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SCANA kept quiet about a ‘potential fraud’ at SC nuclear project.

SCANA execs uncovered ‘potential fraud’ at SC nuclear project. They didn’t tell the cops.  By Andrew Brown abrown@postandcourier.com, Oct 8, 2018  COLUMBIA — SCANA’s executives in 2015 learned about a million-dollar bid-rigging scheme during the construction of their South Carolina nuclear project but never reported the discovery to state and federal law enforcement officials.

Rather, they kept the matter quiet to avoid negative publicity about the project, according to a source with direct knowledge, avoiding unwanted attention from regulators and the public.

The alleged fraud highlights the secrecy that SCANA’s leaders cloaked the failed $9 billion project in over the past decade. The previously undisclosed episode has come to light amid continued debate about why the project failed and who is responsible.

Documents show SCANA’s employees confirmed Compuworld, a company based in Lexington County, undermined the purchasing rules for the V.C. Summer nuclear expansion project in order to win contracts to supply office furniture.

An investigation by SCANA’s corporate compliance office showed Alan Saleeby, Compuworld’s owner, submitted bids for his business and allegedly forged the applications for two other companies — allowing him to rake in money while making the purchases look competitive.

SCANA hired attorneys from Atlanta to complete background checks on all of the people involved in the scheme. They studied whether the utility had to report the questionable purchases under federal nuclear oversight regulations. And they considered “possible civil and criminal fraud claims” against Chicago Bridge and Iron, the contractor that approved the purchases.

News of the suspicious activity traveled quickly to SCANA’s top executives as the company’s leaders worked behind the scenes to fix other aspects of the struggling power project. One of the nuclear project’s top executives flagged the case for SCANA’s nuclear chief Jeff Archie. In an email, the executive described the purchases as “potential fraud.”

……..  the allegations leveled against Compuworld mark the most serious issue yet with the purchasing process at V.C. Summer — a project now considered the biggest economic failure in state history.

SCANA inadvertently disclosed its investigation into Compuworld earlier this year in legal bills it filed with the state Public Service Commission. But since then, SCANA’s attorneys have fought to keep other emails and documents about the investigation secret.

Eric Boomhower, SCANA’s spokesman, confirmed that the utility quietly settled the issue with Chicago Bridge and Iron in late 2015. He described the investigation into Compuworld as a “financial dispute.”

SCANA’s investigators referred to it simply as fraud.

……… The investigation became more serious when SCANA discovered evidence that Saleeby also was submitting bids for companies that were purportedly competing against Compuworld. Email addresses and the handwriting on some of the documents showed Saleeby was personally filing the other offers, too, guaranteeing that Compuworld came out on top……… https://www.postandcourier.com/business/scana-execs-uncovered-potential-fraud-at-sc-nuclear-project-they/article_0eb5960a-c63b-11e8-a6a0-cf8c595ea1ed.html

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October 11, 2018 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Was it close to a nuclear emergency, when Hurricane Florence hit USA East coast?

October 11, 2018 Posted by | incidents, USA | Leave a comment

“Transparency”- the Trump administration’s dirty trick to strangle access to reputable science on nuclear radiation  

Yes, radiation is bad for you. The EPA’s ‘transparency rule’ would be even worse.  The Trump administration wants to strangle access to reputable science.   https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/10/08/yes-radiation-is-bad-you-epas-transparency-rule-would-be-even-worse/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.b7e530a79729 By Audra J. Wolfe, 8 Oct 18   Audra J. Wolfe is a Philadelphia-based writer, editor, and historian. She is the author of Freedom’s Laboratory: The Cold War Struggle for the Soul of Science.

Last Tuesday, a headline from the Associated Press sparked outrage in the ordinarily quiet world of science policy. The Environmental Protection Agency, the story suggested, was considering relaxing guidelines for low-dose ionizing radiation, on the theory that “a bit of radiation may be good for you.” Within hours, the AP had issued a correction. As it turned out, the EPA was not, after all, endorsing hormesis, the theory that small doses of toxic chemicals might help the body, much like sunlight triggers the production of vitamin D.

Instead, the EPA was doing something much scarier: It was holding hearings on the “Transparency Rule,” which would restrict the agency to using studies that make a complete set of their underlying data and models publicly available. The rule is similar to an “Open Science” order issued by the Interior Department last month, and incorporates language from the HONEST Act, a bill that passed in the House in 2017 but later stalled in the Senate. The HONEST Act originally required that scientific studies provide enough data that an independent party could replicate the experiment — which is simply not realistic for large-scale longitudinal studies.

Although these rules cite the need to base regulatory policy on the “best available science,” make no mistake: They aim to strangle access to reputable studies.

The Transparency Rule continues the Trump administration’s pattern of anti-science policies. The White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy is a ghost town, with most of the major positions, including the director’s post, vacant since January 2017. Agencies and departments across the board, including the State Department and the Agriculture Department, are dropping their science advisers and bleeding scientific staff. It’s getting harder and harder for federal rulemakers to access expertise.

Understanding what’s wrong with “transparency,” at least as defined by these policies, requires a closer look at how scientists work. Let’s say you’re trying to understand the health effects of a one-time, accidental release of a toxic chemical. This incident might be epidemiologists’ only chance to investigate how this particular chemical interacts with both the air and the humans who breathe it, at varying doses, over a period of time. No matter how careful your approach, your study would fall short of the replicability standard.

You wouldn’t have baseline health information for the specific people who happened to be in the area. You might not have information on which residents had air filtration systems installed in their homes, or which residents were working outside when the incident took place. Your early results would, by definition, reflect only short-term health outcomes, rather than long-term effects. And you couldn’t replicate the study (with better controls) without endangering the health of thousands of people. In such cases, scientists have to extrapolate from existing, sometimes imperfect, data to protect the public.

Epidemiologists have community standards, including peer review, to evaluate these kinds of studies. A careful, peer-reviewed study of this hypothetical incident might well represent the “best available science” on this particular chemical. Regulators might rely on this study to establish the permissible levels of this chemical in the air we breathe. But now, let’s also say that this study took place 30 years ago. The leading scientists involved are dead, and no one kept their files. The raw data are, effectively, lost. Should scientists at the EPA be blocked from using the study?

Despite what made last week’s headlines, the EPA’s Oct. 3 hearing went beyond radiation. In fact, its lead witness, University of Massachusetts toxicologist Edward Calabrese, barely mentioned his theory of radiation hormesis. Instead, his testimony argued that the EPA should no longer rely on linear no-threshold (LNT) models for any number of hazards, including toxic chemicals and soil pollutants. In toxicology, LNT models assume that the biological effects of a given substance are directly connected to the amount of the exposure, with no minimum dose required. Radiation protections standards are based on LNT models; so are basic regulations involving ozone, particulate pollution, and chemical exposure.

The original studies asserting a LNT model for low-dose ionizing radiation were conducted in the 1950s. Like our hypothetical epidemiologist investigating a toxic chemical release, the geneticists who tried to understand the biological effects of atomic radiation were working with imperfect data, much of which is no longer available. The concept of a “comprehensive data management policy” simply did not exist in 1955. These particular studies were primarily based on survivors of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Japan. The scientists also extrapolated from high-dose exposure data in fruit flies and mice and from unethical high-dose experiments conducted on humans.

These studies are imperfect, but focusing on their limitations misses the broader scandal. These studies took place during the heyday of atmospheric nuclear weapons testing, an era when both the United States and the Soviet Union were pumping the atmosphere full of radioactive nucleotides. Some of the areas near the testing zones received so much radiation that they are still uninhabitable today. The tests coated the entire planet with a scrim of radiation. The Atomic Energy Commission, the agency in charge of the United States’ nuclear weapons program, didn’t even attempt to investigate the potential health effects of this constant, low-dose exposure to ionizing radiation on the world’s population. Studies of low-dose radiation were expensive, inconvenient, and politically risky, potentially jeopardizing the weapons testing program and therefore the United States’ ability to fight the Soviet Union. From the government’s perspective, it was better not to know.

This week, a sensational headline distracted us from a broader crisis. Without government support for research of environmental hazards, the public’s health is left to either the whims of industry researchers, who have a strong incentive to play down their dangers, or to public advocacy groups, which are too easily smeared with charges of anti-industry bias. The “transparency” movement supposedly resolves this crisis of authority by giving the public access to the underlying data on which science is based, but it ignores the power dynamics that determine which research questions get asked, and why and how they’re answered.

In the past, Americans looked to their federal science agencies and science advisers to resolve these sorts of disputes. But a few weeks ago, the EPA announced that it, too, would be eliminating its Office of the Science Adviser. With the science offices empty, who will decide?

There is one bright spot in all of this: On Sept. 28, bipartisan legislation authorized the Energy Department to restart its low-dose radiation research program. But what about the other pollutants that the EPA supposedly regulates? Who will produce the kinds of science deemed acceptable under the “transparency” rule?

“Transparency” has become another way to cultivate institutional ignorance. Americans deserve better from the agencies that are supposed to protect them. In the case of environmental hazards, what you don’t know can hurt you.

October 9, 2018 Posted by | radiation, Reference, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Federal indictment alleges that Russian military targeted USA nuclear company Westinghouse

October 9, 2018 Posted by | Russia, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

Despite its anti-nuclear ordinance, Oakland City Council to increase a contract with nuclear weapons maker AECOM

Nuclear Weapons Maker to Receive Extra $420,600 to Help Repair Oakland Bridge https://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2018/10/08/nuclear-weapons-maker-to-receive-extra-420600-to-help-repair-oakland-bridge

In addition to managing US nuclear labs, AECOM does billions in business building overseas military bases and maintaining Air Force drones.

By Darwin BondGraham The Oakland City Council is considering increasing an existing contract by $420,600 for a total of $1.25 million to repair the 23rd Avenue Bridge, but the modified contract is with AECOM, an engineering company that has been involved in designing and manufacturing nuclear weapons components, and in the past, helped manage a desert test site where nuclear weapons experiments were conducted.

Oakland has an anti-nuclear ordinance that usually bars companies involved in designing and building nukes from doing business with the city. But city staffers are recommending that the council waive the prohibition for AECOM due to the fact that the company, and its URS subsidiary, have been involved with the 23rd Avenue Bridge project since 2003 and finding another firm to do the technical work would be difficult.

The original $229,400 contract form 2003 for design and engineering services was signed when URS was independent from AECOM and before URS was a prime contractor with the U.S. Department of Energy, which oversees the nation’s nuclear weapons programs. But in 2005, URS became part of a consortium of companies that took over management of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where most of the U.S. military’s nuclear weapons are designed and some weapons parts are manufactured. The next year, URS took over management of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the nation’s second nuclear weapons design and testing lab.

AECOM bought URS in 2014 and as a result became a partner in the nuclear labs’ management company. Three months ago, the federal government selected a new team to manage the Los Alamos lab, dropping AECOM as one of the firms involved there. But AECOM is still part of the Livermore Lab group.

Prior to this, AECOM helped manage the Nevada National Security Site where nuclear weapons are tested in “subcritical” experiments that don’t result in fission or fusion explosions.

AECOM has billions of dollars worth of other contracts with the U.S. military, doing everything from building overseas bases to maintaining drone weapons systems. As a result of its nuclear weapons contracts, AECOM was one of several companies that Norway’s sovereign fund put on an investment blacklist last January.

In 2012, Oakland’s City Council increased the contract with URS to work on the 23rd Avenue Bridge to $829,400. But according to the city, “several unforeseen conditions and needed re-design work” require that the contract be increased again to $1.25 million. The funds are mainly state and federal transportation grant dollars.

October 9, 2018 Posted by | business and costs, politics, USA | Leave a comment

Russia challenges US compliance with nuclear arms treaty

 MOSCOW https://www.kwtx.com/content/news/Russia-challenges-US-compliance-with-nuclear-arms-treaty-495949041.html?ref=041 (AP) 8 Oct 18— Russia on Monday challenged the U.S. claim that it has fulfilled its obligations under a pivotal nuclear arms deal, a new argument that could further fuel tensions between Moscow and Washington.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said it “can’t confirm” the latest U.S. State Department data indicating that the U.S. has complied with the thresholds set by the 2010 New START treaty. It limits each country to no more than 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 deployed missiles and bombers.

The ministry said the U.S. removed 56 Trident II submarine-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles and 41 B-52H strategic bombers from its count of nuclear arsenals after re-equipping them to carry conventional weapons.

But it argued that the U.S. had failed to let Russia verify the move in line with the treaty, and failed to list four land-based missile silos converted for training purposes — a move Russia said didn’t conform to the treaty.

The ministry said the perceived U.S. breach of the treaty’s limits was “unacceptable,” adding that it expects Washington to “show a constructive approach to settling that acute issue.”

The tough statement marked the first time Russia raised the issue of the alleged U.S. non-compliance with the pact signed by President Barack Obama and then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev amid a brief thaw in Russia-U.S. ties. The New Start came into effect in 2011 and is to expire in 2021 unless the two countries extend it.

Officials in both Russia and the U.S. have given mixed signals about the pact’s future.

Russia-U.S. ties have sunk to their lowest levels since the Cold war times over the Ukrainian crisis, the war in Syria, the allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and alleged Russian hacking of world anti-doping bodies, athletes, plane investigations and chemical weapons probes, among other disputes.

In the arms control sphere, Moscow and Washington also have been at loggerheads over another arms control treaty — the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

The U.S. has accused Russia of deploying a new type of missile in violation of the pact that bans an entire class of weapons — all nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles of intermediate range. Russia has rejected the accusations.

October 9, 2018 Posted by | politics international, Russia, USA | Leave a comment

Science denial in USA government – first about climate change, now about ionising radiation

The radiation regulation is supported by Steven Milloy, a Trump transition team member for the EPA who is known for challenging widely accepted ideas about manmade climate change and the health risks of tobacco. He has been promoting Calabrese’s theory of healthy radiation on his blog.

the EPA proposal on radiation and other health threats represents voices “generally dismissed by the great bulk of scientists.”

“The individual risk will likely be low, but not the cumulative social risk,

Turning to scientific outliers, EPA says a little radiation may be healthy, WIVN.com, By: CBS/AP Oct 07, 2018 The Trump administration is quietly moving to weaken U.S. radiation regulations, turning to scientific outliers who argue that a bit of radiation damage is actually good for you — like a little bit of sunlight.

The government’s current, decades-old guidance says that any exposure to harmful radiation is a cancer risk. And critics say the proposed change could lead to higher levels of exposure for workers at nuclear installations and oil and gas drilling sites, medical workers doing X-rays and CT scans, people living next to Superfund sites and any members of the public who one day might find themselves exposed to a radiation release.

The Trump administration already has targeted a range of other regulations on toxins and pollutants, including coal power plant emissions and car exhaust, that it sees as costly and burdensome for businesses. Supporters of the EPA’s new proposal argue the government’s current no-tolerance rule for radiation damage forces unnecessary spending for handling exposure in accidents, at nuclear plants, in medical centers and at other sites.

“This would have a positive effect on human health as well as save billions and billions and billions of dollars,” said Edward Calabrese, a toxicologist at the University of Massachusetts who is to be the lead witness at a congressional hearing Wednesday on EPA’s proposal. “The regulatory agencies are kind of a cult, but they don’t know they’re part of a cult.”

Calabrese, who made those remarks in a 2016 interview with a California nonprofit, was quoted by EPA in its announcement of the proposed rule in April. He declined repeated requests for an interview with The Associated Press. The EPA declined to make an official with its radiation-protection program available……….

As recently as this March, the EPA’s online guidelines for radiation effects advised: “Current science suggests there is some cancer risk from any exposure to radiation.”

“Even exposures below 100 millisieverts” – an amount roughly equivalent to 25 chest X-rays or about 14 CT chest scans – “slightly increase the risk of getting cancer in the future,” the agency’s guidance said.

But that online guidance – separate from the rule-change proposal – was edited in July to add a section emphasizing the low individual odds of cancer: “According to radiation safety experts, radiation exposures of …100 millisieverts usually result in no harmful health effects, because radiation below these levels is a minor contributor to our overall cancer risk,” the revised policy says.

Calabrese and his supporters argue that smaller exposures of cell-damaging radiation and other carcinogens can serve as stressors that activate the body’s repair mechanisms and can make people healthier. They compare it to physical exercise or sunlight.

Mainstream scientific consensus on radiation is based on deceptive science, says Calabrese, who argued in a 2014 essay for “righting the past deceptions and correcting the ongoing errors in environmental regulation.”……..

The radiation regulation is supported by Steven Milloy, a Trump transition team member for the EPA who is known for challenging widely accepted ideas about manmade climate change and the health risks of tobacco. He has been promoting Calabrese’s theory of healthy radiation on his blog.

But Jan Beyea, a physicist whose work includes research with the National Academies of Science on the 2011 Fukushima nuclear power plant accident, said the EPA proposal on radiation and other health threats represents voices “generally dismissed by the great bulk of scientists.”

The EPA proposal would lead to “increases in chemical and radiation exposures in the workplace, home and outdoor environment, including the vicinity of Superfund sites,” Beyea wrote.

At the level the EPA website talks about, any one person’s risk of cancer from radiation exposure is perhaps 1 percent, Beyea said.

“The individual risk will likely be low, but not the cumulative social risk,” Beyea said.

“If they even look at that – no, no, no,” said Terrie Barrie, a resident of Craig, Colorado, and an advocate for her husband and other workers at the now-closed Rocky Flats nuclear-weapons plant, where the U.S. government is compensating certain cancer victims regardless of their history of exposure.

“There’s no reason not to protect people as much as possible,” said Barrie.

U.S. agencies for decades have followed a policy that there is no threshold of radiation exposure that is risk-free.

The National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements reaffirmed that principle this year after a review of 29 public health studies on cancer rates among people exposed to low-dose radiation, via the U.S. atomic bombing of Japan in World War II, leak-prone Soviet nuclear installations, medical treatments and other sources.

Twenty of the 29 studies directly support the principle that even low-dose exposures cause a significant increase in cancer rates, said Roy Shore, chief of research at the Radiation Effects Research Foundation, a joint project of the United States and Japan. Scientists found most of the other studies were inconclusive and decided one was flawed.

None supported the theory there is some safe threshold for radiation, said Shore, who chaired the review. If there were a threshold that it’s safe to go below, “those who profess that would have to come up with some data,” Shore said in an interview.

“Certainly the evidence did not point that way,” he said……..

The EPA tucked its proposed relaxation of radiation guidelines into its “transparency in science” proposal in April. The proposal would require regulators to consider “various threshold models across the exposure range” when it comes to dangerous substances.  …….https://www.wivb.com/news/turning-to-scientific-outliers-epa-says-a-little-radiation-may-be-healthy/1505019288

October 8, 2018 Posted by | politics, secrets,lies and civil liberties, USA | Leave a comment

USA’s Nuclear Protection Agency, -sorry, Environment Protection Agency , set to weaken radiation guidelines

October 8, 2018 Posted by | politics, radiation, USA | Leave a comment

New research raises further concern about radioactive contamination from US arms testing

Studies renew worry about contamination from US arms testing, Stars and Stripes,  By RALPH VARTABEDIAN | Los Angeles Times  October 6, 2018 LOS ANGELES (Tribune News Service) — At the dawn of the nuclear age, the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration placed the nation’s major nuclear weapons production and research facilities in large, isolated reservations to shield them from foreign spies – and to protect the American public from the still unknown risks of radioactivity.

By the late 1980s, near the end of the Cold War, federal lands in South Carolina, Tennessee, New Mexico, Colorado, Ohio and Washington state, among other places, were so polluted with radionuclides that the land was deemed permanently unsuitable for human habitation.

That much has long been accepted as a price for the nation’s nuclear deterrent. But a far more complex problem could emerge if recent research is correct.

Studies by a Massachusetts scientist say that invisible radioactive particles of plutonium, thorium and uranium are showing up in household dust, automotive air cleaners and along hiking trails outside the factories and laboratories that for half a century contributed to the nation’s stockpile of nuclear weapons.

The findings provide troubling new evidence that the federal government is losing control of at least some of the radioactive byproducts of the country’s weapons program.

Marco Kaltofen, a nuclear forensics expert and a professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, said he collected samples from communities outside three lab sites across the nation and found a wide variation of particle sizes. He said they could deliver lifelong doses that exceed allowable federal standards if inhaled.

“If you inhale two particles, you will exceed your lifetime dose under occupational standards, and there is a low probability of detecting it,” he said.

A peer-reviewed study by Kaltofen was published in its final form in May in Environmental Engineering Science.

Kaltofen, who also is the principal investigator at the nuclear and chemical forensics consulting firm Boston Chemical Data Corp., released a second study in recent weeks.

The Energy Department has long insisted that small particles like those collected by Kaltofen deliver minute doses of radioactivity, well below typical public exposures.

One of the nation’s leading experts on radioactivity doses, Bruce Napier, who works in the Energy Department’s lab system, said the doses cited by Kaltofen would not pose a threat to public health.

Such assurances have been rejected by nuclear plant workers, their unions and activists who monitor environmental issues at nearly every lab and nuclear weapons site in the nation.

Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, cited a long history of denial about the claims of “down winders,” the residents of Western states who were exposed to radioactive fallout from atmospheric weapons testing.

“We cannot trust self-reporting by the Department of Energy,” he said. “I don’t accept that low levels of radioactivity have no risk.”

Tom Carpenter, executive director of another watchdog group, the Hanford Challenge in central Washington, said as recently as last year that the Energy Department released an unknown quantity of radioactive particles during demolition of a shuttered weapons factory, the Plutonium Finishing Plant.

After a series of three releases during 2017, the Energy Department shut down the demolition and has yet to resume it. Forty-two workers were exposed in the incidents.

“If you work in a coal mine, you go home with coal dust on you,” Carpenter said. “Same with a textile mill; you go home with cotton dust. These Hanford workers went home with plutonium dust.”

The second study by Kaltofen, completed in August, reported that fairly high radioactivity levels were found in 30 samples from the communities around the Hanford nuclear site, near Richland, Wash. The samples found contamination on personal vehicles driven inside the Hanford site that would leave mechanics exposed if they worked around the vehicles, the report said.

Kaltofen also reviewed an internal study in March by an Energy Department contractor, Washington River Protection Solutions, that found a calculated potential dose of 95 millirem for workers, roughly 10 times higher than the federal Environmental Protection Agency standard.

Kaltofen said a broader independent study should look at residual contamination around Hanford. An Energy Department spokesman at the Hanford site said the office had no comment on the studies.

For his studies, Kaltofen collected samples outside the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, the former Rocky Flats weapons plant near Denver and the Hanford site.

The samples were collected from the crawl spaces of homes, a trailer park office, vacuum cleaner bags, automotive air filters, furnace filters and along a hiking trail.

He subjected those samples to electronic microscopy analysis to determine exactly what type of element was emitting radiation. He identified isotopes of cesium, thorium, uranium and plutonium, all the results of building nuclear weapons parts.

The communities surrounding these facilities have long adapted to the reality that they are near radioactivity, though they are not willing to take risks that compromise their health. Kaltofen’s sampling found some very high levels of contamination in Los Alamos’ Acid Canyon, a recreational area near a community pool and skate park………

A worker’s exposure to radioactivity, such as walking by a radioactive substance or having particles cling to clothing, is checked by monitors and badges worn by workers at plant sites. Such exposure is like a medical X-ray, which delivers a momentary dose. But inhaling a small particle of plutonium or thorium can go unnoticed by such monitors and deliver a lifetime of alpha radiation right next to lung tissue, Kaltofen said.

“You can walk through a portal monitor without setting it off but you can get a substantial amount of energy from particles in the body,” he said. https://www.stripes.com/news/us/studies-renew-worry-about-contamination-from-us-arms-testing-1.550707#.W7pnK–LpJ4.twitter

October 8, 2018 Posted by | environment, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo talks about breaking USA-North Korea stalemate

POMPEO: U.S., N.KOREA HOPE TO BREAK NUCLEAR STALEMATE   https://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Pompeo-US-NKorea-hope-to-break-nuclear-stalemate-568823  

BY REUTERS  OCTOBER 7, 2018  EOUL, – US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday he met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during his trip to Pyongyang, aimed at breaking a stalemate in nuclear negotiations between the two countries.

Shortly after arriving in South Korea following the visit, Pompeo posted a photo of himself walking along with Kim on Twitter, saying: “Had a good trip to #Pyongyang to meet with Chairman Kim. We continue to make progress on agreements made at Singapore Summit.  Thanks for hosting me and my team @StateDept.”

October 8, 2018 Posted by | North Korea, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Nuclear Waste Shipments Expose Populations to Toxic Radiation

 https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201810061068647605-nuclear-waste-shipments-expose-populations-radiation/

 06.10.2018 Pregnant women in the United States could be exposed to ionizing radioactivity from nuclear waste shipped around the nation, a radioactive waste watchdog told Radio Sputnik’s Loud & Clear this week.

Given the number of shipments of nuclear waste traveling around the country, “Pregnant women and the fetus and the womb should not be exposed to any ionizing radioactivity if it can be avoided. This is going to happen. Given these kinds of shipment numbers — many thousands — there’s going to be exposures to pregnant women in this country,” says Kevin Kamps, radioactive waste specialist at Beyond Nuclear.

Nuclear waste is shipped past Americans all the time without many of us knowing it. Even waste passing by on a train is emitting radioactive particulates, and some of those can have negative consequences over time.

“It’s like an X-ray. It will cause harm,” Kamps said. Nurses often ask patients to wear protective aprons while taking X-rays to minimize exposure to the radiation, since X-rays are technically a carcinogen according to the World Health Organization. Medical News Today has reported that approximately 0.4 percent of cancers in the US are triggered by CT scans. (CT scans use X-rays and computer imagery to generate pictures of the body to help doctors with diagnoses.)

Transporting nuclear waste products is a risky business for public health outside the US, too

“If you have exterior, or external contamination, on the shipment — which has happened hundreds of times in France, 50 times in the US that we know of — those dose rates increase significantly. In France, on average, it was 500 times the permissible [amount of contamination] on one-third of the shipments. In one case it was 3,300 times [the] permissible [amount]. So if that’s one to two chest X-rays per hour, times 3,300 times permissible, that’s 6,600 chest X-rays per hour,” Kamps told Loud & Clear.

October 8, 2018 Posted by | safety, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

USA administration salivating about lucrative sale of nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia – if only they could get over the proliferation problem

U.S. stresses safety in talks on nuclear power with Saudi Arabia: Perry https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-saudi-nuclear/u-s-stresses-safety-in-talks-on-nuclear-power-with-saudi-arabia-perry-idUSKCN1M707W

Timothy Gardner, WASHINGTON (Reuters) 7 Oct 18,  – The United States is close to working with Saudi Arabia on building nuclear power reactors, but talks on tough non-proliferation standards with the kingdom remain a challenge, U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry said on Wednesday.

Perry has held talks with several Saudi leaders this year, including King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, on the kingdom’s ambition of initially building two nuclear power stations. Saudi Arabia wants to ultimately construct 16 reactors in coming decades at a cost of about $80 billion.

Discussions had been held up on Saudi Arabia’s desire to relax nonproliferation standards and potentially allow the country to enrich uranium and reprocess plutonium, technologies that non-proliferation advocates worry could one day be covertly altered to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons.

Perry said progress on non-proliferation standards had been made, but that talks were not going as quickly as either side would have hoped. Perry has shared with Saudi leaders that being “perceived as very, very strong on non-proliferation was a most important message, globally,” he told reporters at the Energy Department headquarters.

Perry said part of the talks center on making sure any nuclear inspections would not be intrusive for sensitive areas in the kingdom.

Discussions had been held up on Saudi Arabia’s desire to relax nonproliferation standards and potentially allow the country to enrich uranium and reprocess plutonium, technologies that non-proliferation advocates worry could one day be covertly altered to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons.

Perry said progress on non-proliferation standards had been made, but that talks were not going as quickly as either side would have hoped. Perry has shared with Saudi leaders that being “perceived as very, very strong on non-proliferation was a most important message, globally,” he told reporters at the Energy Department headquarters.

Perry said part of the talks center on making sure any nuclear inspections would not be intrusive for sensitive areas in the kingdom.

October 8, 2018 Posted by | politics international, Saudi Arabia, USA | Leave a comment

USA came near to using nuclear bombs in Vietnam war

U.S. General Considered Nuclear Response in Vietnam War, Cables Show, By David E. Sanger, NYT, Oct. 6, 2018 WASHINGTON — In one of the darkest moments of the Vietnam War, the top American military commander in Saigon activated a plan in 1968 to move nuclear weapons to South Vietnam until he was overruled by President Lyndon B. Johnson, according to recently declassified documents cited in a new history of wartime presidential decisions.

The documents reveal a long-secret set of preparations by the commander, Gen. William C. Westmoreland, to have nuclear weapons at hand should American forces find themselves on the brink of defeat at Khe Sanh, one of the fiercest battles of the war.

With the approval of the American commander in the Pacific, General Westmoreland had put together a secret operation, code-named Fracture Jaw, that included moving nuclear weapons into South Vietnam so that they could be used on short notice against North Vietnamese troops.

Johnson’s national security adviser, Walt W. Rostow, alerted the president in a memorandum on White House stationery.

The president rejected the plan, and ordered a turnaround, according to Tom Johnson, then a young special assistant to the president and note-taker at the meetings on the issue, which were held in the family dining room on the second floor of the White House………..

Had the weapons been used, it would have added to the horrors of one of the most tumultuous and violent years in modern American history. Johnson announced weeks later that he would not run for re-election. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated shortly thereafter.

The story of how close the United States came to reaching for nuclear weapons in Vietnam, 23 years after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki forced Japan to surrender, is contained in “Presidents of War,” a coming book by Michael Beschloss, the presidential historian.

……….The incident has echoes for modern times. It was only 14 months ago that President Trump was threatening the use of nuclear weapons against North Korea — which, unlike North Vietnam at the time, possesses its own small nuclear arsenal.

………And before he was dismissed in 1951 by President Harry S. Truman, Gen. Douglas MacArthur explored with his superiors the use of nuclear weapons in the Korean War. Truman had feared that MacArthur’s aggressive strategy would set off a larger war with China, but at one point did move atomic warheads to bases in the Pacific, though not to Korea itself…….

Mr. Beschloss’s book, which will be published on Tuesday by Crown, examines challenges facing presidents from Thomas Jefferson to George W. Bush. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/06/world/asia/vietnam-war-nuclear-weapons.html

October 8, 2018 Posted by | history, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Georgia’s utility customers – worms who may be turning against paying for the Vogtle nuclear boondoggle

We understand bringing jobs to the state has been the governor’s chief priority and achievement, and it is one economic benefit of the project. But utility customers should only have to pay for their electric power, not a jobs program without end or limits on how much is spent.

Nuclear power play keeps Vogtle project alive https://www.gainesvilletimes.com/opinion/editorial-nuclear-power-play-keeps-vogtle-project-alive/  Plan moves ahead with changes, but customers’ patience is wearing thin  The Times Editorial Board letters@gainesvilletimes.com  Oct. 6, 2018,  For years, Georgia Power customers, nuclear power opponents and some politicians have been arguing that construction of the two new reactors at the Plant Vogtle nuclear power plant near Waynesboro is the state’s all-time white elephant.

The project, the nation’s only nuclear plant construction still ongoing, is already a year overdue, nowhere near finished and $1 billion overbudget. final cost is expected to reach near $27 billion, more than twice the original $13 billion price tag. Last year’s bankruptcy filing of the project’s lead contractor, Westinghouse, set the deadline back even further.

Yet late last year, the Georgia Public Service Commission fended off pressure from ratepayers and anti-nuclear advocates and voted to back Georgia Power’s request to continue the work.

But now, after years of seemingly exhaustive support for an enterprise with no limits, some are finally fed up enough to say no.

The most recent and crucial rebellion came recently from one of the project’s partner utilities. Oglethorpe Power threatened to pull out of the reactor construction if some effort wasn’t made to ease its financial commitment. Oglethorpe is one of three smaller electric membership corporations that serve as junior partners in the project along with Georgia Power and its parent, the Southern Company.

But though Georgia Power is a for-profit with shareholders to help shoulder the costs, smaller EMCs don’t have that flexibility and must make their customers bear the funding burden.

Oglethorpe balked at reaffirming its partnership and argued its case to lawmakers for relief. They seemed to find sympathetic ears, with 20 legislators, including Hall County Sen. Butch Miller and other influential leaders, urging the partners to consider a cap on the project’s costs before more losses are passed on to consumers.

The new deal doesn’t exactly do that, but it does to ensure that further cost overruns will be shared more equitably among Georgia Power and the owners of the project — Georgia Power, Oglethorpe Power, the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia and Dalton Utilities. Specifically Georgia Power must take on a greater portion of future deficits.

Yet even with a somewhat more reasonable deal for the owners, it could still leave ratepayers on the hook for the extra costs as the project wobbles toward the finish line.

“We’re very concerned about today’s announcement because it’s clear the Plant Vogtle nuclear project is in serious trouble if this much arm twisting is necessary to keep all four partners at the table,” Stephen Smith, executive director of Southern Alliance for Clean Energy said in an emailed statement.

Liz Coyle, executive director of consumer advocate Georgia Watch, said it “appears the owners have decided to plow ahead with a project that holds continued uncertainty and certainly clear risk of major cost increases and very little, if any true protections for Georgia’s electric customers.”

It’s worth noting that in addition to those who see the reactor construction as an endless money pit, others object over the viability and safety of nuclear power as a long-term solution to ease off carbon-based fuels.

Defenders of the Vogtle reactors argue that the jobs it creates in that part of the state justify its support. Among them is Gov. Nathan Deal, who urged Oglethorpe to stay with construction plans “before walking away from 7,000 Georgia jobs.”

We understand bringing jobs to the state has been the governor’s chief priority and achievement, and it is one economic benefit of the project. But utility customers should only have to pay for their electric power, not a jobs program without end or limits on how much is spent.

Oglethorpe’s resistance to continuing without some guarantees was timely and needed, but it’s only the first step. The only way to ensure customers won’t have to keep paying more is if legislators insist on the cost caps they suggested. Perhaps that would accomplish what the Public Service Commission has thus far been unwilling or unable to do to rein in cost overruns.

Remember, that five-member board voted unanimously last year to allow the utilities to keep charging customers for its boondoggle. It fits the profile of a state agency that over the years has seldom met a rate hike it wouldn’t rubber-stamp for utilities, many of which provide campaign donations to its members.

Yet Georgians do get a say in how this plays out. There’s a statewide election in less than a month and two PSC seats are on the ballot. Perhaps if commissioners got a message from voters making it clear they’re tired of footing the bill, the board wouldn’t be as eager to keep signing off on this and other costly ventures.

Customers of Georgia Power and its partner EMCs already have paid more than their fair share to get the reactors on line. Even if the plant is finished and begins turning out electrical power, it will take years to recoup what has been invested. It’s time to unplug ratepayers from the burden and let the big corporation’s shareholders take that responsibility.

Even the strongest advocates for nuclear power as a replacement for carbon-based energy have to understand there isn’t an endless supply of construction money in the pockets of Georgia utility consumers.

October 8, 2018 Posted by | business and costs, politics, USA | Leave a comment

Towns face the end of the nuclear era, and the problems of radioactive trash

When the nuclear era ends: Struggling Zion, Ill., a lesson for Lacey Township, Press of Atlantic city, MICHELLE BRUNETTI POST Staff Writer , 7 Oct 18 

More than 20 years after its nuclear plant closed, Zion, Illinois, is still dealing with the financial and community repercussions of its loss, says its mayor.

Almost all of the $19 million in annual property taxes the dual-reactor plant paid while in operation — about half the town’s tax base — disappeared.

“In five years it went down to $750,000 a year,” Zion Mayor Al Hill said of tax payments from the plant. “We are still trying to figure out how to dig out from under financial troubles created by the closing 20 years later.”

Lacey Township, where the Oyster Creek nuclear plant just closed, is similar in size to Zion — both have populations of about 25,000. Both nuclear plants were owned and operated by Exelon Generation.

But differences in how reliant the towns are on property taxes from their plants may save Lacey from a similar fate……….

Hill said the town knew when the plant was proposed it would have to live with an eyesore of a nuclear power plant. But the plant brought in tax dollars and a lot of jobs, he said, so people decided to go along with the tradeoff.

“But now we have spent fuel storage,”  Zion Mayor Al Hill    said, which  wasn’t part of the agreement………

The spent fuel at Zion is guarded by armed guards with automatic weapons 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

“It’s behind a bunkered building,” Hill said, with the dry casks stored above ground. “You don’t need to do that if nothing can go wrong.”

Exelon officials said at a recent press conference that most of the 700 acre site in Lacey can be redeveloped after decommissioning, even with 753 metric tons of spent fuel stored there. Only the area right around the fuel would be off limits, they said.

But Hill said it won’t be a high value development, such as condos or a resort. That would require a developer to risk too much money, should an accident or attack happen.

Hill, like Lacey Township’s Juliano, is trying to get his U.S. Senators to back a bill to pay towns that host nuclear plants for acting as interim storage facilities for spent fuel rods. The rods are leftover from plant operation and must be carefully stored for hundreds of years or more.

The bill, H.R. 3053, the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2018, is co-sponsored by New Jersey’s Republican Congressman Tom MacArthur. The House of Representatives passed it in May, said MacArthur. But it has not come up for a vote in the Senate, and Juliano said he has not been able to get either of New Jersey’s senators to pay attention to the bill.

But the Energy and Water, Legislative Branch, and Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act of 2019 — H.R. 5895 — has passed and requires the Department of Energy to report on funding for municipalities hosting closed nuclear power plants. It awaits President Donald Trump’s signature.

Exelon transferred its license for the Zion plant to EnergySolutions of Salt Lake City, Utah, for the decommissioning. But Exelon will take the property back and be responsible for longterm storage of spent fuel after the cleanup of the site.

EnergySolutions got control of a $680 million decommissioning fund paid for by ratepayers.

“It’s gone, and they are not done yet,” said Hill, who said the company must come up with the funds to finish. “They are going to finish. They want to do more (cleanups).”

Exelon wants to sell the Oyster Creek plant outright to Holtec International of Camden, which would take over its $900 million decommissioning fund, keep the land and be responsible for handling the spent fuel rods until the federal government finds a storage solution for them.

The NRC said it started reviewing the potential sale this week and usually takes about a year to make a decision. But it will try to finish its review in eight months, at the request of Holtec and Exelon.

Hill cautions Lacey officials and residents not to rely on Exelon for help.

“Be careful. They are not going to do anything for you,” said Hill. “They have a responsibility to their shareholders. Your responsibility is to your constituents.”

Contact: 609-272-7219

mpost@pressofac.com

Twitter @MichelleBPost

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October 8, 2018 Posted by | USA, wastes | Leave a comment

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