Ireland rejects uranium prospecting applications

Ireland rejects uranium prospecting applications, signals 'wider policy decision'

SOURCE: http://www.miningweekly.co.za/article.php?a_id=122718
By: Liezel Hill
Published: 3 Dec 07 - 21:38

Ireland's Natural Resources Minister, Eamon Ryan, said on Monday that would not grant prospecting licenses to two companies which had applied for government permission to explore for uranium in the country.

The rejections signalled a "wider policy decision to prohibit such activity in Ireland", the Ministry said in a statement.

"I have decided...as Minister of Communcications, Energy & Natural Resources, I will not license any prospecting for uranium in Ireland."
Nuclear generation of electricity is outlawed in Ireland, and Ryan said that it would be "hypocritical" to allow the mining of uranium for use in other countries.

"A prospecting license is the first step in the mining process. Granting a license carries an implicit policy agreement permitting its extraction should a viable prospect be discovered," he said.

"There are also significant environmental and public health concerns surrounding uranium mining, including contamination of ground and surface water supplies and radiation levels."

Spot uranium prices reached a record high of $138/lb earlier this year, helped, in part, by setbacks at Cigar Lake, a big new mine under construction in Canada, as well as output constraints at several other mines around the world.

Prices have since retreated somewhat, but Neal Froneman, who heads TSX- and JSE-listed Uranium One, told Mining Weekly Online last month that he expected uranium spot prices to touch new highs in the next year to 18 months.

SOURCE: http://www.miningweekly.co.za/article.php?a_id=122718

Nuclear Emissions - Helen Caldicott

URANIUM MINING, MILLING, ENRICHING, ROUTINE RELEASES AND ACCIDENTAL RELEASES

In the last chapter we discussed the medical, physical and biological characteristics of radiation.

In this chapter we will deal with the toxic radioactive legacy of each step of the nuclear fuel chain and the ecological and health impacts that this legacy bequeaths for this and all future generations

As we proceed through this chapter it will become more than obvious that the steps necessary for the production of nuclear power are so medically dangerous that the production, dissemination and distribution of nuclear materials should be subject to the same stringent taxes and restrictions as those placed on the global production of carbon dioxide, or, more obviously perhaps this technology should be abandoned immediately. In fact it beggars the mind that we have benignly allowed the nuclear industry to get away with its severely polluting technology for so long.

As a physician I see the extraordinary efforts that I and my colleagues pursue to save the lives of our patients suffering from cancer and genetic diseases, let alone the amount of money allocated to find the cure to cancer. Yet here we have an industry that is actively promoting and incurring massive increases in these disastrous diseases, and society has not yet called their bluff. It is beyond time that we did.

Uranium Mining

Uranium mining began in Europe in the late part of the 19th century when Madam Curie was refining pitch blend from uranium ore and discovering the wonders of radiation. Large scale mining commenced 65 years ago specifically to provide fuel for nuclear weapons. Much of the uranium was located on Navajo and Pueblo tribal land. The mining continued unabated for many decades thereafter and large numbers of Native Americans were employed as below-ground and above-ground miners.

People who mine uranium below the ground are at great risk because they are exposed to a high concentration of radioactive gas called radon 220 which accumulates in the air of the mine. Radon is a daughter or decay product of uranium, and is a highly carcinogenic alpha emitter which if inhaled, deposits in the air passages of the lung irradiating cells which then become malignant. As a result, uranium miners have suffered from a very high incidence of lung cancer. One fifth to one half of the uranium miners in North America, many of whom were Native Americans, have died and are continuing to die of lung cancer. Records reveal that uranium miners in other countries including Germany, Namibia and Russia suffer a similar fate.

Another lethal uranium daughter is radium 226, which is an alpha emitter with a half life of 1600 years. This radioactive element is notorious in the medical literature. In the early part of the 20th century women painted numbers on watch dials with radium enriched paint, so that the numbers glowed in the dark with radioactivity. To make the figures precise, they licked the tips of the paint brushes thereby swallowing large amounts of radium. Because radium is a calcium analogue it deposited in their bones. Many of these women subsequently died of osteogenic sarcoma – a highly malignant bone cancer, affecting their facial bones while others succumbed to leukemia, because white blood cells which were mutated are manufactured in the bone marrow. Uranium miners are exposed to a similar risk because radium is an integral component of uranium dust in the mine. When they swallow the dust, radium is absorbed from the gut and deposits in their bones.

Uranium ore also emits gamma radiation which emanates from the ore face, so the miners are also exposed to a constant whole-body radiation exposure (like X-rays) emitted by other uranium daughters, which irradiates their bodies and continuously exposes their testicles.

As the uranium ore is mined, and the uranium is extracted, large quantities of radioactive dirt and soil are discarded and left lying in huge heaps adjacent to the mine exposed to the air and the rain. This material is called tailings. Most tailings in North America are situated on indigenous tribal land of the Navajo nation and the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico, and on the Serpent River First Nation in Ontario, Canada. Millions of tons of radioactive dirt constantly leak radon 220 into the air exposing the indigenous populations who live nearby in their pueblos and settlements. As they inhale the radon, many of these people have and are developing lung cancer.

Rain also leaches soluble radium 226 through the tailings piles into the underground water which often is the source of drinking water for these people. When radium enters streams and rivers it bio-concentrates thousands of times at each step in the food chain of the aquatic life and terrestrial plants. Because it is tasteless and odourless, people in these contaminated populations cannot tell whether they are drinking radioactive water, breathing radioactive air or eating fish or food containing radium 226 which induces bone cancer or leukemia.

Hundreds of mines and tailings heaps lie exposed to the air and wind on Navajo land. Thousands of Navajos are still affected by uranium induced cancers, and will continue to be so for thousands of years unless remediation takes place. In total 265 million tons of uranium tailings pollute the American South West.


Ecological Racism

There has never been any attempt by the government or the nuclear industry to clean up this massive radioactive pollution which contaminates tribal land. It would be hard to imagine that the nuclear industry would be permitted to leave millions of tons of radioactive tailings lying adjacent to the well-heeled town of New Canaan Connecticut or near the Rockefeller estate in the Adirondacks.

Uranium Milling

The US federal government covers the cost of milling uranium. The ore is crushed and chemically treated at the milling plant in the American South West where it is converted to yellow cake. As in the mining process, the waste ore is discarded on the ground. These mill tailings contain radium and a dangerous radioactive element called thorium – a uranium daughter and a high energy gamma emitter with a half life of 80,000 years. Thorium is used in colour television sets. Over the last 40 years over 100 million tons of mill tailings have accumulated in the American South West

Human cost is again important in the energy discussion. To illustrate the dangers of loose unguarded nuclear material, in the mid 1960s, local contractors at Grand Junction in Colorado discovered acres of discarded mill tailings. Not knowing they were radioactive they used them for cheap landfill and concrete mix. Schools, hospitals, private homes roads, an airport and shopping mall were constructed from this material. In 1970, local pediatricians noticed an increased incidence of cleft lip, palate and other congenital anomalies amongst newborn babies born to parents who lived in these radioactive structures, which continually emitted gamma radiation and radon gas.

The EPA allocated monies to the University of Colorado Medial Center to study the correlation between the birth defects and the radioactive dwellings. However one year into the study, funds were abolished because, the government said, it had to save money for budgetary purposes.

Uranium Enrichment

As described in the second chapter, the uranium 235 isotope is enriched from a low concentration of 0.7% to 3% for fuel in nuclear power plants. If uranium 235 is enriched above a concentration of 50% it can be used as nuclear weapons fuel.

Workers at all stages of the enrichment process are exposed to whole body gamma radiation from daughters in the uranium. But the most serious aspect of enrichment is the material that is discarded, and that is uranium 238. This is called “depleted uranium” (DU) because it has been depleted of its uranium 235. But it is not depleted radioactively.

DU is lying around in hundreds of thousands of leaking disintegrating barrels at the enrichment facilities in Paducah Kentucky, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Portsmouth Ohio. At Padacah alone, some 38,000 cylinders of DU await disposal. DU has contaminated the ground water, forcing the government to provide alternative drinking water for the local residents.

But the Pentagon, in its wisdom has found a nifty use for this radioactive waste. Because uranium 238 is 1.7 times more dense than lead it has been found to be the ideal antitank weapon. When shot out of a cannon at great speed its ten pound mass develops great momentum, so the solid uranium antitank shell cuts through the steel on the other fellow’s tank like a hot knife through butter.

But DU has several unfortunate properties. It is pyrophoric which means that it bursts into flame upon impact and up to 80% disintegrates into finely powdered aerosol which is distributed to the four winds. It is radioactive, and it has a half life of 4.5 billion years

Nevertheless, the Pentagon is very keen about this weapon. In the 1991 Gulf war invasion they used 360 tons of it in the form of antitank shells. In the 2002 invasion they already have deployed well over 2000 tons, in cities such as Baghdad where half the population of five million people is children who play in the burned out tanks and on the sandy dusty ground. Children are ten to twenty times more susceptible to the carcinogenic effects of radiation than adults. My pediatric colleagues in Basra where this ordinance was used in 1991 report a seven fold increase in childhood cancer and a seven fold increase in gross congenital abnormalities.

Uranium is a heavy metal. It enters the body via inhalation into the lung or via ingestion into the GI tract. It is excreted by the kidney where, if the dose is high enough, it can induce renal failure. It can induce kidney cancer. As a calcium analogue, it lodges in bones where like plutonium, it causes bone cancer and leukemia. Last but not least it is excreted in the semen where it mutates genes in the sperm. This may be one of the causes of the huge increase in congenital disease reported in Basra.

Because of the infinitely long half-life of uranium 238, the food, the air and the water in the cradle of civilization have been forever contaminated. T

In summary, the two gulf wars have been nuclear wars and people, particularly children are condemned to die of malignancy and congenital disease for ever more.

Other countries involved in uranium enrichment include Britain, China, Russia, Israel, Japan, Germany, Argentina, France, North Korea, Iran, Pakistan, Brazil and India. Any of these countries if they so desired could make nuclear weapons if they decided to enrich their uranium beyond 50%. America set the example and the world follows.

Fuel Fabrication.

After milling, the uranium fuel is made into cylindrical ceramic pellets the size of a cigarette filter and placed in zirconium fuel rods, half and inch thick and twelve to fourteen feet long. Each rod contains at least 250 pellets. About 50,000 of these rods are then packed into the core of a thousand megawatt reactor within a cylindrical space, fourteen feet high and twenty feet in diameter. Fuel fabrication workers are once again exposed to gamma radiation emanating from the uranium as well as to radium radon gas and uranium dust.

It Does Not Take An Accident

Routine Releases

Once the fuel in a nuclear reactor reaches critical mass, the high radiation ambiance causes uranium fuel to swell over time, pinhole breaks appear in the zirconium cladding and some faulty welds rupture in the fuel rods themselves releasing radioactive isotopes into the cooling water. In addition, the radiation emitted through the wall of the fuel rods activates water molecules and impurities in the water itself. For example, neutrons emitted from the fuel rods interact with water molecules to form tritium – a radioactive isotope of hydrogen. The primary coolant - water which cools the reactor core thus becomes intensely radioactive.

This thermally hot primary coolant is piped through a steam generator to heat the secondary cooling system. This secondary water is converted to steam which turns the generators to produce the electricity. The primary coolant is not supposed to mix with the secondary coolant but of course it does, allowing radiation to be released to the environment from this secondary system.

Because of these factors and many more to be described, a nuclear power plant cannot operate without routinely releasing radioactivity into the air and water.

Radioactive gases which leak from fuel rods are routinely released or “vented” into the atmosphere at every nuclear reactor. Before release they are temporarily stored to allow the short lived isotopes to decay and then released to the atmosphere through engineered holes in the reactor roof and from the steam generators. This process is called “venting”. About 100 cubic feet of radioactive gases are also released hourly from the condensers at the reactor. Planned ventings increase in frequency when the reactor shuts down due to mechanical malfunctions. Accidental ventings are not infrequent.

Planned “purges” when radioactive gases are actively flushed into the atmosphere by a fan, are officially permitted by the NRC so that utility operators can decrease the intensely radioactive environment into which maintenance workers must enter. Older reactors are allowed 22 purges per year during routine operation and 2 purges per year during cold shut-down. (Cold shut occurs when the fission reaction is stopped at the reactor and 30 tons of very radioactive fuel is removed and replaced by new fuel).

Some of the more dangerous gases such as iodine 131 are usually trapped by filters, but not always. After the radioactive iodine is filtered, noble gases are routinely released. The nuclear industry argues that noble gases are chemically inert and therefore not capable of reacting biochemically in the body but they actually decay to daughter isotopes which themselves are chemically very reactive.

Noble gases have names that remind me of superman - xenon, argon, krypton. There are many varieties of these elements, some of which I will describe below. They are inhaled into the lung, particularly on a day when a meteorological inversion system causes the plume of radioactive gases to cling to the ground in a concentrated form.

Noble gases are high energy gamma emitters and they are readily absorbed from the lung, and enter the blood stream. Because they are very fat soluble, they tend to locate in the abdominal fat pad and upper thighs, adjacent to the testicles and ovaries. There, they can induce significant mutations in the eggs and sperm of the people living adjacent to a reactor.

There have never been any epidemiological studies performed on the effects of exposure to the noble gases xenon and krypton. This is a grave deficit in the study of radiation biology because these gases are so ubiquitous around nuclear reactors, and are released with irresponsible impunity.

But many noble gases decay to other more dangerous isotopes, all of which have different metabolic pathways in the body. I will describe several of the more dangerous.

Xenon 137 with a half life of 3.9 minutes converts almost immediately to the notoriously dangerous cesium 137 with a half life of 30 years.
Krypton 90 , half life of 33 seconds, decays to rubidium 90, half life of 2.9 minutes, then to the medically toxic strontium 90, half life 28 of years.
Xenon 135 decays to cesium 135 with an incredibly long half life of 3 million years. Large amounts of xenon 133 are released at operating reactors, and although it has a relatively short half life of 5.3 days, it remains radioactive for 106 days.
Krypton 85 which has a half life of 10.4 years is a powerful gamma emitter.
Argon 39 has a 265 year half life.

Other dangerous noble gases include xenon 141, 143 and 144 which decay to cerium 141, 143 and 144. According to the National Council on Radiation protection (NCRP Report No 60) these three cerium isotopes which are beta emitters, are abundant products of nuclear fission reactions and have moderately long half lives. They bio-concentrate in the food chain and they irradiate the lung, liver, skeleton and gastrointestinal tract where they act as potent carcinogens.

A very important and little discussed isotope that is routinely emitted in large quantities into the air and waste water from nuclear power plants is tritium, (H3) a radioactive isotope of hydrogen which is composed of one proton and two neutrons. Tritium has a half life of 12.4 years and as such is radioactive for 248 years. H3 combines readily with oxygen to form tritiated water (H3O).

Because it is impossible to remove tritium gas or tritiated water via filters, it is released continuously from reactors into the air and into lakes, rivers or seas – depending upon the reactor location. At least 1360 curies of tritium are released annually from each reactor.

Tritium gas is an interesting radioactive material which is utilized extensively in exit signs, runway signs at airports and on watch faces. But it is very reactive and tends to chemically bind with any material in which it is enclosed.

Tritiated water in particular is scary material. If one is immersed in a cloud of tritiated water on a foggy day near a reactor it is absorbed straight through the skin. It is also readily absorbed through the lungs and the GI tract.

Because tritium is a soft energy beta emitter, all the radiation it gives off is readily absorbed by the surrounding cells, hence it is biologically very mutagenic.

There is a vast literature on the biological effects of tritium demonstrating that it is highly mutagenic and causes chromosomal breaks and aberrations. In animal experiments it has been shown to induce a five fold increase in ovarian tumours in offspring of exposed parents while also causing testicular atrophy and shrinkage of the ovaries. It causes decreased brain weight in the exposed offspring and mental retardation with an increased incidence of brain tumours in some animals. Increased perinatal mortality was observed in these experiments as well as a high incidence of stunted and deformed foetuses.

These effects were observed with surprisingly low concentrations of tritium, becoming three times more dangerous biologically at very low doses.

Tritium is also more dangerous when it becomes organically bound in molecules of food. As such it is incorporated into molecules including DNA within bodily cells. Chronic exposure to contaminated food causes 10% of the tritium to become organically bound within the body where it has a biological half life of 21 to 550 days - meaning that it can reside in the body from one year to twenty five years.

When tritium is released to the environment it is taken up by plants and trees, partially incorporating into the ecosystem. Trees constantly transpire water vapour into the air it has been found that higher concentrations of tritium occur at night at breathing height in a forest that has incorporated tritium from a nearby reactor.

Let’s look again at the reactor.

The primary coolant water becomes extremely radioactive over time because the fuel rods leak. But to add fuel to the fire, the NRC is now allowing nuclear operators to retain uranium fuel in reactors for six years instead of three, lengthening the “burnup” time and substantially increasing the radiation levels in the fuel. As well the NRC is allowing a concentration of 4.5% uranium enrichment in the fuel instead of the previously approved maximum of 3.5%. This policy will also substantially increase the amount of radioactivity produced in the fuel rods.

The longer the time that the zirconium fuel cladding is exposed to high levels of radiation, and the higher the radiation levels, the greater the damage to the cladding subsequent leakage of radioactive materials into the primary coolant.

Radioactive corrosion or activation products not the result of uranium fission are produced as neutrons bombard the metal piping and the reactor containment. These elements which are powerfully radioactive include cobolt 60, iron 55, nickel 63, radioactive manganese, niobium, zinc and chromium. These materials slough off from the pipes into the primary coolant. Officially called CRUD (Chalk River Unidentified Deposits), this material is so intensely radioactive that it poses a severe hazard to maintenance workers and inspectors in certain areas of the reactor.

According to David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists, during shutdowns of reactors, the utilities not uncommonly flush out pipes, heat exchangers etc to remove highly radioactive CRUD build-up. Some of the CRUD is sent to radioactive waste dumps while some is released to the river, lake or sea on which the reactor is located.

The utilities admit that about 12 gallons of intensely radioactive primary coolant leaks daily into the secondary coolant via the steam generator through breaks in the pipes which is then released to the air. Some of these emissions are not even monitored. Likewise about 4,000 gallons of primary coolant water are intentionally released to the environment on a daily basis while some just leaks out unplanned. Many other emissions are simply not monitored.

In summary, radioactive gases, radioactive water, and CRUD particulates are intentionally released in daily batches, some in continuous streams and some during accidents.

Very radioactive primary coolant filters which frequently contain often contain intensely carcinogenic plutonium 238, 239, 241, americium and curium are shipped to nuclear waste facilities. Other dangerous elements in the filters include technetium 99 with a 211,100 year half life, iodine 129 with 15,700,000 year half life, carbon 14 with a 5700 year half life, nickel with a 100.1 year half life, and plutonium 241 with a 14.29 year half life.

Almost certainly these extraordinarily dangerous materials which are present in the primary coolant are escaping also in small quantities via the gaseous or liquid effluents into the environment at the nuclear power plant where they will bio-concentrate in the food chain, there to enter human bodies!

It is instructive to note that most of the data of radiation releases are not real measurements but are only estimates made by computerized mathematical models based on data generated from operational reactors, field and laboratory tests and plant specific design calculations.

Hence the nuclear industry is consistently guessing about its radioactive releases and has no real idea what specific isotopes are escaping from its radioactive mausoleums. They even admit that when their operating data is non existent, information that was confabulated – made up and drawn from laboratory and field tests and from engineering judgement! The reference for this material is dated 1985, the last such document published by the NRC available for the public scrutiny. Also note that this last document was published when reactors were relatively young and plagued with fewer corrosion and maintenance problems.

In other words, all the releases are done in secret, they are at best guesstimates, and the general public is kept in the dark.

Reports indicating gaseous and liquid radioactive releases vary enormously. For instance, the Millstone One reactor in Connecticut alone released a remarkable 2.97 million curies of noble gases in 1975, while Nine Mile Point One released 1.3 million curies in 1975. In 1974, the total release from all reactors in the US was 6.48 million curies while in 1993 it ranged between 96,600 curies to 214,000 curies.

Some years the nuclear industry is collectively releasing millions of curies annually. But remember that the nuclear industry claims it is “emission” free and they are gearing up to build a new generation of nuclear power plants!

Lesson? Do not live near a nuclear power plant, otherwise you will never know what you are breathing, eating and drinking.

Niger's Uranium Rebelllion

David Lewis
17 September 2007 11:59


Before the protest march, leaflets were scattered around town claiming Libyan troops had entered Niger to annex the country’s oil and land while French business people were busy looting the country of its meagre wealth.

And when hundreds of Nigeriens took to the streets of their capital recently, they did more than accuse neighbouring Libya of backing rebels and call for Areva, a French nuclear firm mining uranium in the north of the country, to leave.

They highlighted the complexity of Niger’s latest rebellion, which, though not even officially recognised by the government, has killed some 50 government soldiers, seen dozens more kidnapped and sparked a vast military operation in the north.

Seven months ago, the Niger Movement for Justice (MNJ), a Tuareg led rebel group, emerged from relative obscurity, launching strikes on military and strategic installations in remote corners of Niger’s desert north. Mainly targeting isolated military camps or patrols, the rebels have also attacked fuel depots and foreign mining interests.

In response, the army has sent 4 000 men to the region, where they operate under special powers granted by the president. The region of Agadez is now effectively under martial law as government forces continue their operations and impose strict controls on movements.

Since then, the MNJ has outlined its demands for justice and a fairer distribution of Niger’s modest wealth. But, for some, the complaints have fallen on deaf ears. “It is not about rebellion, but a bunch of bandit mercenaries who are benefiting themselves,” explained Nouhou Arzika, the head of the Citizens Movement, which organised the march.

Arzika believes that the MNJ is just another band of criminals involved in the Sahara’s lucrative trade in weapons, drugs and cigarettes. Areva’s involvement stems from its anger that the Nigerien government recently ended its 35 year monopoly on uranium, while Libya is hoping the rebellion will boost its claims to Niger’s oil, he says.

The government largely agrees, though not publicly in such vociferous terms, but many feel that it may be lending Arzika’s movement a helping hand.

Looking to profit from a resurgence in global interest in nuclear power, Niger has issued 90 exploration licences for uranium mines in the last year and hopes to double production by 2011. Among other issues, claims that some of Niger’s potential oil fields belong to Libya are at the heart of tensions with that country.

But the origins of the latest rebellion lie in previous Tuareg-led rebellions in the region, the first of which was in the 1960s in Mali. Violence broke out again in Mali and in Niger in the early 1990s as Tuaregs, who are divided up between the five countries that share the Sahara, accused their respective governments of marginalising them until peace deals silenced the guns in 1995.

However, while they were then promised development, jobs and a greater say in the running of their part of the country, critics say violence has erupted because the deals were never fully implemented.

“The first rebellion was about reducing the gap between the north and the south,” says Iguelas Weila, president of Timidria, a Nigerien human rights organisation. “Peace deals were signed and people took jobs, but nothing has changed for people on the ground.”

Initially without a clear set of goals, the MNJ has set up a regularly updated website that claims military successes and clarifies its strategies. “Our community has been persecuted. Our people haven’t been able to integrate into society,” complains MNJ political secretary Ahmed Akoli. “This is a situation that is imposed. We have an ideal. It is not just banditism.”

According to the UN, Niger remains the least developed country in the world. The literacy rate is estimated at about only 25% and with a population growing at 3%, there is increasing pressure on food security, even in a good year. Buyers from neighbouring Nigeria will often pay more for food, leading to food shortages. A recent increase of seven US cents in the price of a baguette prompted threats of a boycott of bakeries.

Some say the failure to implement past peace deals was as much a lack of ability as a lack of will and that Niger has been simply too poor to improve the lives of any of its people, not just the Tuaregs.

Now, though, internal politics are also at play. So far the government has pursued a policy of denying that there even is a rebellion; local broadcasters have been banned from holding live debates on the situation and foreign journalists are not allowed to travel to the region.

Analysts say Nigerien President Mamadou Tandja’s refusal to recognise the rebels and begin talks is compounded by the southern-dominated armed forces’ desire for a military solution and politicians’ reluctance to make further compromises.

Source: http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=319475&area=/insight/insight__africa/

DEADLINE: Public Comment- Nuclear Energy Policy (Deadline 17 October 2007)

Public Comment: Nuclear Energy Policy & Strategy for the Republic of South Africa

 

The Department of Minerals and Energy has invited the public to make written submissions on the Nuclear Energy Policy and Strategy.

 

Deadline: 17 October 2007

 

For Attention: The Director-General, Mr T Maqubela

Postal Address:  Private Bag X59, Pretoria, 0001

Or Fax:              012 322 8570

Or Email:  kedibone.theko@dme.gov.za

 

The document is available at HERE, HERE or HERE (PDF – Adobe Acrobat Format)

Contact Person:

Mr T Maqubela 012 317 8340

Finally some sense - more African governments need to do this.

DRC says Brinkley uranium venture 'won't progress'

By: Liezel Hill
Published: 8 Oct 07 - 11:53

The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has fuelled undercurrents of concern regarding the security of investments in the country, by announcing on Friday that a “questionable” mining joint venture between UK-based Brinkley Mining and the country’s Atomic Energy Authority (CGEA) “will not be progressing”.

Brinkley said in July this year that it had signed an agreement with the CGEA to form a uranium exploration and development joint-venture company.

However, in a statement released by public relations firm Bell Pottinger, the government said that it had determined that the agreement between Brinkley and the CGEA did not meet “the highest standards of integrity”.

Further, the Commissaire General of the CGEA, Professeur Francois Lubala Toto, who negotiated and promoted the relationship with Brinkley Mining, and scientific director Professeur Leopold Makoko Moyengo, had been dismissed, and were currently the focus of a criminal investigation into the origins and terms of the agreement.

However, in a statement also issued on Friday, Brinkley said that, while it had seen the press statement, it had not received any confirmation from the government of the DRC that the joint venture would be cancelled, and was seeking further clarification from the CGEA.

The DRC is conducting a review of about 60 existing mining contracts, and seeking to determine the validity of mining permits, in an attempt to “clean up” and “stabilise” its mining industry, which had been damaged by years of political instability.

“This [the Brinkley] enquiry has been in progress for some time. Just as my colleagues in the Ministry of Mines are moving to ensure that the mining industry is based on deals that have been fairly and properly transacted, so must we ensure that all nuclear issues are managed according to the law,” said DRC Minister for Science and Higher Education Sylvain Ngabu Chumu.

Source: http://www.miningweekly.co.za/article.php?a_id=118523

The African Nuclear Renaissance

NUKES FOR AFRICA?

 

If nuclear power is okay for South Africa, what about Zimbabwe? Or how about Rwanda, or Sierra Leone? If we are concerned about South Africa's ability to provide safe transport for nuclear fuel and waste, risks of sabotage and smuggling of nuclear materials - what about nations in Africa that have been torn by civil war? What about a neighbouring nation like Zimbabwe where inflation is now at 7000%? South Africans may not be aware that despite poverty and starvation, Zimbabwe is somehow still considering the hugely expensive option of nuclear power. How comfortable do South Africans feel about President Mugabe sitting with a potential finger on the nuclear button? 

 

The nuclear industry's multi-million dollar marketing programme (courtesy of the taxpayer) is making security in Africa about as predictable as a game of roulette. Spin the nuclear wheel of fortune and the dial could point to any one of a number of African countries, where despite a majority of impoverished people, certain governments have still managed to spend millions on weaponry.

 

Countries in Africa currently prospecting for uranium, include: Algeria, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Gabon, Guinea, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Senegal, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and of course, Zimbabwe.

 

In Harare Zimbabwe's Minister of Energy Michael Nyambuya said nuclear energy was an option, although Zimbabwe still had to verify uranium deposits. The company responsible for prospecting uranium in Zimbabwe is Omegacorp Ltd.

However, the same names pop up in each country - like Uramin, Brinkley Mining, Paladin and Areva. And while the Nuclear Energy Corporation of South Africa (Necsa) has gone out of its way to reassure South Africans that an expanded nuclear programme in this country would be "safe", there is no way that they can make any guarantees concerning other nations. Despite this, Necsa and the fabled Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) project intend - not only to manufacture nuclear reactors for South Africa - but also to export to the rest of Africa.

 

What about the Congo? This country's uranium mines produced material for the nuclear bombs the US dropped on Japan in World War II. They were officially closed since 2000, but illegal mining continued. Negotiations between the Congo and Brinkley Mining ground to a halt when the government official who set up the deal was imprisoned on charges of illegally selling uranium.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is suspected of trying to reopen the Shinkolobwe uranium mine with help from North Korea. (In 2000, North Korea denied reports that it might be importing uranium from Congo to manufacture nuclear weapons).

In Malawi, five Non-Governmental Organisations oppose uranium mining. They are extremely concerned about Malawi's natural heritage including treasures such as Sere Stream, Rukuru River and Lake Malawi. "This is an ecological disaster in waiting," they said. They were aware of the detrimental impact uranium mining would have on the health of workers and nearby communities, radioactive mine wastes, environmental damage and water contamination.

 

In Niger, the uranium mining industry has been plagued by violence. In April 2007, heavily-armed men attacked a camp of uranium prospectors in northern Niger, killing a security guard and wounding three other people. Between 20-30 men from the Niger Movement for Justice raided French nuclear company Areva's camp. A Chinese employee from a uranium mining company was captured on July 6, 2007, by the same group. 

 

Despite this, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has directed his energy ministry to establish a nuclear unit and in Zambia, Albidon Ltd and African Energy Resources Ltd have begun feasibility studies for uranium mining. The Omega Corporation wants to open up a uranium mine in Siavonga with an investment of 60 million US dollars and Equinox Minerals Ltd is considering extracting uranium from Lumwana in Zambia.

 

In South Africa, Uramin Inc wants to expand into the Beaufort West area of the Karoo and produce 1745 tonnes of uranium oxide per year. Interestingly, an American comapny - SRK Consulting - was to conduct the feasibility study. 

The Department of Minerals and Energy (DME) granted Uranium One a new order mining right for the Dominion Uranium Project for 30 years covering an area of 14 000 hectares. First Uranium intends to produce 342 tonnes of uranium annually. This year, Uranium One produced ammonium diuranate (ADU) at Dominion Reefs Uranium Mine near Klerksdorp. This was shipped to the Nuclear Fuels Corporation of South Africa (Nufcor SA) to be processed into U3O8 (yellow cake) in Nufcor's calcining plant.

 

Just as there is no smoke without a fire, so there is no nuclear without the uranium fuel. Unfortunately, the nuclear industry has been selling nuclear as a "sustainable" energy source, which it obviously is not. In fact uranium reserves will be depleted before coal reserves run out and the nuclear industry is even asking for coal to power its nuclear smelter at Pelindaba.

 

The nuclear industry has also been marketing itself as "safe" which again has proven to be a false claim. South Africa has one nuclear reactor at Koeberg and yet at least three men have been caught and stood trial for smuggling nuclear materials. If, as the South African government intends, the nuclear programme in this country expands to include 30 nuclear reactors for South Africa and others marketed to Africa, how much illegal nuclear trade will go on?

 

The construction of "dirty bombs" and international terrorism is only one of the deadly faces of the nuclear industry. Wherever uranium mines are sited, radioactive contamination spreads to soils and water sources and the dust is blown by the wind into the homes of nearby communities. Primary cancers are recognized as a health hazard of uranium mining and the inhalation of uranium dust is second only to tobacco smoking for producing lung cancers.

 

From the cradle to the grave, the nuclear process is deadly. And for Africa - regarded as the cradle of life - this would seem to be the final desecration of a once beautiful and fertile continent.

 

Yours sincerely

 

INGELA RICHARDSON 

 

SA wants to enrich own uranium

SA wants to enrich own uranium

SOUTH Africa is holding off joining a US-led initiative to spread atomic power since it does not want to give up its right to enrich uranium.

Minerals and Energy Minister Buyelwa Sonjica told reporters, at a meeting of the UN atomic agency, about Global Nuclear Energy Partnership’s (GNEP) invitation accompanied by a declaration.

But “we got a bit concerned that there was some conflict of ... our national policy”.

South Africa was not among the 11 countries which joined the US-led GNEP in Vienna on Sunday – an effort to spread atomic power but not technology which can be used to make nuclear weapons. Uranium enrichment makes nuclear power reactor fuel but also atom bomb material.

New members Australia, Bulgaria, Ghana, Hungary, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovenia and Ukraine joined the United States, China, France, Japan and Russia in signing a statement of principles for GNEP.

Sonjica said that under the GNEP “fuel would be distributed” to countries but South Africa “has taken a decision to beneficiate its minerals ... in other words to end-value the minerals in South Africa, and that would include uranium”.

Exporting uranium only to get it back refined, instead of enriching it in SA, would be “in conflict with our national policy”, she said.

Sonjica added that SA, which abandoned its nuclear weapons programme in the 1990s, including uranium enrichment, is now set to expand its civilian atomic power programme in order “to reduce the amount of CO2 our power plants emit”.

It is looking for international partners to develop uranium enrichment.

Nuclear power is seen by many as crucial in a world where energy demand is booming since it makes electricity without adding to the greenhouse gases which cause global warming. — Sapa-AFP

Source: http://www.dispatch.co.za/2007/09/19/SouthAfrica/anuke.html

Oz firm targets Namibian Uranium Project for 2011

Oz firm targets 2011 start-up at Namibian uranium project
By: Matthew Hill
Published: 17 Sep 07 - 11:48

Australia-based uranium company Bannerman Resources said on Monday that a scoping study of its Namibian Goanikontes project indicated it to be economically viable, and that it could begin production in mid-2011, ranking the company within the top-ten nuclear fuel producers globally.

The mining and milling would be similar to that of diversified giant Rio Tinto’s nearby Rossing mine, with a maximum production target of 4 000 t/y of U3O8, Bannerman said in an emailed statement.

Capital costs for the project were projected to be between $363-million and $400-million, depending on the plant design.

Bannerman said that it would complete a bankable feasibility study of the project by the end of next year.

MD Peter Batten said that the project could see Bannerman rank within the top ten uranium producers in the world “almost immediately”.

Source: http://www.miningweekly.co.za/article.php?a_id=116968

DRC minister says Brinkley Uranium deal not valid

DRC minister says Brinkley Uranium deal not valid
By: Reuters
Published: 17 Sep 07 - 17:28

Congo's deputy mines minister said on Monday a uranium prospecting deal between UK-based Brinkley Mining and Congo's nuclear agency had "no value or validity", but both parties to the deal insisted it stood.

In July, Brinkley announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding with Democratic Republic of Congo to create a joint venture with the vast central African nation's atomic energy agency to explore for, mine, and export uranium.

But Britain's Sunday Times newspaper reported the deal could be under threat from a review by Congo of mining practices because of the pivotal role played in setting up the accord by a convicted fraudster who has fallen foul of the government.

"There is no ministerial approval of this deal. So it has no value or validity for the government," Congo's Deputy Mines Minister Victor Kasongo told Reuters.

Reacting to the Sunday Times report, Brinkley issued a statement via the London Stock Exchange on Monday saying its board was confident the agreements were "legally binding and will deliver value for shareholders".

Brinkley Africa Ltd, a subsidiary of Brinkley Mining, signed the deal with the blessing of Sylvanus Bonane, then minister of scientific reasearch -- a post which has authority over the country's General Commission for Atomic Energy.

Kasongo said Bonane, who was fired from the government just days after the deal was announced, had no authority to approve it.

"This was a commercial company that hid behind a research company to negotiate a commercial deal. It doesn't exist for us," Kasongo said.

A new minister of scientific research has not yet been named.

However, Francois Lubala Toto, the head of Congo's nuclear energy agency, the CGEA, told Reuters there was nothing wrong with the deal and that it was awaiting signature by President Joseph Kabila.

"Everything involving the negotiation of exploration, exploitation, and treatment of uranium falls under the responsibility of the agency," Toto said.

"It's not until we make a request for a mining permit that the ministry of mines is implicated."

By 1250 GMT, Brinkley shares were down 4 pence, or 23.88 percent, at 12.75 pence, after falling as low as 12 pence in earlier trade.


Source: http://www.miningweekly.co.za/article.php?a_id=117004

Reason not to glow about Nuclear

Reasons Not to Glow
On not jumping out of the frying pan into the eternal fires
by Rebecca Solnit

Chances are good, gentle reader, that you are going to have to sit next to someone in the coming year who will assert that nuclear power is the solution to climate change. What will you tell them? There’s so much to say. You could be sitting next to someone who hasn’t really considered the evidence yet. Or you could be sitting next to scientist and Gaia theorist James Lovelock, a supporter of Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy™, which quotes him saying, “We have no time to experiment with visionary energy sources; civilisation is in imminent danger and has to use nuclear—the one safe, available, energy source—now or suffer the pain soon to be inflicted by our outraged planet.”

If you sit next to Lovelock, you might start by mentioning that half the farms in this country had windmills before Marie Curie figured out anything about radiation or Lise Meitner surmised that atoms could be split. Wind power is not visionary in the sense of experimental. Neither is solar, which is already widely used. Nor are nukes safe, and they take far too long to build to be considered readily available. Yet Stewart Brand, of Whole Earth Catalog fame, has jumped on the nuclear bandwagon, and so has Greenpeace founding member turned PR flack Patrick Moore. So you must be prepared.

Of course the first problem is that nuclear power is often nothing more than a way to avoid changing anything. A bicycle is a better answer to a Chevrolet Suburban than a Prius is, and so is a train, or your feet, or staying home, or a mix of all those things. Nuclear power plants, like coal-burning power plants, are about retaining the big infrastructure of centralized power production and, often, the habits of obscene consumption that rely on big power. But this may be too complicated to get into while your proradiation interlocutor suggests that letting a thousand nuclear power plants bloom would solve everything.

Instead, you may be able to derail the conversation by asking whether they’d like to have a nuclear power plant or waste repository in their backyard, which mostly they would rather not, though they’d happily have it in your backyard. This is why the populous regions of the eastern U.S. keep trying to dump their nuclear garbage in the less-populous regions of the West. My friend Chip Ward (from nuclear-waste-threatened Utah) reports, “To make a difference in global climate change, we would have to immediately build as many nuclear power plants as we already have in the U.S. (about 100) and at least as many as 2,000 worldwide.” Chip goes on to say that “Wall Street won’t invest in nuclear power because it is too risky. . . . The partial meltdown at Three Mile Island taught investment bankers how a two-billion-dollar investment can turn into a billion-dollar clean-up in under two hours.” So we, the people, would have to foot the bill.

Nuclear power proponents like to picture a bunch of clean plants humming away like beehives across the landscape. Yet when it comes to the mining of uranium, which mostly takes place on indigenous lands from northern Canada to central Australia, you need to picture fossil-fuel-intensive carbon-emitting vehicles, and lots of them—big disgusting diesel-belching ones. But that’s the least of it. The Navajo are fighting right now to prevent uranium mining from resuming on their land, which was severely contaminated by the postwar uranium boom of the 1940s and 1950s. The miners got lung cancer. The children in the area got birth defects and a 1,500 percent increase in ovarian and testicular cancer. And the slag heaps and contaminated pools that were left behind will be radioactive for millennia.

If these facts haven’t dissuaded this person sitting next to you, try telling him or her that most mined uranium—about 99.28 percent—is fairly low-radiation uranium-238, which is still a highly toxic heavy metal. To make nuclear fuel, the ore must be “enriched,” an energy-intensive process that increases the .72 percent of highly fissionable, highly radioactive U-235 up to 3 to 5 percent. As Chip points out, four dirty-coal-fired plants were operated in Kentucky just to operate two uranium enrichment plants. What’s left over is a huge quantity of U-238, known as depleted uranium, which the U.S. government classifies as low-level nuclear waste, except when it uses the stuff to make armoring and projectiles that are the source of so much contamination in Iraq from our first war there, and our second.

Reprocessing spent nuclear fuel was supposed to be one alternative to lots and lots of mining forever and forever. The biggest experiment in reprocessing was at Sellafield in Britain. In 2005, after decades of contamination and leaks and general spewing of horrible matter into the ocean, air, and land around the reprocessing plant, Sellafield was shut down because a bigger-than-usual leak of fuel dissolved in nitric acid—some tens of thousands of gallons—was discovered. It contained enough plutonium to make about twenty nuclear bombs. Gentle reader, this has always been one of the prime problems of nuclear energy: the same general processes that produce fuel for power can produce it for bombs. In India. Or Pakistan. Or Iran. The waste from nuclear plants is now the subject of much fretting about terrorists obtaining it for dirty bombs—and with a few hundred thousand tons of high-level waste in the form of spent fuel and a whole lot more low-level waste in the U.S. alone, there’s plenty to go around.

By now the facts should be on your side, but do ask how your neighbor feels about nuclear bombs, just to keep things lively.

The truth is, there may not be enough uranium out there to fuel two thousand more nuclear power plants worldwide. Besides, before a nuke plant goes online, a huge amount of fossil fuel must be expended just to build the thing. Still, the biggest stumbling block, where climate change is concerned, is that it takes a decade or more to construct a nuclear plant, even if the permitting process goes smoothly, which it often does not. So a bunch of nuclear power plants that go online in 2017 at the earliest are not even terribly relevant to turning around our carbon emissions in the next decade—which is the time frame we have before it’s too late.

If you’re not, at this point, chasing your poor formerly pronuclear companion down the hallway, mention that every stage of the nuclear fuel cycle is murderously filthy, imparting long-lasting contamination on an epic scale; that a certain degree of radioactive pollution is standard at each of these stages, but the accidents are now so many in number that they have to be factored in as part of the environmental cost; that the plants themselves generate lots of radioactive waste, which we still don’t know what to do with—because the stuff is deadly . . . anywhere . . . and almost forever. And no, tell them, this nuclear colonialism is not an acceptable sacrifice, since it is not one the power consumers themselves are making. It’s a sacrifice they’re imposing on people far away and others not yet born, a debt they’re racking up at the expense of people they will never meet.

Sure, you can say nuclear power is somewhat less carbon-intensive than burning fossil fuels for energy; beating your children to death with a club will prevent them from getting hit by a car. Ravaging the Earth by one irreparable means is not a sensible way to prevent it from being destroyed by another. There are alternatives. We should choose them and use them.

Source: http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/316/

NUCLEAR FUEL TRANSPORT ROUTES

NUCLEAR FUEL TRANSPORT ROUTES

A number of people in South Africa have been very concerned that the Nuclear Energy Corporation of South Africa (NECSA)has indicated no specific transport routes showing where enriched uranium, nuclear fuel and nuclear waste will be moved through in this country.

We are hoping that NECSA or the NNR - as a concerned independent body - will be able to supply information concerning these transport routes, seeing as a Record of Decision has already been signed on the nuclear smelter at Pelindaba and many people are still unaware as to the method of transport and direction that will be used.

So far it seems that NECSA has been rather vague - and indicated that materials will move from Durban (presumably from the port) through to Pelindaba and from Pelindaba to Koeberg. Then another route would obviously be from Koeberg to Vaalputs waste dump. However, since the government plans to build a nuclear reactor in the Eastern Cape, it is obvious that this area is also involved in terms of delivery of nuclear fuel and removal of nuclear waste from the site. This could then involve the Port Elizabeth harbour and main roads or rail.

The people of South Africa need to know the method of transport chosen in all cases: whether road, rail or shipping. And all the towns that would be passed through or close by on this route, since all people in these areas would need to have some kind of emergency planning in place in the event of a nuclear accident, leak or spill. South Africa’s roads and transport system are not known for being the safest in the world.

If NECSA is unable to provide this information at this late stage of their planning, then it begins to appear to the people of South Africa as a deliberate attempt to leave them ignorant and uninformed about decisions that may impact negatively on their health and wellbeing.

We therefore look forward to seeing a full and specific disclosure of the nuclear raw material, fuel and waste transport routes, as a matter of priority.

Thank you for your time.

Yours faithfully

INGELA RICHARDSON

Waste storage dilemma crimps nuclear future

Waste storage dilemma crimps nuclear future

David R. Baker, Chronicle Staff Writer


The San Francisco Chronicle

Jun 11, 2006
Avila Beach, San Luis Obispo County -- In a quiet, air-conditioned room deep inside the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant sits a small pool filled
with water colored an unnatural blue. It's packed with radioactive waste. The pool holds roughly half of all the used fuel ever pulled from the
plant's reactors. The other half sits in a second concrete tank nearby, slowly cooling beneath 25 feet of water. Some fuel rods have been there
about 20 years.

Both pools are nearly full. Neither was designed to store this much waste. But there's nowhere else to put it.

The government long ago promised Diablo's owner, Pacific Gas and Electric Co., that it would haul away the waste and entomb it deep below Nevada's
Yucca Mountain. But, in the face of unrelenting opposition from Nevada residents irate over the prospect of becoming a dumping ground for nuclear
waste, the repository never opened.

With the nation's appetite for energy growing, the U.S. nuclear industry appears poised for a renaissance. President Bush has made building nuclear
plants, for the first time in decades, a cornerstone of his energy policies. And some former foes are willing to give the technology another
look, lured by the promise of generating abundant power without belching greenhouse gases from more fossil fuel plants.

But the industry and its supporters in Washington still have not resolved one of the biggest issues that derailed nuclear power in the 1970s and
1980s -- what to do with the waste, which remains radioactive for thousands of years. Yucca Mountain remains bottled up by Nevada
politicians.

One alternative would be to recycle spent fuel rods, extracting radioactive material for reuse and reducing the amount of waste that would
need to be stored. But the idea has long been blocked by fears that plutonium removed from old rods could fall into the hands of terrorists or
rogue countries trying to build nuclear weapons.

So Diablo and other nuclear plants must keep their waste on-site -- indefinitely. PG&E installed replacement racks that pack more rods into
Diablo's pools and has even started building another storage facility that could cost up to $200 million on a hillside behind the plant.
"The government hasn't lived up to its contracts, so what's happening now is Plan B," said David Vosburg, a PG&E project manager. "The extra racks
are filling up. The same thing's happening across the country."

Extra storage sites next to nuclear plants, however, won't solve the problem. They will just buy time.

"You just have to hope that there's a national solution, because this won't be a Diablo issue -- it will be a national issue," said Richard
Hagler, project engineer for the new storage facility.

Anyone living near a nuclear plant also lives near a long-term storage site for radioactive waste. Those facilities aren't long-term by the
standards of engineers, who must consider what happens to radioactive material over centuries. Homeowners, however, find themselves spending
decades close to used fuel rods, with no end in sight.

"They promised us that the waste would be removed and the government would come to the rescue," said Jack Biesek, 58, who lives in a lushly wooded
canyon about 7 miles downwind of Diablo. "I think it's going to stay there. The handwriting's on the wall."

Without a long-range solution for the waste problem, America's much-heralded "nuclear spring" may never come.

"Obviously, waste storage is the elephant in the room," said Frank Bowman, president and chief executive officer of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the
industry's main lobbying group. America now has roughly 40,000 metric tons of spent radioactive fuel, according to the institute, with another 2,000 metric tons added each
year. Even if Yucca Mountain opens, the nation would soon need another facility just like it. Reprocessing the fuel would relieve that pressure, but it's far from clear that reuse will ever happen.
"If we don't recycle, we're going to have to build a new Yucca Mountain every few decades," said U.S. Deputy Energy Secretary Clay Sell.

Used fuel rods are hot and highly radioactive when they emerge from a reactor. Both the heat and the radioactivity drop substantially within the
first several years, the radiation falling by a factor of 1,000 in a decade, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute. But the rods remain
dangerously radioactive for many thousands of years.

Diablo Canyon has relied on its twin spent-fuel pools to store waste since the plant began commercial operation in 1985.

They sit not far from the towering containment domes that hold Diablo's reactors, separated from the outside world by steel walls and concrete
floors. The plant refuels every 18 to 21 months, plugging some new rods into the reactors and transferring old ones to the storage pools.
Standing 12 feet tall, each rod is a metal tube filled with uranium pellets -- the source of the plant's power. The rods are narrow, about the
width of a fat pencil, and are bundled into assemblies that weigh 1,350 pounds each. Workers maneuver the assemblies into the pools through a
series of water-filled channels to keep the fuel cool, making sure it never touches open air. A crane grabs the assemblies underwater and lowers
them into waiting racks.

Each pool was designed to hold 270 assemblies. Now, the racks have been reconfigured to store 1,324.

One pool already has 1,064. The other, 1,100.

"Five percent of the state's electricity generation for the last 20 years is sitting in that pool," Vosburg said, as a current of circulating water
rippled the surface. The water, surrounded by concrete walls 6 feet thick, dissipates heat coming from the fuel rods and shields the outside world
from radiation. Boric acid, added to the water to absorb neutrons, gives the pool its deep blue tint.

Later this year, PG&E will install temporary racks in both pools to provide 154 more storage slots each. Even so, they will run out of room by
2010. So PG&E, like operators of the nation's 64 other nuclear power plants, is trying to make do.

On a shaved-off hillside overlooking the plant, workers pour the concrete floor for Diablo's next storage facility. Instead of using a pool, PG&E
will seal old fuel assemblies inside 20-foot-tall canisters lined up like squat obelisks on an open field. There will be no walls or ceiling of any
kind -- just the canisters themselves.

The technology is called dry cask storage, and it isn't new. Its use at Diablo, however, has alarmed many of the plant's long-standing opponents.
They fear that the field, which could eventually hold 138 casks, will make an even more alluring target for terrorists than the plant itself, perched
on a rocky stretch of the central California coast. A commandeered jet, they say, could approach Diablo from the water, fly over the plant and
crash into the casks, spewing radioactive material into the air. "How is that safe from terrorism, especially when there's no 'no fly
zone' at the plant?" asked Rochelle Becker of the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility. "California needs to know, how much radioactive waste are
we willing to store on our coast, for how long?"

Last week, a federal court ruled that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission should have examined the possibility of a terrorist assault on Diablo
before giving PG&E permission to build the dry cask facility. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ordered the commission to
study what threat an attack could pose to the local environment. However, a PG&E spokesman said construction will continue during the review, with
the first casks scheduled to be loaded with fuel next fall. The company considers the facility secure.

Standing above the field, PG&E engineer Hagler sketched out possible lines of terrorist attack. Fly a commercial airliner in from the west, over the
ocean, and the hillside would rip off the plane's right wing before it could reach the casks. Approach from the east, and the pilot would have to
hug the contours of several protecting hills before making a swift, steep plunge into the field.

Those obstacles wouldn't matter as much to a small plane. But small aircraft, he said, lack the mass to smash open the steel-and-concrete casks.
"An aircraft that size? It'd be like a bee hitting a windshield," Hagler said. "I know the cask is going to win."

To some neighbors, terrorism isn't the only issue. They object to the possibility that Diablo's waste will never leave, staying decade after
decade on the coast they love until its presence becomes permanent. "This whole area is going to be a carbuncle ruined for millennia," Biesek
said.

Since 1976, he has lived in nearby See Canyon, along a stream shaded by oak and pine trees. He and his wife, Susan, have long opposed the plant.
They keep a Geiger counter in the house, although it needs new batteries. The Bieseks question whether any storage technology can isolate nuclear
waste from the environment forever, particularly in a place prone to earthquakes and other disasters. If radioactive material from Diablo found
its way into an aquifer or the ocean, they said, who knows how widespread the effects could be?

"It's not like this backyard dump is just our dump," Susan Biesek said one recent morning, as birdsong filled the canyon's cool air. "Where do you
move that's safe?" Such talk drives nuclear engineers to distraction. Used nuclear fuel does pose risks, they say, but those risks can be controlled.
"I hate the word 'dump,' " said Mark Somerville, a PG&E physicist specializing in radiation protection. "I sympathize with people who, like
we did, thought there'd be an endgame where things would be handled long term. ... But it's anything but a dump. It's a very carefully controlled
process."

Meanwhile, the Bush administration keeps pushing to open Yucca Mountain and recycle used fuel. Storing waste on-site, Deputy Energy Secretary Sell
said, is safe but won't solve the problem.

"As an interim solution, it's acceptable," he said. "As a long-term solution, it's not." E-mail David R. Baker at dbaker@sfchronicle.com.

GOLDEN OLDIES AND LOST ISOTOPES

GOLDEN OLDIES AND LOST ISOTOPES

By Ingela Richardson

Forget about those American sit-coms. We have the Minerals and Energy Portfolio Committee with their update on Nuclear Energy brought to you by the corporation who wants to bring back all those golden oldies from way back when South Africa had nuclear weapons. Unfortunately you can't hum along to the tunes, but you can click your fingers to the Geiger counter - if you happen to have one handy. If not, better get one, because the government wants to raise dem nuclear bones.

At a meeting on 22 August, the Department of Minerals and Energy (DME) stated that South Africa was "moving toward an enhanced reliance on nuclear energy". The problem is that no one seems to know how much this will cost. And this isn't a couple of rands we're talking about - it's millions. A better reason for not committing to a price is that old excuse used by contractors when time and materials have run out, the bank loan is called in and the job is still not finished - "It was just a rough estimate!"

Suddenly the DME has changed its mind. Instead of selling uranium as a raw material to those hungry "colonnial" powers overseas who have nuclear reactors and scientists who want to hang onto their jobs - South Africa is now planning to manufacture its own nuclear fuel. This is slightly tricky, since it will cost a bundle (about R20 billion quoted - but you know quotes) and is highly dangerous as far as radioactive contamination is concerned.

The DME has said that they will show concern for the environment though - which must be a relief to many environmentalists who were thinking that the DME wanted to do away with the National Environmental Management Act (NEMA) and Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) altogether. After all, who cares about a few frogs and butterflies anyway? They are not as important as people. They may be food for some animals that eat other animals that in turn are eaten by people, but that is not important - is it? What is the old circle of life anyway? Just a song by Elton John.

It is also reassuring that the DME hastens to add that nuclear energy is intended for civil consumption only. Phew! Here we were worrying that while we only have one nuclear reactor (Koeberg) we already have about three nuclear smugglers. If South Africa increases its nuclear programme to include up to 30 reactors, that would make, how many smugglers? Don't really want to look at that Math. After all, South Africa's crime rate is improving, isn't it? No reason to think terrorists could gather radioactive material for a "dirty bomb" here?

Rob Adam (CEO of Necsa) is very proud of his isotopes, but he shouldn't have tried to explain basic chemistry to the committee. After all, not everyone is a rocket scientist. How was Mr Louw of the ANC to know that Dr Adam hadn't literally "lost" a third of his radioisotpes. They just decay, don't they - if they aren't delivered in time? Don't ask where the radioisotopes are being transported, in what and how. Don't bother your pretty little head. It's just part of the wonderfully unstable nature of the nuclear business.

There have indeed been changes in the "nuclear environment". If you read ANC policy from 1994 that was decidedly anti-nuclear - you wouldn't believe it is the same party that desperately wants nuclear now. Almost as though someone were putting words in their mouths...And whose example is South Africa to follow in this nuclear arena? Dr Adam cites the Russians. Would those be the same Russians who invented Chernobyl and have dozens of old reactors ready to kick the bucket at any minute knocking around Eastern Europe? Or would it be the Russians who invented the brand new "floating reactors" that nobody wants to buy because they are so dangerous? As for President Bush - well anyone would like their daddy to buy them a presidency one day when they grow up, wouldn't they? He knows which side his bread is buttered. If he swings enough work the nuclear contractors' way, perhaps they will fund his re-election?

What is sad though, is whenever unpalatable projects are on the cards, the South African government dangles employment like a carrot in front of the starving masses. Thousands of jobs are always mooted for these projects. Once again, is that an estimate? Or a quote?

According to the DME, uranium mining is not going to leave a legacy of radioactive slime pits - not like the gold mines have done. Shameful! So how about South Africa cleaning up the radioactive slime dams in Gauteng before they start building uranium slime dams in the Karoo and Magaliesburg? The National Nuclear Regulator has known about Gauteng's radioactive contamination for a couple of years now - so South Africa can rest assured that if there is a radioactive emergency in this country, the NNR will be there - sooner or later.

Unfortunately, uranium is not sustainable. Like coal or oil, it will run out. And then there will be all those nuclear reactors standing around with no fuel. To consider "recycling" or "reprocessing" nuclear fuel is just another of George Bush's bad dreams that goes against 30 years of US policy, is extremely expensive and highly dangerous. Like trying to extract the proverbial needle from a radioactive haystack. Then try to get another thousand needles out of another thousand haystacks and use the needles for fuel. How much electricity does Koebergy make again? 4 per cent? 6 per cent? Not much for your money, is it?

It is good to know that someone has been allocated to deal with every aspect of nuclear. There is Nuclear Research, Development and Innovation (Necsa), Nuclear Power Generation Organisation (Eskom) Integrated Nuclear Safety Regulator (someone?) Nuclear Security Agency (someone else) Nuclear Architectural Capability (someone else) Radioactive Waste Management Agency (er?).

The DME congratulated graduates in nuclear technology. Lucky students to have been given the necessary funding for their degrees. It seems that the Innovation Fund that was set up years ago to focus on little problems in South Africa like crime, is now almost totally devoted to science and technology. Coincidentally, Rob Adam is the chairman of this trust fund. Perhaps Dr Adam believes that nuclear science is just more important than crime statistics in South Africa?

The DME and Necsa are reassuring each other that there will actually be people with the necessary skills to run nuclear reactors in South Africa. But while the DME is hoping that the solution will come from the youth, Necsa wants to bring back its pensioners (the golden oldies) before they forget how reactors work. The DME wants to encourage the development of local skills, but with the price of electricity set to sky-rocket to accommodate nuclear prices (and therefore prices of everything else going up, including crime) there may be more of a brain-drain than government would like. Strangely, some people - whether young or old - do value safety and security above nuclear technology.

Mr Louw of the ANC believes that the youth are not sufficiently informed about the benefits of nuclear energy. How strange! But then perhaps today's youth are less credulous. Perhaps young people today have learned that "our friend the atom" can be deadly? Perhaps they have seen young people, like themselves dying in conflicts where Depleted Uranium was the weapon of choice and soldiers and civilians alike have suffered the consequences?

Mr Greyling of the ID queried costs of the nuclear programme. But it seems that the DME is looking ahead to potential profits, rather than immediate costs. The story of "counting chickens before they are hatched" springs to mind. And Mr Kekana of the ANC said the media should be used to promote nuclear engineering. Does he mean the media as in advertising pamphlets and brochures? Or the media as in daily newspapers that are supposed to be unbiased?

Prof Mohamed of the ANC asked how the DME planned to dispose of lethal plutonium. But Dr Skalk De Waal, a Nuclear Specialist, has that one covered. It seems this issue is governed by Act 47 of 1999. Relax South Africa. You are protected from plutonium by legislation. What a relief. According to Dr De Waal, there is a "facility" in Namaqualand for waste managed by Necsa. Remember that next time you want to see those blooming daisies.

At any rate, South Africans will be relieved to know that the issue of nuclear security is "a work in progress" according to Mr Maqubela of the DME. So while EIA's for the construction of nuclear reactors may be forging ahead, security is still being planned. It seems that "intelligence agencies" will train Eskom and Necsa.

Ms Mathibela of the ANC was reassured that South Africa would not be placed in a similar position to that of Iraq - being accused of possessing nuclear weapons - since South Africa has signed all the right papers.

When Adv Schmidt of the DA asked what would happen if communities were not in favour of nuclear, Mr Maqubela responded that the public had sixty days to comment on government strategy - but after that the government would have to proceed. No sense in letting a little thing like public opposition delay government plans.

So drug addicts just say "No", victims of crime say "No", but communities against nuclear say "No" and the government goes ahead? Is that what they mean by public participation? You can get involved and have your say as long as you know the government will continue anyway? Mr Maqubela said there was no purpose in extending the period of public meetings that "might not even add value to the process". In other words, quick build that nuclear reactor before those people know what hit them.

The DME is very clear. South Africans do have a choice - as long as they choose nuclear. But if they say, "NO!" the government will just carry on. After all, no sense in listening to the people, is there?

Uranium Resources South Africa

Here is an image showing the Uranium resources of South Africa. The South African Government, Eskom, Necsa, PBMR and "friends" all wish to see most of South Africa mined for this toxic metal to fuel their multitude of planned nuclear reactors all over South Africa. A few "already" wealthy men will continue to follow their paths of greed just so they can get even richer and screw the people of South Africa.

Zambian Uranium Projects

African Energy from Zambian uranium
By: Mariaan Olivier
Published: 5 Sep 07 - 16:49

Uranium explorer Albidon has finalised a joint-venture agreement with African Energy, covering the Chirundu and Kariba Valley uranium projects in Zambia, the company said on Wednesday.

The Chirundu project included the Njame uranium deposit and the recently discovered Gwabe uranium prospect.

African Energy is exploring for uranium on a number of Albidon’s mineral tenements in Zambia under an exploration cooperation agreement .

Albidon said that African Energy had spend A$1-million on the Chirundu project which earned it an initial equity interest of 30% in the property, with the right to earn up to a 70% stake by completion of a prefeasibility study.

The company informed Albidon in January that it planned to earn equity stakes in the Chirundu and Njame projects.

Source: http://www.miningweekly.co.za/article.php?a_id=116268