donville reported from Vancouver.


WELLINGTON A revival in demand for nuclear energy is benefiting uranium, which outperformed the metals market in 2005 and could do so again this year.
Uranium is poised to climb 27 percent to $50 a pound in the next six months because "there's not a lot of uranium available," said Jean-François Tardif of the Sprott Opportunities Hedge Fund.
Uranium gained 76 percent last year, beating all but one of the 19 commodities in the Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index. Only sugar jumped more.
Not even zinc, the favorite among commodity specialists surveyed by Bloomberg News in January, is expected to keep pace with uranium.
Miners produce just 60 percent of the uranium consumed in the world's nuclear reactors each year. Without supplies recycled from Russian warheads, the energy industry would not have enough uranium to keep its plants running.
Demand for nuclear power is increasing in China and India as prices for oil, natural gas and coal rise. Finland is building a new reactor, and utilities in France and the United States are weighing similar steps. Concern that burning fossil fuels adds to global warming is accelerating the push.
Bob Mitchell, who manages a hedge fund that invests in wholesale uranium, is so confident about its prospects that he rejected offers from mining companies to buy his entire inventory. He declined to identify the companies or give details on his holdings.
"I remain a buyer of uranium," said Mitchell of Adit Capital Management. Uranium ended last week at $39.25 a pound, according to Metal Bulletin.
Speculators "have taken out whatever slack exists in the market," said James Cornell at uranium trader RWE Nukem. Investors are "getting to available supplies of uranium before the utilities."
After three decades of stagnation, the nuclear industry may get more than $200 billion of investment by 2030, the International Energy Agency said.
Christopher Donville reported from Vancouver.


WELLINGTON A revival in demand for nuclear energy is benefiting uranium, which outperformed the metals market in 2005 and could do so again this year.
Uranium is poised to climb 27 percent to $50 a pound in the next six months because "there's not a lot of uranium available," said Jean-François Tardif of the Sprott Opportunities Hedge Fund.
Uranium gained 76 percent last year, beating all but one of the 19 commodities in the Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index. Only sugar jumped more.
Not even zinc, the favorite among commodity specialists surveyed by Bloomberg News in January, is expected to keep pace with uranium.
Miners produce just 60 percent of the uranium consumed in the world's nuclear reactors each year. Without supplies recycled from Russian warheads, the energy industry would not have enough uranium to keep its plants running.
Demand for nuclear power is increasing in China and India as prices for oil, natural gas and coal rise. Finland is building a new reactor, and utilities in France and the United States are weighing similar steps. Concern that burning fossil fuels adds to global warming is accelerating the push.
Bob Mitchell, who manages a hedge fund that invests in wholesale uranium, is so confident about its prospects that he rejected offers from mining companies to buy his entire inventory. He declined to identify the companies or give details on his holdings.
"I remain a buyer of uranium," said Mitchell of Adit Capital Management. Uranium ended last week at $39.25 a pound, according to Metal Bulletin.
Speculators "have taken out whatever slack exists in the market," said James Cornell at uranium trader RWE Nukem. Investors are "getting to available supplies of uranium before the utilities."
After three decades of stagnation, the nuclear industry may get more than $200 billion of investment by 2030, the International Energy Agency said.
Christopher Donville reported from Vancouver.

UK's Wicks pledges 'robust scrutiny' of nuclear energy option - Forbes.com

UK's Wicks pledges 'robust scrutiny' of nuclear energy option - Forbes.com

LONDON AFX - The government has pledged 'robust scrutiny' of the potential impacts of using nuclear energy in any future power mix, said Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks. In remarks released by aides ahead of a visit to Manchester today, Wicks is expected to say that the government's ongoing energy review is not a 'headlong rush into building new nuclear plants'. 'It is about hard evidence, not just on the potential of nuclear, but also of renewables, fossil fuels and greater energy efficiency,' he will say in a meeting with safety, security and environmental regulators, environmental groups and nuclear power companies. 'The challenges are big and there'll be no easy or single solution. But I am certain of one thing - robust scrutiny of safety, security and environmental impact would be the prerequisite of going down the road of building new nuclear power stations.' However, Wicks' remarks appear to be out of step with Prime Minister Tony Blair, who yesterday told parliament Britain faced a 'major challenge' if it ruled nuclear power out of its calculations for future energy supply security and carbon emission reduction targets

Nuclear waste: bury it and forget?

Reuters AlertNet - FEATURE-Nuclear waste: bury it and forget?

The signal audible every second in every corridor of the high-level toxic nuclear waste plant on Britain's sprawling Sellafield site is a sign all the alarms are working. If it stops, or changes tone, something has gone very wrong.
"The people who work here every day tell me they get used to it. But it tends to get on the nerves of everyone who visits the plant," Sellafield information officer Ben Chilton told Reuters on a tour of the site 480 km (300 miles) northwest of London.
The alarms are crucial for an industry that believes it could be granted a new lease of life as the world searches for an alternative to fossil fuels, such as coal and oil, that produce carbon emissions, blamed for global warming.
The nuclear industry says its technology emits no carbon and does not cause global warming but for many, still wary after disasters like the 1986 explosion at Chernobyl, the lingering fear is that the toxic waste might leak and kill.
Sellafield, and a plant at La Hague in northern France, can each reprocess 5,000 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel each year, accounting for roughly a third of annual global output.
But there will be more waste. China plans to build 30 new nuclear reactors by 2020, India has struck a deal with the United States to build several more plants, the United States is lining up tax incentives for new generators and Britain is considering new plants to plug a looming energy gap.
HELL'S BREW
The sludge that flows down the heavily armoured pipe into Sellafield's vitrification plant after plutonium and uranium have been taken from spent fuel rods for reuse is a hell's brew still emitting 40 times a lethal dose of radiation.
In shielded chambers with technicians watching through metre-thick leaded glass windows and using remote mechanical arms, the toxic stew is cooked down to a powder, combined with molten glass and poured into stainless steel urns.
These are cooled, closed and scrubbed before being sealed in insulated steel flasks and taken away for storage where, standing 10 deep in a concrete core and capped by a three-metre (10-foot) plug, the heat from the radiation is still tangible.
There are nearly 4,000 of these containers stored at Sellafield, which was the world's first commercial nuclear power plant when it opened in 1956, with room for 4,000 more.
Final disposal of the waste involves burying it in geologically stable formations. The half-life of plutonium is 24,000 years -- in other words, it would take up to 250,000 years before it degrades completely.
Chilton said waste comes from Britain, which has 11 nuclear plants, and from countries as far away as Japan, the third biggest nuclear power user after the United States and France.
Sellafield's scientists are confident they have the answers on waste and believe nuclear power can help ease climate change.
"From a technical point of view we can deal with any waste that comes from nuclear plants," said Graham Fairhall of Nexiasolutions, the research arm of the British Nuclear Group.
But for the green lobby, nuclear waste is an unacceptable legacy, whatever the benefits of nuclear power.
"Nuclear power is dirty, dangerous and expensive," said Tony Juniper of Friends of the Earth. "We are only talking seriously about nuclear power again because of climate change. But it is not the answer."
Environmentalists say the costs of nuclear energy are not clear because of government subsidies and the toxic waste.
The latest estimate on the cost of cleaning up the waste from the last 50 years is 56 billion pounds ($97 billion), Juniper said.
"There may be technical solutions to dealing with the waste that will be generated, but note that they are still trying to deal with the waste they have already created," he told Reuters.
The British government, which has covered the costs so far, says finance for new reactors must come from the private sector.
An energy review in Britain, which faces a 20 percent power shortfall within a decade as ageing nuclear and coal-powered plants shut down, is due to be ready by the middle of the year.
LETHAL LEGACY
It is not just the high-level waste from fuel rods that has to be dealt with. Intermediate-level waste such as the casings of nuclear fuel rods, and low-level waste such as that produced in hospitals also has to be processed and stored.
Intermediate waste is chopped up and put in steel barrels that are filled with concrete and stored, while low-level waste is put in steel boxes that are crushed and put in a container, which is then filled with concrete and buried.
Industry experts say high, intermediate or low-level waste does not pose a security risk as one would need industrial-style resources -- like protective gear and surroundings -- to even approach the high-level waste, and the other two forms are either non-retrievable or non-lethal.
Public opinion in Britain is gradually swinging towards accepting nuclear energy to help combat climate change -- 54 percent were in favour according to a poll this year -- despite worries about the waste and security.
But while the nuclear industry says a Chernobyl-scale disaster could not happen here because the technology is different, some of the legacy problems remain a major headache.
At Sellafield, 49 years after a fire forced the closure of the Windscale I military reactor, scientists are still trying to work out how to dismantle the chimney-top filter that trapped the radioactive smoke and stopped a nuclear catastrophe.

Porritt whispers in PM's ear with all the force he can muster

Independent Online Edition > Environment

By Michael McCarthy
Published: 07 March 2006
Listen to yesterday's Sustainable Development Commission report on nuclear power and you will hear something uncommon, fascinating and slightly awe-inspiring: the sound of a big beast in the environmental jungle, getting his retaliation in first.
Jonathon Porritt has come a long way since he was one of the founders of the Ecology Party (which subsequently became the Green Party), and then leader of Friends of the Earth. Now, as chair of the SDC, and Tony Blair's official environmental adviser, he is part of the government establishment.
But only to a degree. Sir Jonathon may be an Etonian by schooling and a baronet by title but he has remained radical in his green convictions, and one of those, which he shares with most other environmentalists, is that no good whatsoever can come of nuclear power.
He clearly sees the current Energy Review as a stitch-up, a cosmetic exercise to prepare the way for a new generation of nukes, and let's be honest, many would agree with him. The common perception is Tony Blair has taken the decision already.
But unlike most green activists, Sir Jonathon can actually do something about it. His position at the head of the SDC gives him direct access to Mr Blair and potentially enormous influence, and in certain circumstances, he has to be listened to. This is one of those circumstances, and he is making the most of it. He's not waiting for the outcome of the Energy Review; he's making a determined attempt to sway the result.
Yesterday's SDC report and accompanying papers represent the most thorough, hard-hitting and detailed case against the British nuclear option which has yet been produced. This is not green soundbite, this is serious stuff. It will have to weigh in the argument. It certainly raises dramatically the political stakes for Mr Blair - and for Mr Brown when he takes over - in opting for atomic power once again.
Mr Blair has never been anti-nuclear (he likes shiny modern technology). But he has been especially persuaded of the necessity of a full new nuclear-build programme to fight climate change, by the Government's chief scientific adviser, Sir David King. Sir David has been whispering in one Blair ear; Sir Jonathon is now whispering in the other, although perhaps whispering hardly does justice to the force of yesterday's report.
The reason Sir Jonathon may ultimately not succeed is that the detail of the arguments against nuclear, displayed so powerfully yesterday, is not what is going to count. Few people would dispute that there is no solution yet to nuclear waste, or that nuclear economics are uncertain, or that a nuclear programme would partially lock the UK into a centralised energy system, or that there is a major security risk associated with nuclear energy. It's all true.
But the essence of the argument Sir David King has put to Mr Blair is that climate change is so threatening that nuclear is essential despite all that.
But you can't say the other side of it hasn't been made properly now, in the struggle between David and Jonathon for the ear of the Prime Minister.
Listen to yesterday's Sustainable Development Commission report on nuclear power and you will hear something uncommon, fascinating and slightly awe-inspiring: the sound of a big beast in the environmental jungle, getting his retaliation in first.
Jonathon Porritt has come a long way since he was one of the founders of the Ecology Party (which subsequently became the Green Party), and then leader of Friends of the Earth. Now, as chair of the SDC, and Tony Blair's official environmental adviser, he is part of the government establishment.
But only to a degree. Sir Jonathon may be an Etonian by schooling and a baronet by title but he has remained radical in his green convictions, and one of those, which he shares with most other environmentalists, is that no good whatsoever can come of nuclear power.
He clearly sees the current Energy Review as a stitch-up, a cosmetic exercise to prepare the way for a new generation of nukes, and let's be honest, many would agree with him. The common perception is Tony Blair has taken the decision already.
But unlike most green activists, Sir Jonathon can actually do something about it. His position at the head of the SDC gives him direct access to Mr Blair and potentially enormous influence, and in certain circumstances, he has to be listened to. This is one of those circumstances, and he is making the most of it. He's not waiting for the outcome of the Energy Review; he's making a determined attempt to sway the result.
Yesterday's SDC report and accompanying papers represent the most thorough, hard-hitting and detailed case against the British nuclear option which has yet been produced. This is not green soundbite, this is serious stuff. It will have to weigh in the argument. It certainly raises dramatically the political stakes for Mr Blair - and for Mr Brown when he takes over - in opting for atomic power once again.
Mr Blair has never been anti-nuclear (he likes shiny modern technology). But he has been especially persuaded of the necessity of a full new nuclear-build programme to fight climate change, by the Government's chief scientific adviser, Sir David King. Sir David has been whispering in one Blair ear; Sir Jonathon is now whispering in the other, although perhaps whispering hardly does justice to the force of yesterday's report.
The reason Sir Jonathon may ultimately not succeed is that the detail of the arguments against nuclear, displayed so powerfully yesterday, is not what is going to count. Few people would dispute that there is no solution yet to nuclear waste, or that nuclear economics are uncertain, or that a nuclear programme would partially lock the UK into a centralised energy system, or that there is a major security risk associated with nuclear energy. It's all true.
But the essence of the argument Sir David King has put to Mr Blair is that climate change is so threatening that nuclear is essential despite all that.
But you can't say the other side of it hasn't been made properly now, in the struggle between David and Jonathon for the ear of the Prime Minister.

Blair says meeting energy/climate targets without nuclear a 'major challenge' - Forbes.com

Blair says meeting energy/climate targets without nuclear a 'major challenge' - Forbes.com

LONDON (AFX) - Britain faces a 'major challenge' in meeting its energy needs and climate change obligations without considering nuclear power 'in the mix', said Prime Minister Tony Blair. Speaking during Prime Minister's Questions, Blair seemed to move further towards supporting construction of a new generation of nuclear stations. 'I still think there is a major challenge as to whether we can really make sure we can meet both our energy needs and our environmental targets without nuclear power in the mix,' he said. 'No-one has ever said it is the whole of the answer. The question is whether it's part of the answer as part of a sensible and balanced energy mix.'

'No quick fix' from nuclear power

BBC NEWS Science/Nature 'No quick fix' from nuclear power: "Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) report "

Building new nuclear plants is not the answer to tackling climate change or securing Britain's energy supply, a government advisory panel has reported.
The Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) report says doubling nuclear capacity would make only a small impact on reducing carbon emissions by 2035.
The body, which advises the government on the environment, says this must be set against the potential risks.
The government is currently undertaking a review of Britain's energy needs.
The Government is going to have to stop looking for an easy fix to our climate change and energy crises
Jonathon Porritt, SDC chair
Send us your views It regards building nuclear capacity as an alternative to reliance on fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas.
As North Sea supplies dwindle, nuclear is seen by some as a more secure source of energy than hydrocarbon supplies from unstable regimes. Proponents say it could generate large quantities of electricity while helping to stabilise carbon dioxide CO2 emissions.
But the SDC report, compiled in response to the energy review, concluded that the risks of nuclear energy outweighed its advantages.
Pushing ahead
Jonathon Porritt, chairman of the SDC, commented: "There's little point in denying that nuclear power has benefits, but in our view, these are outweighed by serious disadvantages.
"The Government is going to have to stop looking for an easy fix to our climate change and energy crises - there simply isn't one."

The report does not rule out future research on nuclearEnergy minister Malcolm Wicks, who is leading the government's review, said the SDC's findings made an "important and thorough contribution" to the debate.
"Securing clean, affordable energy supplies for the long term will not be easy. No one has ever suggested that nuclear power - or any other individual energy source - could meet all of those challenges," Mr Wicks said.
"As the commission itself finds, this is not a black and white issue. It does, however, agree that it is right that we are assessing the potential contribution of new nuclear [plants]."
24-hour power
The Nuclear Industry Association (NIA), the representative body for the UK's nuclear sector, gave the report a more cautious welcome.
Philip Dewhurst, chairman of the NIA, said the SDC report was not as negative as they had feared.
"What the report is basically saying is that the government has got to make a choice between renewables and nuclear.
"The SDC is saying you cannot have both, but of course you can. We support having both renewables and nuclear," he told the BBC News website.
"The key factor about nuclear is its base load which means it keeps working 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Everyone would agree that some renewable technologies are intermittent at best."
Research by the SDC suggests that even if the UK's existing nuclear capacity was doubled, it would only provide an 8% cut on CO2 emissions by 2035 (and nothing before 2010).
While the SDC recognised that nuclear is a low carbon technology, with an impressive safety record in the UK, it identifies five major disadvantages:
No long-term solutions for long-term storage of nuclear waste are yet available, says the SDC, and storage presents clear safety issues
The economics of nuclear new-build are highly uncertain, according to the report
Nuclear would lock the UK into a centralised energy distribution system for the next 50 years when more flexible distribution options are becoming available
The report claims that nuclear would undermine the drive for greater energy efficiency
If the UK brings forward a new nuclear programme, it becomes more difficult to deny other countries the same technology, the SDC claims
Future development
The panel does not rule out further research into new nuclear technologies and pursuing answers to the waste problem, as future technological developments may justify a re-examination of the issue.
But the report concludes that Britain can meet its energy needs without nuclear power.
"With a combination of low carbon innovation strategy and an aggressive expansion of energy efficiency and renewables, the UK would become a leader in low-carbon technologies," the SDC claims.
Critics of the Government's energy review say it is a way to get nuclear power, touted as a possible solution by Tony Blair, back on the agenda.
Conservative energy spokesman Alan Duncan said ministers should pay attention to the commission's conclusions.
"This report puts a spanner in the works for the government, who everybody believes has already made up its mind in favour of nuclear."
The Tories are currently reviewing their energy policy. Zac Goldsmith, deputy chair of the party's environment policy review which is due to report in 18 months time, is strongly opposed to nuclear power.
The Liberal Democrats have also attacked the economic uncertainties of nuclear power.
The Green Party says the government is determined to push ahead with nuclear power despite evidence that it is uneconomic.
The government is set to publish its findings later this year.

India ensured uninterrupted nuclear fuel supply

Daily Times - Site Edition

* US to help create reserve nuclear fuel for the lifetime of Indian reactors* India will not sign model NPT agreementBy Iftikhar GilaniNEW DELHI: India has ensured an uninterrupted supply of nuclear fuel for its reactors from a consortium of the United States, Russia, France and the United Kingdom through its recently concluded nuclear deal with Washington.Moreover, the US will also help create a reserve of nuclear fuel for the entire lifetime of India’s civilian nuclear reactors.Sources said on Saturday that India negotiated these two conditions in return for separating its civilian and military nuclear reactors in the deal with the US.They said that India extracted around half-a-dozen assurances to ensure permanent international safeguards co-terminus with permanent fuel supply commitments by the consortium. A declaratory assurance has been provided in the separation plan on “uninterrupted and continuous” supply of nuclear fuel for Indian civilian reactors under safeguards.The fuel supply assurance would also be incorporated into a trilateral agreement involving India, the US and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which will provide “sanctity” to the agreement, sources said.They said that a likely provision of the nuclear fuel supply from the four nuclear powers will be that others would help out in case of the suspension of supply by one.India also expressed a desire to build lifetime reserves of fuel for its civilian nuclear reactors and managed to get the following assurance in the separation plan: “The US will support the creation of such strategic reserves for the lifetime of the reactors.” If all this fails, India would retain its “sovereign right” to take “corrective action” in the case of disruption in fuel supply, sources said. Under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the IAEA has two kinds of safeguards and additional protocols: for the non-nuclear weapon state signatories and the five nuclear weapon state signatories.The nuclear weapon signatories voluntarily offer safeguards on their nuclear facilities, while the non-nuclear states who have signed the agreement have no choice in the matter. The standard additional protocol signed by the non-nuclear states contains sanctions for intrusive inspections by the IAEA, while the nuclear states can negotiate in the protocol the extent of the intrusion.Sources said that India wants its “de facto nuclear status to be as close as possible to a de jure status” and to distinguish it from the non-nuclear weapon states.It insisted that safeguards of its declared nuclear facilities in perpetuity must come with fuel supplies in perpetuity. The US also agreed to help India negotiate an additional protocol with the IAEA, different from the model agreement signed by non-nuclear weapon states.Sources refused to identify the 14 nuclear plants that India has agreed to put under IAEA safeguards but indicated that Tarapur IV, India’s largest atomic power plant, is excluded from the list. The nuclear facilities on which the Indian negotiators refused to give any information to the Americans, and which may be excluded from the IAEA safeguards list, include: Bhabha Atomic Research Centre at Trombay, Prithvi Missile Storage Facility at Nangal, Defence Research and Development Organisation Research Laboratory near Chandigarh, Narora I and II power reactors in Uttar Pradesh, Indira Gandhi Atomic Research Centre at Kalpakkam in Tamil Nadu, Kakrapar I and II being built to produce plutonium and Kaiga in Karnataka, and the nuclear test site at Pokhran in Rajasthan.

US to clean up on UK nuclear mess

The Observer Business US to clean up on UK nuclear mess

British companies are short of expertise in the controversial business of atomic waste. Neasa MacErlean on the race for £80bn of contracts Sunday March 5, 2006The Observer
Later this month, the Nuclear Decommissioning Agency (NDA), the government authority created last year to oversee decommissioning over the next 150 years, will know whether its draft strategy for this long-term clean-up operation has been approved by the government. If it has been, a new industry will take shape, worth more than £80bn in the UK if military waste is included.
But decommissioning will be controversial and difficult. Like other developers of nuclear weapons, Britain has a particularly nasty physical legacy of waste. Most of ours is in 230 hectares at Sellafield in Cumbria - but there are 19 other civilian sites in England, Wales and Scotland which, along with Sellafield, are also about to become the subject of major clean-up contracts. Much less information is publicly available about the military element but it is estimated that, in total, Britain's nuclear waste would fill the Millennium Dome.
Because little decommissioning work has been done in the UK, we lack home-grown expertise. Another area of controversy will, therefore, be the arrival of the Americans - who have the far more extensive experience in this field but will no doubt be accused of profiteering and cutting corners on safety.
On top of these issues, the very future of nuclear power hangs to some degree on how decommissioning is handled. It is inconceivable that any new nuclear reactor would be built in the UK without the construction plans taking into account decommissioning and the disposal of radioactive materials. The average Briton lives 26 miles from a nuclear site - a fact that could change the way many politicians and the much of the public view the future of nuclear power.
Certainly, the regulators know how the public feels. Sir John Harman is chairman of the Environment Agency, one of the nuclear industry regulators. He said: 'An actual nuclear waste facility is probably 15 years in the future. If a decision was postponed on this, we would think it imprudent to start a new programme of building nuclear reactors not knowing what we are doing about the waste.'
Also this month, the NDA will publish an update of its estimate of the cost of cleaning up the 20 sites: this is likely to be an increase on the current £56bn, to be awarded in contracts to private- and public-sector organisations. In April, the NDA is due to start the tender process for its first contract, cleaning up low-level nuclear waste at Drigg, near Sellafield. This contract is relatively small - £1bn or so - but it paves the way for much larger contracts.
In July, the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management will make its recommendations to government on the possibilities for future waste disposal. These look likely to say that disposal is feasible for the long-term future either in sites near each reactor or in one shared depository. What has been ruled out is an international site - a politically sensitive issue but one which could have produced a geologically safer solution.
While the debate about long-term waste disposal goes on, some of the biggest US names in nuclear decommissioning - Bechtel, Fluor, Shaw and CH2M Hill - will be working out how to go about winning the contracts to be handed out in Britain over the next five years.
Bechtel worked closely with the government on establishing the NDA in April 2005; Fluor, with 30,000 employees worldwide, has been working for the US government at its nuclear installations since the 1950s; Shaw, based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has already turned one US nuclear site back into greenfield land - invaluable experience for the forthcoming UK contracts; and CH2M Hill has joined forces with Amec (the only private British company expected to bid for this work) and the UK Atomic Energy Authority, the government body that claims to have 'more nuclear clean-up experience than anyone else in Europe'.
The other US companies in the running to get the contracts might follow the AMEC/UKAEA/CH2M Hill model by teaming up with European partners.
Whoever wins, skilled labour will be a problem. One expert believes that in the UK there are 'probably only a few hundred people trained and experienced enough to do this work'. The NDA sees the same problem. 'Overcoming the skills gap is one of the NDA's strategic priorities,' it says. It believes that about 30,000 people need to be recruited from the physical sciences and engineering sector for this work in the next 15 years.
The arrival of the Americans will cause an outcry. A spokesman for the NDA suggests that contracts will be awarded on the basis of cost and a mark-up - but the organisation says it will not publish the profit margin 'for commercial reasons'. One UK industry insider commented: 'The Americans will have the British taxpayers over a barrel and will spank their arse.'
The main contract that all potential bidders will have their eye on is Sellafield, due to be placed in 2009. A lot of wining and dining and making use of friendships will take place over this waste disposal gem. The value of work estimated by the NDA as needing to be done at Sellafield over its remaining lifetime is about £34bn. 'The place is in a desperate state,' said one specialist. It will not be clean until 2150.'
The problem at Sellafield and at some other locations is not so much the high-level radioactive waste - although it can remain highly dangerous for thousands of years, it is fairly easily identifiable. After it is given 40 years or so to cool down (a process now going on at Sellafield), this waste will then be encased in copper canisters and - as in the new Finnish plans which are attracting much interest from the rest of the world - buried in deep depositories in as safe a geological location as can be found.
The real problem is the intermediate-level waste, which is not readily identifiable, although some of it is almost as dangerous as that classified as high-level. Nirex, the government-owned company responsible for setting nuclear waste standards, estimates that the UK has 1,120 different types of nuclear waste (many resulting from Second World War and Cold War weapons development programmes). Finland, by comparison, has a much smaller problem, with fewer than 30 different waste streams.
'The really nasty problems are the pools of sludge in Sellafield,' says one insider. 'Do people know exactly what they contain?' The answer appears to be 'no', as not all the land contamination caused by the waste has yet been identified precisely.
Although the cost of nuclear clean-up will be spread over decades, it still represents a great prize to the companies that win the contracts. On its current figures, the NDA will handle contracts over the foreseeable future equal to the size of the entire British construction industry in any one year.
Then there is the military sector. This was estimated at £30bn in a rare parliamentary reference in 2001 by Margaret Beckett soon after she became Environment Secretary.
If we go for a new generation of nuclear reactors, organisations that win civil or military clean-up contracts will be the best placed to get involved in their design and development. And that's a whole new prize.

Big Question Marks on Nuclear Waste Facility - The Archive - The New York Times

Big Question Marks on Nuclear Waste Facility - The Archive - The New York Times

By MATTHEW L. WALD (NYT) 752 wordsPublished: February 14, 2006WASHINGTON, Feb. 13 - The Energy Department no longer has an estimate of when it can open the nuclear waste repository that it wants to build at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, and it may never have an accurate prediction of the cost, the energy secretary said on Monday.
The secretary, Samuel W. Bodman, said at a nuclear power industry conference that his department was redoing research and design for Yucca, which was supposed to start accepting civilian power-plant waste in 1998. But it is a first-of-a-kind project, making cost estimates difficult, he said, and the best that the department may be able to do is publish an estimate with a very wide range of error.
Last week the deputy energy secretary, Clay Sell, hinted for the first time that the money that the Energy Department had been collecting from the nuclear utilities since the 1980's might not be enough to pay for the project; the last published cost estimate was $60 billion, in 2001. The last date given for its planned opening, provided a year ago, was 2012. The department is facing lawsuits from utilities that want to recover extra costs created by the delay.
Mr. Bodman spoke Monday to hundreds of nuclear industry executives at a conference organized by Platts, an energy information division of McGraw-Hill. Other speakers said that various companies were considering building as many as 16 new reactors soon; none have been ordered in this country since the 1970's.
A lawyer in the audience asked how the industry could build new plants without assurances of a plan for the waste, as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission requires.
Mr. Bodman did not answer, but instead began describing the problems of the Yucca project.
For one, he said, government scientists and their commercial contractors were trying to cope with research work that was done poorly by the United States Geological Survey. Another problem is a court decision that forced the Environmental Protection Agency to publish standards governing leakage of radioactive waste for one million years, he said; initially the Energy Department had planned on a timeline of 10,000 years.
In addition, he said, the project managers recently decided that they had to space the wastes more widely to prevent temperature inside the mountain from reaching the boiling point, because the effects of steam are more difficult to predict.
''There are problems with the U.S. Geological Survey work that was done, there are problems with the E.P.A. standards that are there, there are problems with the efforts of the Department of Energy. There's plenty of blame to go around,'' Mr. Bodman said.
His comments came more than six years after the Energy Department issued a ''viability assessment'' asserting that the mountain could hold waste from power plants and nuclear weapons plants, and two years after the department had planned to submit an application to get a license for the project.
Mr. Bodman had come to talk mostly about the Bush administration's new Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, a plan that includes reprocessing nuclear wastes to reduce their volume and toxicity. Despite a spirited description of the program, he got no questions on that subject.
Some in the industry said, though, that the partnership introduced a new complication for Yucca. If used reactor fuel were put through a factory to recover reusable parts, as the proposal calls for, the new wastes could not be buried at Yucca until the project was reanalyzed, they said.
Another complication is that the department recently told utilities that they should ship fuel to Yucca in containers that could go directly into the mountain for burial. But some of the waste is now packaged in other kinds of containers, in locations where the reactors have been torn down, which means there is no easy way to repackage the materials.
Other nuclear professionals present, including the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Nils J. Diaz, predicted that the nation would shift to a system of above-ground interim storage and perhaps the solution called for in the nuclear partnership: breaking up old nuclear fuel to recover reusable materials. But this could help spread material useful in nuclear weapons.

New dawn for nuclear power is distant - Business - International Herald Tribune

New dawn for nuclear power is distant - Business - International Herald Tribune


New dawn for nuclear power is distant
By Matthew L. Wald and Heather Timmons The New York TimesTHURSDAY, MARCH 2, 2006
WASHINGTON Amid signs of a revival in orders for nuclear power reactors, last month's sale of Westinghouse's former nuclear division to Toshiba might stand out as a landmark - but not necessarily because the industry seems ready to take off.
In fact, nuclear experts around the world, both skeptics and supporters of the technology, are surprised by the high price. Toshiba agreed to pay $5.4 billion for a collection of nuclear power manufacturing facilities, of which Westinghouse was the centerpiece, that had been assembled by British Nuclear Fuels. The sale closed at three times the price markets expected just six months ago.
There is much talk of a rebirth of the nuclear construction industry, but analysts say that most of it is just that. In the United States, the secretary of energy recently referred to 16 new reactors on the drawing boards, but not one has been ordered, and industry experts do not expect to see any orders until late 2007, at the earliest.
"I think we all were surprised by the price," said Michael Morris, president and chief executive of American Electric Power, the largest power generator in the United States. With his company serving five million customers in 11 states, Morris favors more nuclear power.
Peter Bradford, a former member of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and later head of the public service commissions of both New York and Maine, said: "It's hard to imagine people putting a $5 billion bet on new reactors, as matters stand now, with uncertainty around climate change policy and impossibility of getting financing for them in private markets."
China has announced its intention of quadrupling its nuclear output in the next 20 years, which suggests about 30 more reactors, but only two are under construction. China has also stated that it wants to develop its own reactor.
In Western Europe, politicians in Italy, the United Kingdom and Poland have been examining the merits of new nuclear plants. But the only nuclear plant being built in Western Europe is a Finnish reactor that was the focus of 12 years of debate before construction began last year.
Much of the optimism on nuclear construction is based on the expectation that two recent trends will continue. The first is the rising cost of competing fuels, as well as increasing government controls on carbon emissions. The second is the inability of methods for reducing such emissions from other energy sources, like coal, to become widespread.
Nuclear power plants are more expensive to build than gas or coal plants, and take several years longer to construct. But once they are built, they generate energy steadily and cheaply and emit negligible amounts of greenhouse gases.
"Climate change gets people to think nuclear is going to pay off, in 5 years or 20," said Richard Sedano, a former member of the Vermont Public Service Commission and now director the Regulatory Assistance Project, which advises government regulators on electric policy. In European countries where rules about carbon emissions are already firmly established, some critics of nuclear power have started to question whether building new reactors is a cost-effective way of reducing these emissions. More nuclear power generation "doesn't make sense economically and environmentally," said Norman Baker, the deputy environmental minister for Britain's Liberal Democrat party.
Spending £1 on improving energy efficiency cuts carbon emissions seven times as much as spending the same £1 on new nuclear construction, Baker said.
"If you're interested in climate change, you should demand clean coal and renewable resources," he said.
Energy markets have changed significantly across Europe since the 1970s, the last time nuclear plants were built in significant numbers. Many European power companies have been privatized, and the energy market has been opened up to competition in many countries. Any new construction would need to be financed by a private company, which would need to guarantee to investors that the reactor would eventually make a profit. It is not a sure bet, energy analysts say.
It is "too early to speak about a nuclear renaissance," according to a recent report on the European market by Standard & Poors, the rating agency.
Peter Kernan, the analyst at S&P and a co-author of the report, said, "The market environment is now significantly riskier than it was when the original nuclear plants were built."
Predicting sale prices for energy is nearly impossible. "Operators would need to be convinced there is a sound and robust business case" for building a plant before they start devoting capital to it, Kernan said. He said there is no evidence yet to suggest that.
Marc Herlach, a lawyer at Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan who represented British Nuclear Fuels in the Toshiba deal and who specializes in energy asset sales, defended the price, saying it made sense because of the rising cost of other fuels and concerns over greenhouse gases. "This is a different environment," he said.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently approved the design of a new Westinghouse reactor, the AP-1000. The letters stand for "advanced passive," because the reactor would have many fewer moving parts in its safety systems. No one has bought it yet.
Toshiba licenses technology from General Electric, which sells reactors that boil water in the reactor vessel and then run the water through a turbine to convert energy to mechanical energy, and then to electricity. In contrast, the Westinghouse design heats water in the reactor but under high pressure, so it does not boil; that water is then run through a heat exchanger to make steam that goes through the turbine.
With the sale, Toshiba becomes the only vendor to sell both boiling-water and pressurized-water designs. But in the short term, the least glamorous parts of Westinghouse's business may prove the most valuable for Toshiba: the company's extensive repair and maintenance services.


WASHINGTON Amid signs of a revival in orders for nuclear power reactors, last month's sale of Westinghouse's former nuclear division to Toshiba might stand out as a landmark - but not necessarily because the industry seems ready to take off.
In fact, nuclear experts around the world, both skeptics and supporters of the technology, are surprised by the high price. Toshiba agreed to pay $5.4 billion for a collection of nuclear power manufacturing facilities, of which Westinghouse was the centerpiece, that had been assembled by British Nuclear Fuels. The sale closed at three times the price markets expected just six months ago.
There is much talk of a rebirth of the nuclear construction industry, but analysts say that most of it is just that. In the United States, the secretary of energy recently referred to 16 new reactors on the drawing boards, but not one has been ordered, and industry experts do not expect to see any orders until late 2007, at the earliest.
"I think we all were surprised by the price," said Michael Morris, president and chief executive of American Electric Power, the largest power generator in the United States. With his company serving five million customers in 11 states, Morris favors more nuclear power.
Peter Bradford, a former member of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and later head of the public service commissions of both New York and Maine, said: "It's hard to imagine people putting a $5 billion bet on new reactors, as matters stand now, with uncertainty around climate change policy and impossibility of getting financing for them in private markets."
China has announced its intention of quadrupling its nuclear output in the next 20 years, which suggests about 30 more reactors, but only two are under construction. China has also stated that it wants to develop its own reactor.
In Western Europe, politicians in Italy, the United Kingdom and Poland have been examining the merits of new nuclear plants. But the only nuclear plant being built in Western Europe is a Finnish reactor that was the focus of 12 years of debate before construction began last year.
Much of the optimism on nuclear construction is based on the expectation that two recent trends will continue. The first is the rising cost of competing fuels, as well as increasing government controls on carbon emissions. The second is the inability of methods for reducing such emissions from other energy sources, like coal, to become widespread.
Nuclear power plants are more expensive to build than gas or coal plants, and take several years longer to construct. But once they are built, they generate energy steadily and cheaply and emit negligible amounts of greenhouse gases.
"Climate change gets people to think nuclear is going to pay off, in 5 years or 20," said Richard Sedano, a former member of the Vermont Public Service Commission and now director the Regulatory Assistance Project, which advises government regulators on electric policy. In European countries where rules about carbon emissions are already firmly established, some critics of nuclear power have started to question whether building new reactors is a cost-effective way of reducing these emissions. More nuclear power generation "doesn't make sense economically and environmentally," said Norman Baker, the deputy environmental minister for Britain's Liberal Democrat party.
Spending £1 on improving energy efficiency cuts carbon emissions seven times as much as spending the same £1 on new nuclear construction, Baker said.
"If you're interested in climate change, you should demand clean coal and renewable resources," he said.
Energy markets have changed significantly across Europe since the 1970s, the last time nuclear plants were built in significant numbers. Many European power companies have been privatized, and the energy market has been opened up to competition in many countries. Any new construction would need to be financed by a private company, which would need to guarantee to investors that the reactor would eventually make a profit. It is not a sure bet, energy analysts say.
It is "too early to speak about a nuclear renaissance," according to a recent report on the European market by Standard & Poors, the rating agency.
Peter Kernan, the analyst at S&P and a co-author of the report, said, "The market environment is now significantly riskier than it was when the original nuclear plants were built."
Predicting sale prices for energy is nearly impossible. "Operators would need to be convinced there is a sound and robust business case" for building a plant before they start devoting capital to it, Kernan said. He said there is no evidence yet to suggest that.
Marc Herlach, a lawyer at Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan who represented British Nuclear Fuels in the Toshiba deal and who specializes in energy asset sales, defended the price, saying it made sense because of the rising cost of other fuels and concerns over greenhouse gases. "This is a different environment," he said.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently approved the design of a new Westinghouse reactor, the AP-1000. The letters stand for "advanced passive," because the reactor would have many fewer moving parts in its safety systems. No one has bought it yet.
Toshiba licenses technology from General Electric, which sells reactors that boil water in the reactor vessel and then run the water through a turbine to convert energy to mechanical energy, and then to electricity. In contrast, the Westinghouse design heats water in the reactor but under high pressure, so it does not boil; that water is then run through a heat exchanger to make steam that goes through the turbine.
With the sale, Toshiba becomes the only vendor to sell both boiling-water and pressurized-water designs. But in the short term, the least glamorous parts of Westinghouse's business may prove the most valuable for Toshiba: the company's extensive repair and maintenance services.

'N-Deal will help launch thorium reactors'

'N-Deal will help launch thorium reactors'

New Delhi, February 25: As US President George W Bush's visit approaches, the few voices within the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) have joined to become a chorus.
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While DAE as a whole, has been painted as being opposed to separating military and civilian facilities, the "rebels" within DAE hope the government would not let the opportunity pass. For obvious reasons, they want to remain anonymous.
"India has witnessed four decades of stifled progress in the civilian nuclear programme, which till recently was acting more like camouflage for the not explicitly spelt out military ambitions," said one top DAE scientist.
"It is high time that the dubious status of affairs changes", he said. "In a changed world, where China is making strategic agreements to buy uranium from Canada and Australia for long-term energy security, India can ill-afford to turn down the opportunities striking its doors," said another physicist at the Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC).

A senior reactor designer dismissed as rubbish DAE's argument that the separation plan would jeopardize research on thorium reactors that are expected to be main provider of electricity in the third stage of Indian nuclear power programme.
The basic reason why thorium is ignored world over is that it has to be externally fed with some man-made fissile material like plutonium to get ignited and start producing power, he said.
According to the designer, if India on its own, wanted to accumulate sufficient plutonium for its fast breeder programme and the thorium reactor research, it has to wait for at least 30 years.
"On the other hand, the Indo-US deal provides India a window of opportunity to get the plutonium and build thorium reactors today", he said.
There is at least 3000 tons of plutonium waiting to be reprocessed from spent fuel discharged globally from uranium-based reactors. For the first time after 30 years of freeze, the US is reconsidering plutonium use for energy generation and, together with Russia, is wanting to set up the GNEP (Global Nuclear Energy Partnership) for plutonium recovery. It has invited India to become a partner.
Some DAE scientists say the indo-us deal would pave the way for India acquiring the plutonium it needs for its long-term energy security from thorium.
Coincidentally, BARC physicists Usha Pal and Jagannathan have designed a Thorium Breeder Reactor (ATBR) generating 600 mw of electricity that will consume only 880-kg of plutonium every two years. The reactor produces 50 per cent of its energy from thorium.
According to some DAE scientists, this ATBR is poised to start thorium utilization by India today without having to wait for 30 years if the Indo-US deal went through.
"The political climate is conducive for such a dialogue for first time in the history of world nuclear power generation", they said.