Solar Power: IBM Boosts Solar Cell Efficiency Using Magnifying Trick

IBM Boosts Solar Cell Efficiency Using Magnifying Trick

IBM's researchers have been busily beavering away trying to improve solar power technology, and they've just come up with a neat solution that uses a surprisingly simple technique: concentrator photovoltaics. In much the same way as kids use magnifying glasses to focus the sun on things to burn them (we all did that, didn't we?) the IBM boffins combined a large lens and a photovoltaic cell to focus a record-breaking 230 watts solar energy per square centimeter. That ends up producing about 70 watts of useful electric power, effectively creating a solar cell about five times more powerful than the cells commonly used in solar farms.

The biggest trick was in working out how to cool the chips from all the extra thermal input created by the focused sunlight. To do this, IBM borrowed ideas from its own research into a liquid metal cooling system developed for semiconductors and used a thin liquid metal gallium-indium compound to bind the chip to a cooling block.

This new high power technique could of course result in smaller solar farms, or higher energy output from existing systems. Best of all, it's potentially a fairly low cost solution, which can only be a good thing for the environment.

Set Up a Pirate Radio Station, Tell the truth about Nukes

Set Up a Pirate Radio Station

From Wired How-To Wiki

Photo by believekevin on Flickr

Ah, Christian Slater. In 1990 you hijacked your local airwaves (and our hearts) in "Pump Up The Volume." Now thanks to the free flow of information on the web, anyone can start their own pirate radio station. Here's all you need to become your city's favorite underground shock jock:

A Word on Legality Issues

Depending on where you are in the world, there are a few different things that make pirate broadcasts illegal. The cardinal sin stateside (as far as the FCC is concerned) is broadcasting on unlicensed radio spectrum. Although the FCC is often a buzzkill, in many ways its rules regarding pirate broadcasts make sense. If a high powered transmitter lands in the hands of a reckless amateur, all sorts of havoc can be wreaked on local radio communication. This can not only cause problems in the public safety sector (fire, police, emergency services), but it's also likely to disrupt the transmissions of legit broadcasters who actually paid for their chunk of licensed spectrum.

Also, there's the issue of royalties. Setting up your own "All Aqualung, All the Time" station might sound great, but if your transmission is located it's likely that the record industry will want a piece of the action. Depending on how flagrant the offense, pirate broadcasters can be hit with a combination of back royalties and fines -- and that's on top of financial beating the FCC dishes out. Naturally, we wouldn't condone illegal conduct of this type, but we imagine that this information might be useful for hobbyists.

Yes. Hobbyists.

Contents [hide] 1 Step 1: Develop a Broadcast Format 2 Step 2: Assemble Your Studio 2.1 2a. Audio Sources 2.2 2b. Mixing Equipment & Filters 2.3 2c. Transmission equipment 3 Step 3: Find an Open Frequency 4 Step 4: Test Out Your Broadcast 5 Step 5: Keep the Authorities Guessing

Step 1: Develop a Broadcast Format

Having a general concept for the content you're going to broadcast is not only important for sanity's sake. Knowing whether you'll be broadcasting voice or music can have a bearing on how you develop your studio. Want to run a music-heavy show? You're probably going to want to broadcast in stereo and on the FM band. Punditry and talk radio more your speed? You'll be able to get by on AM transmissions, but you're going to want to pay special attention to properly equalizing your equipment for voice.

TIP: Does the notion of a live mic and listeners make you antsy? You might want to consider recording your broadcast ahead of time to avoid some of the headaches of live broadcasts. This may prove a boon if you're new to mixing and audio production. It not only gives a mulligan for misspoken words and awkward transitions, but you can also perfect little mixing tricks like smoothly fading between songs.

Step 2: Assemble Your Studio

With a general format in tow, you should be ready to start collecting equipment. The technically inclined can go the distance with a DIY kit, but rookies are probably better off hitting up amateur publications and websites to find the right gear. Although there's lots of room for customization, the outcome is basically the same -- you're looking to chain together components that filter, convert, and broadcast your audio signal. Your gear will breakdown into three categories:

2a. Audio Sources

Photo by celesteh on Flickr

Choices can run the gamut here. Everything from 8-tracks, tape decks, turn tables, mics, CD Players, and MP3 players fit the bill. Practically anything people used to play music in the last 30 years should work, as long you're able to plug it into a mixer. In terms of size, programming playlists, and capacity, the MP3 player is an ideal quick and dirty starting point.

2b. Mixing Equipment & Filters

Love the sound of your own voice? Rest assured, it probably doesn't sound as great over the airwaves. The best way to clean up your audio signal is by employing a combination of mixers, filters, limiters, and compressors. It's a little daunting with the number of accessories on the market, but the goal should be twofold. On one hand you want to clean up your overall sound, but you also need to do so while keeping broadcast harmonics in check. Without both of these issues attended to, you're liable to sound like crap, interrupt neighboring frequencies, and attract unwanted attention.

2c. Transmission equipment

Photo by Unhindered by Talent on Flickr

Transmitting equipment is like the pulse of your rig. In fact, the transmitter itself is what 'modulates' audio over your chosen frequency, effectively making it fit for broadcasting via an antenna. Ideally, you're looking for a transmitter equipped with a Variable Frequency Oscillator (VFO). The advantage of this feature is being able to move your broadcast to any frequency supported by the transmitter. It might sound extraneous now, but having the ability to change broadcast frequencies can come in handy if you're prone to moving your studio, or running from the FCC.

You're also going to want to be on the lookout for gear like radio frequency amplifiers, coaxial cable (RG-8 or RG-58U), and antennas -- at least if you want your broadcast to be heard beyond your neighborhood. The amateur radio market is flooded with options, so finding equipment that suits your desired range shouldn't be too difficult. Be careful though -- if the FCC goes looking for the source of your transmission, the first house they're going to check is the one with the 40 ft. antenna in the backyard. Buy smart, and if possible, operate discreetly.

TIP: Getting all of this equipment to work perfectly on the first try is close to impossible. Your best bet is to do extensive research on the equipment combinations you've chosen, and chain the components together one at a time. Joining an online broadcaster community like the one at Free Radio Network isn't a bad idea, especially if you think you'll need a sounding board.

Step 3: Find an Open Frequency

Photo by celesteh on Flickr

Finding dead air is extremely important. After all, the moment you start interrupting legal transmissions is the moment other broadcasters start asking questions. Unfortunately, it's not as easy as turning on your ghetto blaster and finding static. The best way to dig up some open frequencies is to hit the web. Radio-locator is one of our favorite search tools, but if you're prone to getting your hands dirty, you can fire up your rig and do some recon of the local frequencies. Keep in mind that even though there's tons of traffic flying through the air at any given moment, only a specific range is designated for 'regular' radio broadcasts. For AM this spans 540kHz to 1700kHz, and for FM, 88.1 MHz to 107.9 MHz. If you pick a frequency outside this range, you're likely to interfere with television, or even air traffic control broadcasts. After you find a few open frequencies within the specified range, be sure to listen in regularly for activity. Pirated shows are known for hopping around, so make sure your prospects don't butt in on another pirate's, er...hobbyist's turf.

Step 4: Test Out Your Broadcast

Once you've found a couple of candidates, it's time to take your broadcast for a test run. While running a test broadcast make sure that all input levels are within a reasonable range, and that you're achieving the desired tone. It's not uncommon for there to be some residual hum, but you should be able to track its source by checking your components one by one and using deductive reasoning. Once your test is running smoothly from the helm, you might want to check out your frequency range (and possible interference) by grabbing a radio and doing some traveling around town. If you can hear elements of your broadcast coming through on neighboring stations, then you've got a problem. Otherwise, you should be all set.

Step 5: Keep the Authorities Guessing

For a lot of radio pirates, gaining exposure through loyal listeners is the big draw for setting up a station. But keep in mind that the more exposed you are, the more likely you are to garner unwanted attention. Long and symmetrically scheduled broadcasts on the same frequencies can be a recipe for trouble, so make sure to mix things up. Never give out any personal information, location data, or landmarks over the air. If you were savvy enough to build a mobile rig, even better. After all, it's harder to catch a moving target.

Study Warned of China Quake Risk Nearly a Year Ago

Kevin Holden Platt in Beijing

for National Geographic News

May 16, 2008

Just ten months before a deadly earthquake struck Sichuan Province's Beichuan county on May 12, a scientific study warned that the Chinese region was ripe for a major quake.

After examining satellite images and conducting on-the-ground inspections of deep, active faults in Sichuan Province for more than a decade, scientists issued a warning.

Enlarge Photo

"The faults are sufficiently long to sustain a strong ground-shaking earthquake, making them potentially serious sources of regional seismic hazard," the Chinese, European, and U.S. geoscientists wrote in the mid-July 2007 edition of the journal Tectonics.

They concluded that clashing tectonic forces were growing in Beichuan, ready to burst in an explosion of seismic energy.

With precision and what now seems like eerie foresight, the researchers charted the active faults on multicolored maps of Beichuan, which turned out to be the epicenter of the recent earthquake.

"As far as I know, this is the only investigation of these active faults," said study co-author Michael Ellis of the Center for Earthquake Research and Information at the University of Memphis in Tennessee.

(Related: "China Quake Delivered Seismic One-Two Punch" [May 15, 2008].)

The magnitude 7.9 quake that struck on May 12 almost entirely leveled parts of Sichuan Province. Chinese officials today estimated that the death toll would reach 50,000 and that nearly five million people are homeless.

(See photos of the earthquake's destruction.)

"Locked in a Journal"

There is little reason to believe Chinese officials were aware of the July 2007 report, or that it would have made much difference if they had been.

"We had certainly identified the potential of these active faults," Ellis said. "But that information was effectively locked in an academic journal."

Ellis hopes that replacing the collapsed buildings with earthquake-proof structures could prevent future tragedies.

"I've been to these little towns [before the quake]," Ellis said. "Most of the houses are built of unreinforced masonry, and you can see little brick factories all around this area.

"It is more expensive to build earthquake-proof structures," he added. And the vast majority of people in Sichuan Province are anything but rich.

The Science Behind the Quake

Earthquake activity is nothing new in Beichuan.

"We have shown evidence for surface-rupturing earthquakes along the Beichuan fault since 12,000-13,000 years ago," Ellis and colleagues reported last summer.

Speaking with National Geographic News, Ellis said, "Ultimately, the [2008] earthquake is related to the continuing and inexorable collision of India with Asia, which is occurring at a rate of about 20 to 22 milimeters [just under an inch] per year."

This collision started more than 50 million years ago, when the tectonic plate beneath India crashed into the Eurasian plate. (Watch how the plates slammed into each other.)

"The Himalayas and all of Tibet was created by this collision," Ellis added.

As the Indian plate continues its slow-motion crash into Asia—sometimes in jerks marked by earthquakes—it is pushing the entire Tibetan Plateau northward.

"This earthquake was the Tibetan mountains moving east over the plains of Chengdu [the capital of Sichuan Province]," said Roger Bilham, a geoscientist at the University of Colorado who was not involved in the July 2007 study.

Not Just Sichuan's Problem

Study co-author Ellis said that, as the Tibetan Plateau moves northward, "the interior parts of Tibet are collapsing, rather like a soufflé taken out of the oven into cold air."

Faults along the southern, Himalayan edge of Tibet present hazards as great as those underlying the Sichuan temblor, Ellis said.

"Risk associated with the loss of collateral and lives is very high along the Himalaya, because so many people live there or immediately downstream," Ellis added.

"The risk is similarly high in Sichuan [to the east], because of the population and, like India and Nepal, the relatively poor building standards," he said.

And as India continues to pound into Tibet, "it is still creating new fault lines"—and new dangers.

China on alert for nuclear accidents after quake

A man searches for victims in the debris of collapsed buildings in earthquake-hit Beichuan County in Mianyang of southwest China's Sichuan province, Friday, May 16, 2008. (AP Photo/Color China Photo)

©2008 Google - Map data ©2008 AND, NFGIS, Europa Technologies -

BEIJING (AP) — China's nuclear safety agency had ordered staffers to be prepared for an environmental emergency the day after a massive earthquake jolted a region that includes several key atomic sites.

France's nuclear watchdog has said some of China's nuclear facilities sustained minor damage in Monday's magnitude 7.9 earthquake, though no Chinese government Web sites viewed Saturday mentioned any damage.

China's Nuclear and Radiation Safety Center, part of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, activated emergency plans the day after the quake and told all emergency personnel to be on standby in case of nuclear accidents, the center said in an announcement on its Web site.

Officials were in close contact with safety stations throughout the region and were monitoring operational data from nuclear power plants, the undated announcement said. The safety of drinking water was a top priority.

"With the deepening of the relief work, the main task is to prevent secondary environmental disasters and guarantee the safety of the environment in disaster areas," the Ministry of Environmental Protection said in a separate statement Friday.

The French Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety said Chinese authorities "reacted well" to the quake and immediately shut down nuclear sites for inspection.

Thierry Charles, the group's director of plant safety, said China's nuclear safety agency, NNSA, had reported no leaks of radioactivity since the quake.

He said Friday the Chinese reported "light damage" to older nuclear facilities that were being dismantled before the quake, noting that seismic construction codes were less strict when those sites were built. China did not specify which facilities had damage, he said.

Phones calls to China's Ministry of Environmental Protection and its Nuclear and Radiation Safety Center went unanswered Saturday. A man who answered the phone at the ministry's Nuclear Safety Department said he had no information.

China has a research reactor, two nuclear fuel production sites and two atomic weapons sites in Sichuan province, where the quake struck, the French agency said. All were 40 to 90 miles from the epicenter.

French authorities do not yet have a full picture of any possible damage at the nuclear weapons sites, where information is more closely guarded, Charles said.

He said he didn't think there were any leaks because it would have been reported and the worst concern was the degradation of buildings.

Nuclear experts said there were several possibilities if any significant damage occurred at the plants, at least one of which is alongside a river. A radioactive leak could cause environmental harm, while internal damage could set back China's nuclear modernization, they said.

Mianyang, an industrial city of 700,000 people that is the headquarters of China's nuclear weapons design industry, was in the disaster area.

A switchboard operator at the site, which has been likened to the U.S. nuclear facility at Los Alamos, N.M., said Saturday that people there were at work.

China's largest plutonium production reactor is also in the quake zone at Guangyuan.

Hans Kristensen, a nuclear arms expert at the Federation of American Scientists, said the Guangyuan reactor is "at the center of China's fissile material production" and damage "would disrupt China's warhead maintenance capabilities.

Matthew Bunn, a senior researcher at Harvard University's Project on Managing the Atom, said the risk of radioactive leaks depended mostly on how the facilities were designed, details of which are known only by the Chinese government.

Associated Press Writers Lily Hindy, Angela Charlton and Foster Klug contributed to this report.

World's Deadliest Weapon

by Gordon Prather

On the 60th anniversary of the establishment, within the Mandate for Palestine, of Israel as a sovereign Jewish state, President Bush told Israel's legislature, that "Permitting the world's leading sponsor of terror to possess the world's deadliest weapon would be an unforgivable betrayal of future generations." Obviously, Bush does not intend to leave office having unforgivably betrayed future generations. And, presumably, Bush was not referring to Israel, arguably the leading sponsor of terror in the Middle East. So, apparently – if one assumes Bush considers a nuclear weapon to be the "world's deadliest weapon" – betrayal would mean his accepting at face value the reports of Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency that virtually all the West's concerns – set forth in an Iran-IAEA "work plan" signed last August – about Iran's IAEA Safeguarded programs have now been addressed and resolved. Iran – as required by the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons – entered into a Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA "for the exclusive purpose" of enabling the IAEA to "verify" that no "source or special fissionable materials" had been diverted "from peaceful purposes to nuclear weapons." The IAEA is routinely – but falsely – described by neo-crazy media sycophants as being the United Nation's "nuclear watchdog," responsible for determining whether an NPT signatory is in compliance or noncompliance with the NPT. In fact, the IAEA has no such responsibility. The IAEA was established as a UN agency almost twenty before the NPT came along and took advantage of the IAEA's existing capabilities, and as the IAEA Statute makes clear, the IAEA's principal mission is to "enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity throughout the world." The IAEA Statute does require the IAEA – in the course of carrying out its primary mission – to "ensure, so far as it is able" that activities over which it has some purview are "not used in such a way as to further any military purpose." In the event the IAEA Director-General has reason to believe a country is not in satisfactory compliance with its Safeguards Agreement – perhaps not implementing to the Director-General's satisfaction some health or safety regulation – he is required to report that noncompliance – if not corrected – to the IAEA Board, and to the UN General Assembly. However, contrary to reports by various neo-crazy media sycophants – such as Reuters – noncompliance with an IAEA Safeguards Agreement is not tantamount to noncompliance with the NPT. In fact, whether a signatory is complying with the NPT or not is none of the IAEA's beeswax. Since 1958, IAEA's principal mission vis a vis Iran is supposed to have been to assist the Iranians acquire and safely employ atomic energy for peaceful purposes. Furthermore, since 1968 the NPT has required that "parties in a position to do so" – such as the United States – "shall" contribute "to the further development of the applications of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes," especially in non-nuclear-weapons NPT signatory states such as Iran. So, at least since the early 1990s – following the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of the Cold War and Bush the Elder's ejection of Iraqi invasion forces from Kuwait – the United States and the IAEA Board of Governors should have been doing everything they could to help Iran secure its "inalienable rights" under the NPT and IAEA Statute. Instead, The-Best-Congress-Money-Can-Buy and our Presidents have done everything they could to prevent Iran's even resuming the peaceful nuclear energy projects begun with US assistance under the Shah. ElBaradei included in his report last November the Iranian-supplied justification for the secretive manner in which they have pursued the civilian nuclear power fuel-cycle, which both the IAEA Statute and the NPT assure them is their inalienable right. "According to Iran, in its early years, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) concluded a number of contracts with entities from France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States of America to enable it to acquire nuclear power and a wide range of related nuclear fuel cycle services, but after the 1979 revolution, these contracts with a total value of around $10 billion were not fulfilled. "Iran noted that one of the contracts, signed in 1976, was for the development of a pilot plant for laser enrichment. "Senior Iranian officials said that, in the mid-1980s, Iran started working with many countries to revitalize its nuclear program to meet the State's growing energy needs. Taking advantage of investments already made, Iran said it focused its efforts initially on the completion of the Bushehr nuclear power plant, working with entities from, inter alia, Argentina, France, Germany and Spain, but without success. "At that time, Iran also initiated efforts to acquire research reactors from Argentina, China, India and the former Soviet Union, but also without success. "Parallel to the activities related to nuclear power plants, Iran started to build supporting infrastructure by establishing nuclear technology centers in Esfahan and Karaj. "However, apart from uranium conversion technology acquired from an entity in China, Iran was not able to acquire other nuclear fuel cycle facilities or technology from abroad." So, in the mid-1980s Iran embarked upon the secretive – but not illegal under its existing Safeguards Agreement or under the NPT or international law – peaceful nuclear program it has been revealing, in confidence, to ElBaradei. In his most recent report ElBaradei was "able to continue to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran." Even for those nuclear "weaponization" studies that Bush and the Brits-French-Germans allege that Iran had conducted, ElBaradei noted that "the Agency has not detected the use of nuclear material in connection with the alleged studies, nor does it have credible information in this regard." Of course, it's possible that Bush doesn't consider accepting ElBaradei's assurances that Iran's IAEA Safeguarded nuclear programs are totally peaceful an unforgivable betrayal to future generations after all. In that case, imagine the Israelis trying to figure out what the man – adjudged by John McCain to be "dumb as a stump" – was talking about.

S.C. officials watch nuclear case

Foreign waste may be allowed at dump

By Sammy Fretwell - McClatchy Newspapers

Nuclear waste officials are closely watching a federal court case to see if it could allow for burial of foreign radioactive garbage at South Carolina's atomic refuse dump in Barnwell County.

Energy Solutions Inc., which operates landfills in South Carolina and Utah, insists it won't send Italian nuclear waste to the 37-year-old landfill west of Barnwell under a company plan to import waste to the United States.

But the company has challenged eight Western states in their attempt to block disposal of the foreign waste in Utah.

If Energy Solutions convinces the court that the Western states can't legally stop Italian waste shipments to Utah, it also might gain the right to use the S.C. landfill, experts say.

The Barnwell County dump, one of only three of its kind in the country, is governed by the same law that led the Western states to limit nuclear waste in Utah.

After years of rancorous debate, Barnwell County's landfill is scheduled to close July 1 to all states except South Carolina, Connecticut and New Jersey. The last thing South Carolina needs is foreign waste at the landfill, said Ben Johnson, who leads the Atlantic Compact, which oversees the S.C. dump.

"There are a couple of issues in that suit that if adopted by higher appellate courts, would definitely impact" the Barnwell County landfill, he said. "It would be a shame ... to have that site filled up with foreign waste and rendered useless for our own needs."

The Barnwell County landfill has been a source of tension in South Carolina since it opened in 1971. It has left a trail of groundwater pollution that, in some places, rivals that of the nearby Savannah River Site nuclear weapons complex. Waste sent to the landfill comes largely from nuclear power plants.

Opponents of the S.C. landfill tried for years to shutter the facility until Gov. Jim Hodges brokered a deal in 2000 to limit access by mid-2008.

Johnson and Atlantic Compact Commissioner Jill Lipoti said Wednesday the Energy Solutions lawsuit can't be ignored. Lipoti, who represents New Jersey on the compact, said her state reserved space for decommissioned nuclear reactors as part of the 2000 law - and she expects that space to remain available.

"We don't want any action to change that," she said.

Energy Solutions' plan is to import about 1 million cubic feet of low-level nuclear waste from Italy through either Charleston or New Orleans.

The material then would be shipped to a processing plant in Tennessee, with leftover waste being hauled to Utah for disposal, the company has said. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is considering an import license.

Six Years On, Yucca Mountain Nuclear Repository

	Six Years On, Yucca Mountain Nuclear Repository Slowly Moves Forward
	Energy Department officials confirmed this week that they plan to submit an application in June to license the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump as the nation's first spent-nuclear fuel repository.
	The move comes decades after the department first began studying the site, and six years after President Bush approved its development. The project has spent those years mired in lawsuits and beset by controversy over its safety and environmental effects. "We're in a holding pattern," said Gayle Fisher, spokeswoman for the department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, which manages the site. "Construction has stopped, and most of the site has been shut down." Located in the Nevada desert about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Yucca Mountain would be the only permanent nuclear waste storage facility in the United States. Right now, the 56,000 tons of that waste that already exist are temporarily stored at 126 sites across the nation. Each year, nuclear power plants generate approximately 2,000 more tons of waste. Spent nuclear fuel rods contain highly radioactive elements that remain hazardous for many thousands of years. When removed from a reactor, the waste must first be cooled in a pool of water for months or years. Once cooled, the waste is moved to dry-storage bunkers made of concrete and steel. But these aboveground storage facilities are not designed to withstand weather and environmental factors for the thousands of years the waste will remain hazardous. As far back as the 1950s, scientists recommended that nuclear waste be permanently stored in deep underground storage facilities. The Department of Energy began evaluating Yucca Mountain's suitability as a storage site in 1978, and in 2002 President Bush approved legislation to build the repository there. But critics of the plan, including the state of Nevada, have mounted challenges ever since, filing a series of lawsuits against the federal government. Two grievances challenged the Department of Energy's guidelines and environmental impact statement. Another claimed that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission illegally revised regulations to develop Yucca Mountain. The state also contested the Environmental Protection Agency's exposure standards for residents near Yucca Mountain, saying that the amount of exposure EPA deemed acceptable was unsafe. In 2004, the U.S. Court of Appeals dismissed all of Nevada's cases except that against the EPA. The court said the agency's 10,000-year regulatory standard limit ran counter to recommendations from the National Academy of Science that found that the material could be hazardous much longer than that. The EPA revised their guideline, requiring the site to maintain low nuclear exposure limits up to 1 million years after Yucca Mountain is closed. Some critics believe this new rule will preclude the Yucca Mountain Project from ever opening. Yucca Mountain's opponents in Congress have also stymied the project by cutting its funding. In 2008 Congress refused to fully fund the Energy Department's $494.5 million budget request for Yucca Mountain, decreasing the amount to $386.5 million. As a result, the Yucca Mountain Program laid off 900 employees. "Yucca is a politically-charged issue," said Energy Department spokeswoman Angela Hill, "and as a result Congress has not appropriated at our request." The department is looking at other possible funding, she said, including a pool of funds from the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act that required all nuclear producers to pay for waste disposal. The Nuclear Waste Fund's current balance is approximately $20 billion dollars. "Due to a complicated loophole, the Yucca Program does not have access to this fund," said Hill. The DOE has petitioned Congress to change the legislation granting the project access to the fund. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., is one of Yucca Mountain's most ardent opponents. Vowing that the repository "is never going to open," Reid was instrumental in the project's $108 million budget cut. Reid writes on his Web site: "The Department of Energy has used science that is incomplete, unsound, and riddled with politics to sell this dead-end proposal, and Nevadans are not convinced." As Yucca Mountain remains idle, the amount of nuclear waste in the United States continues to increase. In April, Frank Moussa, supervisor of the DOE's intergovernmental operations department, said at a public meeting that if and when Yucca Mountain opens, it will not be able to hold the total amount of nuclear waste in the United States. Although Yucca Mountain could have the capacity to store 120,000 tons of waste, according to the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the repository can store only 70,000 metric tons. The legislation would have to be amended in order to expand the storage capability of Yucca. The DOE introduced legislation in 2006 requesting the statutory limit be lifted, and also plans to report to Congress on the need for a second repository later this year, according to Hill. In the meantime, Nevada continues to battle the Yucca Mountain project. Bob Loux, Director of Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects, said, "The DOE is engineering this to be a repository site instead of looking at the science that proves Yucca should be disqualified as a nuclear storage site. It has obvious scientific and technical flaws that cannot be overcome." "Our science is sound," responded Yucca spokesman Allen Benson. "Our tests are thorough and complete." The Department of Energy plans to submit its licensing application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by June 30, 2008. The NRC will have three to four years to review the application for approval. Loux says Nevada is planning lawsuits against the licensing application and the accompanying environmental impact statement. If the NRC approves construction, Yucca Mountain's earliest opening date would be 2017. ---- By Katie Mulik, NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

Official Urged Fewer Diagnoses of PTSD

by Christopher Lee

A psychologist who helps lead the post-traumatic stress disorder program at a medical facility for veterans in Texas told staff members to refrain from diagnosing PTSD because so many veterans were seeking government disability payments for the condition.

“Given that we are having more and more compensation seeking veterans, I’d like to suggest that you refrain from giving a diagnosis of PTSD straight out,” Norma Perez wrote in a March 20 e-mail to mental-health specialists and social workers at the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Olin E. Teague Veterans’ Center in Temple, Tex. Instead, she recommended that they “consider a diagnosis of Adjustment Disorder.”

VA staff members “really don’t . . . have time to do the extensive testing that should be done to determine PTSD,” Perez wrote.

Adjustment disorder is a less severe reaction to stress than PTSD and has a shorter duration, usually no longer than six months, said Anthony T. Ng, a psychiatrist and member of Mental Health America, a nonprofit professional association.

Veterans diagnosed with PTSD can be eligible for disability compensation of up to $2,527 a month, depending on the severity of the condition, said Alison Aikele, a VA spokeswoman. Those found to have adjustment disorder generally are not offered such payments, though veterans can receive medical treatment for either condition.

Perez’s e-mail was obtained and released publicly yesterday by VoteVets.org, a veterans group that has been critical of the Bush administration’s policies in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a nonprofit government watchdog group.

“Many veterans believe that the government just doesn’t want to pay out the disability that comes along with a PTSD diagnosis, and this revelation will not allay their concerns,” John Soltz, chairman of VoteVets.org and an Iraq war veteran, said in a statement.

Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW, said in a statement: “It is outrageous that the VA is calling on its employees to deliberately misdiagnose returning veterans in an effort to cut costs. Those who have risked their lives serving our country deserve far better.”

Veterans Affairs Secretary James B. Peake said in a statement that Perez’s e-mail was “inappropriate” and does not reflect VA policy. It has been “repudiated at the highest level of our health care organization,” he said.

“VA’s leadership will strongly remind all medical staff that trust, accuracy and transparency is paramount to maintaining our relationships with our veteran patients,” Peake said.

Peake said Perez has been “counseled” and is “extremely apologetic.” Aikele said Perez remains in her job.

A Rand Corp. report released in April found that repeated exposure to combat stress in Iraq and Afghanistan is causing a disproportionately high psychological toll compared with physical injuries. About 300,000 U.S. military personnel who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan are suffering from PTSD or major depression, the study found. The economic cost to the United States — including medical care, forgone productivity and lost lives through suicide — is expected to reach $4 billion to $6 billion over two years.

Ng said diagnosing PTSD often requires observing a patient for weeks or months because the condition implies a long, lingering effect of stress.

“Most people exposed to trauma, in general, can get better,” Ng said. “You don’t want to over-diagnose people with PTSD. Whether it’s adjustment disorder is one thing. It’s usually a temporary disorder with severity that is not as bad as someone with full-blown PTSD.”

© 2008 The Washington Post

Going subcritical: a nuclear test is a nuclear test is a nuclear test

by Andrew Kishner

http://www.opednews.com

In 1992, the Nevada Test Site hosted the last of over 800 underground nuclear detonations that had commenced in 1961. Five years later, in 1997, the DOE began a program of subcritical testing at the test site that has continued on through today. The philosophical differences between the two types of tests are minimal. The difference between an underground nuclear test and a subcritical experiment can be compared to the difference between firing an actual bullet as opposed to firing a blank.

You may think that the DOE isn't 'aiming' their gun at someone, and therefore no crime is committed, yet their 'gun' is in fact aimed. It is aimed at arguably the entire world. Locally, the DOE is pointing its gun at the Western Shoshone and all peoples who consume the air, the soil and water in Nevada and Utah. Critics of these tests also say that the DOE is aiming their 'gun' at any of the countries in the 'axis-of-evil,' and using these tests to send a threatening message of the U.S.'s intent to use nuclear weapons again.

Like underground nuclear tests, subcritical tests have a legacy of contamination that is stored underground. It is not impossible for the plutonium waste of subcritical tests to leach into the groundwater. The impacts to groundwater of the nearly two dozen subcritical tests conducted since 1997 have not been determined to date at the test site. Likewise, it is not impossible that subcritical tests can 'go critical' to the extent of producing some airborne fission byproducts that can eventually vent to the surface.

Since 1997, the DOE has aimed their gun and fired blanks over and over again. And the impact is no different than when a madman runs around aiming a gun at other people and firing blanks. The effect is de-stabilizing.

After the U.S. conducted its first subcritical test called 'Rebound' in 1997, China's Foreign Ministry spokesman immediately urged the U.S. to not carry out activities that do not conform with the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), saying 'We stress that all countries should faithfully abide by stipulations in the nuclear test ban treaty.' In Nevada, anti-nuclear activists did their best to stop 'Rebound': three activists traveled on bicycles onto the test site near the detonation site and seven others blocked a public highway when a media bus tried to enter the gates. Some activists even crawled under the bus but were dragged out by the Nevada Highway Patrol and Department of Energy security personnel. Similar nonviolent actions tried to halt later subcritical tests, although unsuccessfully, and in 1997 a dozen U.S. anti-nuclear organizations brought a lawsuit against the DOE to stop the subcritical tests. In late 1997, Russia first confirmed that it had a subcritical testing program dating back ‘dozens of years’ that continued after the country signed the CTBT in 1996. By 1998 a subcritical testing arms race between the U.S. and Russia was well underway. On May 11, 1998, the government of India conducted a set of three underground atomic tests followed two days later by another two such blasts. These were the first nuclear tests conducted by India since 1974. An official announcement of the second set of blasts stated: 'The tests have been carried out to generate additional data for improved computer simulation of designs and for attaining the capability to carry out subcritical experiments, if considered necessary.' Two weeks later Pakistan joined the nuclear weapon club when it announced it had conducted five underground nuclear tests.

In early 1998, the European Parliament concluded that the United States was creating a 'crisis of confidence' in the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by conducting subcritical experiments and passed a resolution urging the United States to 'halt the series of subcritical tests' which could otherwise jeopardize the treaty's entry into force. The resolution mentioned that at least 15 countries expressed their concern or opposition to the tests, among them Iran.

Protests by anti-nuclear organizations, foreign governments and international bodies continued against U.S. subcritical testing through about 2003, when worldwide and local dissent began to soften for unknown reasons. Then came the North Korean government's first mention of a nuclear test on Sept. 7, 2006. That announcement came on the heels of the United States' successful completion eight days earlier of its 23rd subcritical nuclear experiment. In its Sept. 7th official reference to a planned nuclear test, North Korea's Central News Agency noted that a South Korean group, the National Alliance for the Country's Reunification, made a statement accusing the United States' subcritical test as an 'obvious criminal act of disturbing the global peace.'

Subcritical testing is a threat to world peace and stability, and citizens should make use of an opportunity to voice their concerns about the legitimacy, impacts to global peace and environmental consequences of these tests through May 30th. Visit www.idealist.ws/action.htm and learn how you can tell the DOE that they should initiate a new Environmental Impact Statement process for the Nevada Test Site that will undoubtedly re-vitalize and address this important issue.

Read the 1998 European Parliament resolution here: http://stopdivinestrake.com/subcritical.html

One Thousand Paper Cranes for Peace

One Thousand Paper Cranes for Peace: The Story of Sadako Sasaki
3/12/2008

In my dream, Sadako says to me, "Leave it to me, mom" and I wake up calling, "Sadako!"

Then I realize it was a dream and I wonder how she is. For a while, I'm lost in my sad thoughts and join my hands in prayer before the tablet of the deceased.

- from a letter by Fujiko Sasaki, Sadako Sasaki's mother

On August 6th, 1945, World War II's Allied forces dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. In an instant, the city was obliterated. When the dust had cleared, people's shadows remained frozen in place on sidewalks and the sides of buildings. The people themselves simply vanished. On that tragic day, 140,000 civilians were killed.

The Sasaki family lived one mile from the spot where the bomb went off. The couple and their two-year-old daughter, Sadako, managed to survive the nuclear attack, though soon after the explosion, thick black clouds of radioactive soot and dust began to fall like snow. Though the family tried to protect themselves, they could not avoid breathing the contaminated air.

As time went on, the young family tried to rebuild their damaged lives. The war had ended; they could put it behind them. The Sasakis had three more children, though Sadako was always her mother's favorite: "She was so considerate and thoughtful that I relied on her," she wrote. As Sadako grew older, she became a strong, healthy, athletic young woman – she was the fastest runner on her school track team.

But when Sadako was twelve years old, she noticed that her lymph nodes were becoming swollen. A doctor's visit confirmed her parents' greatest fears: Sadako had been contaminated with radiation poisoning from the atomic bomb. She was dying of leukemia.

Soon, Sadako was forced to enter the Hiroshima Red Cross hospital for treatment. She spent months there, her disease progressing day by day. In August 1955, residents of Nagoya sent a gift of colored origami paper cranes to Sadako and the other hospital residents as a get-well present. The gift brightened the sick child's day – and it gave her an idea.

"She believed in a saying that if you fold a thousand cranes, you'd get over your sickness," her mother wrote. "She folded paper cranes carefully, one by one using a piece of paper of advertisement, medicine and wrapping. Her eyes were shining while she was folding the cranes, showing she wanted to survive by all means."

Though she was very weak, Sadako dedicated hours each day to folding cranes out of whatever materials she could scrounge together. "We warned her, ‘If you keep up that pace you'll wear yourself out,'" her father, Shigeo Sasaki, recounted. "Sadako continued to fold, saying, ‘It's okay, it's okay. I have a plan,' "

When she got to one thousand, she kept on going, hopeful that the paper birds might magically cure her illness. But it was not to be: Sadako died on the morning of October 25, 1955, surrounded by her family.

As for Sadako's thousand paper cranes, her mother gave some of them to her school friends, "and put the rest of them in her coffin as well as flowers so that she could bring them to the next world."

Although Sadako's thousand paper cranes could not save her life, they would take flight in another way, serving as a symbol of the growing movement for peace on Earth.

The following year, an Austrian journalist, Robert Jungk, traveled to Hiroshima, where he heard the story of young Sadako and her one thousand cranes. He was so moved by the tale of her determination that he told a modified version of her story to the world in a book, Light in the Ruins. In the years since, variations of Sadako's story have appeared in hundreds of other publications, most notably, a children's book called Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, written in 1977 by American author Eleanor Coerr. The story has been used in peace education programs around the world.

Sadako's short life has also inspired another sort of legacy: the Children's Peace Monument in Hiroshima. After Sadako's death, her classmates sought to honor their friend by creating "a monument to mourn all the children who died from the atomic bombing." With support from more than 3,100 schools around the world, the students created a nine-meter high bronze statue, topped with a figure of a girl holding a folded crane. Beneath the pedestal, there is an inscription: "This is our cry. This is our prayer. For building peace in this world."

Each year, children and adults from all over the world travel to the Children's Peace Monument, bringing their own folded paper cranes as a gift to Sadako's memory, and as a symbol of their desire for peace and for the abolition of nuclear weapons. In hundreds of other cities around the world, from Kuwait City to Santa Barbara, California, children have become involved in projects to create paper cranes as symbols of peace, honoring Sadako's legacy.

Though she could not save her own life with one thousand cranes, her story may yet save millions.


Original story by Kathryn Hawkins

Atomic testing burned its mark

Test Site employed thousands, put many more at risk

By Mary Manning

Thu, May 15, 2008 (3 a.m.)

Atomic Testing

Predawn atomic fireballs and billowing mushroom clouds — plus the radioactive and political fallout accompanying them — are all part of Nevada's long-time association with nuclear weapons testing.

The government's nuclear testing, which was at one time capitalized on by Las Vegas businesses as a super fireworks spectacle for tourists, began six years after the first atomic bomb, Trinity, exploded on July 16, 1945, in New Mexico.

At that time, the government wanted a nuclear proving ground on the continent to save money after it conducted expensive atomic tests in the Pacific Ocean. It also wanted federal scientists to be able to continue their secret work far from the Korean War.

That lead to President Harry Truman approving on Dec. 18, 1950, the Nevada Test Site, which was 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The barren testing range carved out of the Mojave desert would be home for the next several decades to 928 of the 1,054 above- and below-ground nuclear experiments conducted by the U.S. The testing finally ended in September 1992 when a moratorium went into effect.

Over the years, up to 100,000 people have worked at the Test Site, with more than 12,000 employed there during the peak years of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

The first nuclear experiment in Nevada lit up the desert sky on Jan. 27, 1951. In May 1953 the government triggered an above-ground nuclear blast code-named “Harry,” whose radioactive fallout blanketed not only the arid desert, but farm fields, homes, schools, factories and businesses across the country. The fallout even wiped out film at Kodak headquarters in Rochester, N.Y. Government agents washed cars and brushed (with whisk brooms) the clothes of residents of St. George, Utah. The government assured those residents everything was safe, but at least 4,390 sheep grazing in Utah died from radiation sickness. The government admitted nothing.

Since the beginning of the Test Site, protesters have demonstrated against the tests. Included in the numerous groups were homemakers who showed up in the 1950s, wearing shirtwaist dresses and carrying parasols. The largest protest occurred in the 1980s when more than 3,000 demonstrators made their feelings known. Famous protesters included scientist Carl Sagan, actor Martin Sheen and singer/songwriter/actor Kris Kristofferson.

Supporters of nuclear testing considered themselves “Cold Warriors,” fighting a major nuclear threat from the Soviet Union. Others, many of whom called themselves “downwinders” because the wind had placed them in the path of the radioactive fallout clouds, fought the secrecy and silence surrounding the U.S. nuclear testing program.

In 1984 a federal judge in Salt Lake City ruled the government had been negligent by exposing thousands of downwinders to radioactive fallout. Utah, Nevada and Arizona residents described the cancers and other radioactive illnesses they or their families suffered. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate 11,000 people died from diseases directly related to nuclear test fallout. Later, Test Site workers sued the government and lost their case.

The Test Site was the second largest employer in Nevada during its peak years, behind the mining industry, according to Energy Department records. The casino industry came in a distant third. Workers labored in secrecy at the remote site, which is larger than Rhode Island. Employees weren’t allowed to tell their families about nuclear activities witnessed there.

In 1963, President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev signed a treaty that required the superpowers to conduct nuclear experiments underground. The historic treaty banned nuclear testing in the air, oceans or space.

Kennedy has been the only sitting president who visited the Test Site. He toured it in 1962.

From 1980 to 1984 the Test Site became an outdoor laboratory for experimenting with a nuclear defense shield envisioned by President Ronald Reagan. Critics named the project “Star Wars.”

Today the Test Site offers a remote location for chemical tests and training for homeland security. In addition, researchers conduct subcritical experiments, testing radioactive components of nuclear weapons, but the explosions do not cause a nuclear chain reaction. By presidential order, the site must be ready to resume nuclear weapons tests within 18 months to three years after a presidential or congressional order.

It wasn’t until 1993 when President Bill Clinton and Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary released more information to the public about how military personnel and citizens had been exposed to radioactive fallout. Still, many of the secrets of atomic testing in Nevada remain under lock and key

The Lieberman-Warner climate change bill

SENATE CLIMATE CHANGE BILL COULD GIVE BILLIONS OF TAXPAYER DOLLARS TO THE NUCLEAR POWER INDUSTRY

YOUR CALLS NOW CAN STOP THIS, AND HELP PAVE THE WAY FOR CLEAN, SAFE AND AFFORDABLE SOLUTIONS TO THE CLIMATE CRISIS

May 12, 2008

Dear Friends:

The Lieberman-Warner climate change bill is slated to come to the Senate floor the week of June 2-6, 2008.

Without even explicitly mentioning nuclear power, the bill would be the largest giveaway to the nuclear power industry ever­some $500 billion worth.

And if that weren’t enough, we expect one or more amendments to be submitted to give even more billions of taxpayer dollars to the nuclear industry; further reduce public participation in nuclear issues; and speed the development of new radioactive waste sites over public opposition.

We need to stop this nuclear nonsense, and your voices need to be heard.

Even our friends in the Senate, like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), say they are not receiving enough phone calls on this issue. They, and we, are urging you to call your senators now and demand that they oppose any nuclear provisions or amendments to the Lieberman-Warner bill.

Your calls are especially important because the nuclear industry is actively lobbying to obtain more taxpayer dollars, and they have far more resources to do so than the environmental movement.

Please call your Senators today: Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121.

And activate e-mail lists, phone trees, myspace and facebook sites, and any other networks you have. We need to get as many of your voices to the Senate as possible.

Some background information on the Lieberman-Warner bill, and some of the nuclear provisions now being talked about, is below.

First, we all know that election campaigns take huge sums of money, and we know that many of you have been contributing to your candidates this year. But issue campaigns, like this one, require resources too. After you’ve called your Senators, please consider making an extra $30 donation (or $300 or $3,000, if you can!)­in honor of NIRS’ 30th anniversary this year­on our secure website here.

Background information on Lieberman-Warner Bill (S. 2191)

According to an aide to Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT), the Lieberman-Warner climate change bill scheduled to be debated on the Senate floor during the first week of June “would be the most historic incentive for nuclear in the history of the United States."

The cap-and-trade carbon emissions system that the bill would establish would both make utility investments in carbon-emitting technologies like coal and gas less economically competitive by putting a price on carbon, and would also create a fund­totaling as much as $500 Billion over the next four decades­that could be used for nuclear power investment.

There are many problems with the proposed legislation, not the least of which is that its emissions reductions targets fall far short of what science now says is necessary to avoid a climate catastrophe. In fact, the global carbon emissions reduction of 80% by 2050 called for by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Global Climate Change translates into a 95% reduction in U.S. emissions­or essentially a carbon-free energy economy. But at best, the Lieberman-Warner bill would reduce emissions about 60-70% by 2050, and perhaps not even that much.

Nuclear amendments that have been discussed on Capitol Hill may include some, or even all, of the following:

*more money for taxpayer loan guarantees for new reactors
*more money for “risk” insurance if reactors are delayed because of interventions or other licensing problems
*establishment of “interim” storage sites for high-level radioactive waste
*speed-up of Yucca Mountain licensing
*further restrictions on public participation in reactor licensing
*money for training nuclear engineers
*money for training skilled workers (like welders)
*money for security guards and improvements
*money for Hardened On-Site Storage
*money to build new factories to manufacture large reactor components
*money for new transmission lines
*money for transformers

We need safe, clean, fast and affordable solutions to the climate crisis. Nuclear power meets none of those criteria. Your actions now can make a real difference!

Please call your Senators today: 202-224-3121, and alert your colleagues, co-workers, church groups, PTAs, and all of your friends and ask them to call too! And please call both of your senators no matter where you think they may stand on the issue: we need to create a better sense in the Senate that people care about this issue.

Thank you for all you do. Together, we can stop the nuclear industry’s misguided notion that climate change legislation is their opportunity to have an atomic Christmas in June!

As always, if you have questions or comments, don’t hesitate to contact us.

Michael Mariotte
Executive Director
Nuclear Information and Resource Service
nirsnet@nirs.org
www.nirs.org
301-270-6477

This is NIRS’ 30th anniversary year: Help kick off our next 30 years, and our work to build a nuclear-free, carbon-free energy future, with your most generous contribution possible. Please make your tax-deductible donation here.

And if you haven’t done so yet, don’t forget to sign the statement on nuclear power and climate at www.nirs.org (but please don’t sign more than once!). If you’ve already signed, please ask your friends and colleagues to sign!

Going subcritical: a nuclear test for a nuclear test destroys the entire world

In 1992, the Nevada Test Site hosted the last of over 800 underground nuclear detonations that had commenced in 1961. Five years later, in 1997, the DOE began a program of subcritical testing at the test site that has continued on through today. The philosophical differences between the two types of tests are minimal. The difference between an underground nuclear test and a subcritical experiment can be compared to the difference between firing an actual bullet as opposed to firing a blank.

You may think that the DOE isn't 'aiming' their gun at someone, and therefore no crime is committed, yet their 'gun' is in fact aimed. It is aimed at arguably the entire world. Locally, the DOE is pointing its gun at the Western Shoshone and all peoples who consume the air, the soil and water in Nevada and Utah. Critics of these tests also say that the DOE is aiming their 'gun' at any of the countries in the 'axis-of-evil,' and using these tests to send a threatening message of the U.S.'s intent to use nuclear weapons again.

Like underground nuclear tests, subcritical tests have a legacy of contamination that is stored underground. It is not impossible for the plutonium waste of subcritical tests to leach into the groundwater. The impacts to groundwater of the nearly two dozen subcritical tests conducted since 1997 have not been determined to date at the test site. Likewise, it is not impossible that subcritical tests can 'go critical' to the extent of producing some airborne fission byproducts that can eventually vent to the surface.

Since 1997, the DOE has aimed their gun and fired blanks over and over again. And the impact is no different than when a madman runs around aiming a gun at other people and firing blanks. The effect is de-stabilizing.

After the U.S. conducted its first subcritical test called 'Rebound' in 1997, China's Foreign Ministry spokesman immediately urged the U.S. to not carry out activities that do not conform with the CTBT, saying 'We stress that all countries should faithfully abide by stipulations in the nuclear test ban treaty.' In Nevada, anti-nuclear activists did their best to stop 'Rebound': three activists traveled on bicycles onto the test site near the detonation site and seven others blocked a public highway when a media bus tried to enter the gates. Some activists even crawled under the bus but were dragged out by Nevada Highway Patrol and Department of Energy security personnel. Similar nonviolent actions tried to halt later subcritical tests, although unsuccessfully, and in 1997 a dozen U.S. anti-nuclear organizations brought a lawsuit against the DOE to stop the subcritical tests. In late 1997, Russia first confirmed that it had a subcritical testing program dating back to the 1980s. In 1998 the U.S. claimed that it was conducting more tests to respond to ongoing Russian subcritical testing. On May 11, 1998, the government of India conducted a set of three underground atomic tests followed two days later by another two such blasts. These were the first nuclear tests conducted by India since 1974. An official announcement of the second set of blasts stated: 'The tests have been carried out to generate additional data for improved computer simulation of designs and for attaining the capability to carry out subcritical experiments, if considered necessary.' Two weeks later Pakistan joined the nuclear weapon club when it announced it had conducted five underground nuclear tests.

In early 1998, the European Parliament concluded that the United States was creating a 'crisis of confidence' in the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by conducting subcritical experiments and passed a resolution urging the United States to 'halt the series of subcritical tests' which could otherwise jeopardize the treaty's entry into force. The resolution mentioned that at least 15 countries expressed their concern or opposition to the tests, among them Iran.

Protests by anti-nuclear organizations, foreign governments and international bodies continued against U.S. subcritical testing through about 2003, when worldwide and local dissent began to soften for unknown reasons. Then came the North Korean government's first mention of a nuclear test on Sept. 7, 2006. That nuclear test came on the heels of the United States' successful completion eight days earlier of its 23rd subcritical nuclear experiment. In its Sept. 7th announcement of the test, North Korea's Central News Agency noted that a South Korean group, the National Alliance for the Country's Reunification, made a statement accusing the United States' subcritical test as an 'obvious criminal act of disturbing the global peace.'

Subcritical testing is a threat to world peace and stability, and citizens should make use of an opportunity to voice their concerns about the legitimacy, impacts to global peace and environmental affects of these tests through May 30th. Visit www.idealist.ws/action.htm and learn how you can tell the DOE that they should initiate a new Environmental Impact Statement process for the Nevada Test Site that will undoubtedly re-vitalize and address this important issue.

Read the 1998 European Parliament resolution here: http://stopdivinestrake.com/subcritical.html

Livermore lab fails terror test

By Betsy Mason
Contra Costa Times

Article Launched: 05/13/2008 07:14:26 PM PDT

Lawrence Livermore Laboratory's protective force failed to deter a mock terrorist attack during a recent security drill, according to a Time magazine report online Monday.

During the simulated night-time attack several weeks ago, a team posing as terrorists was able to defeat the lab's defenses and get hold of their target of pretend nuclear material, according to unnamed sources.

Bryan Wilkes, a spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees the lab for the Department of Energy, told the Times that the initial results of the inspection were "disappointing."

But he noted that the simulated attacking force was given insider information and other advantages that "would be highly improbable in a real world scenario.

"While we have security measures in place that are working, in a number of cases they can be improved upon, and the system pointed that out," he said.

Four of the areas of the lab's security that were inspected during a routine, seven-week independent audit conducted by the Department of Energy's Office of Health, Safety and Security during April and March were rated as "effective performance," and four needed improvement.

The lab has taken action to fix problems uncovered by the inspection, said lab spokeswoman Susan Houghton.

"We've added officers, reassigned personnel, and we have accelerated our training from quarterly to daily," she said.

No nuclear material or sensitive information was ever at risk, Houghton said.

A DOE official familiar with the mock attack said that the Time report was exaggerated.

The attacking force did reach their objective, he said, and the defenders did not do as well as they could have in some areas, but the attack was unrealistic.

For one, the simulation started at the fence line of the plutonium facility known as Superblock, already well inside lab property, he said. The attack team was made up of security officers from other DOE sites and was allowed to haul in equipment, including ATVs and mock explosives.

Some members of the attack team were even positioned inside rooms in the Superblock, as if they had already cut fences, blown up walls and avoided guards. The mock attackers were also treated to a walkthrough ahead of the exercise.

"They knew exactly what was there, how to get to certain places and where the defenders would be," said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity. "It just wouldn't happen in real life."

The whole point of the force-on-force test is to really stress the system and hit the pressure points, he said.

"Things don't run perfectly in a force-on-force," he said. "That's not the point. You want to see where the stress points are. That's why you do it."

Among the problems highlighted by the Time magazine report was the failure of one of the lab's powerful Gatling guns, capable of firing 4,000 rounds per minute, to get into firing position due to problems with a hydraulic system.

The guns were added to the lab's arsenal in 2006 to bolster its ability to protect the weapons-grade plutonium and highly-enriched uranium.

"Failing an exercise like a mock terrorist attack highlights serious and unacceptable security shortcomings," said Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo. "I have insisted that the plutonium housed at Livermore be consolidated and moved away from Livermore to a safe location away from population centers as soon as possible."

In March, the National Nuclear Security Administration said it was on track to remove the plutonium from the Livermore lab by 2012, in part to reduce security costs by consolidating special nuclear materials at fewer sites.

National Nuclear Security Administration director Thomas D'Agostino told the Times that it makes sense to move Livermore's plutonium to its sister nuclear weapons lab in New Mexico because "you don't have communities growing up around Los Alamos."

The 2012 goal is two years earlier than the previous plan, but critics still think the plutonium can and should be moved sooner.

"We think this should be the DOE's highest priority," said Marylia Kelley of Livermore-based watchdog group Tri-Valley CAREs.

Kelley believes the plutonium could be safely packaged and removed by 2010, perhaps even by the end of 2009.

The recent security test "shows that the nuclear materials at Livermore lab isn't secure and cannot be made secure," she said.

Questions about uranium

By DUSTIN BLEIZEFFER
Star-Tribune energy reporter

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Ranchers and rural residents in northeast Wyoming say they've seen the brochure on how uranium producers perform in-situ leach mining. What they don't know is how it's going to work in their neighborhood, with the soils and aquifers under their homes.

Some say they're also unsure about how reliable producers are when it comes to self-monitoring, and whether state regulators are prepared to properly oversee a pending rush on in-situ uranium mining in the state.

The Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality has fielded numerous questions in recent weeks following a recent report documenting a long history of violations at Cameco Corp.'s Smith Ranch-Highland in-situ uranium mine in Converse County.

The in-situ mining process involves a series of closely spaced wells that flush uranium material through water aquifers.

Wilma Tope ranches with her husband in northeastern Crook County. She said the failures at Cameco's Smith Ranch-Highland mine are cause for concern regarding both the industry itself and the agencies that are supposed to regulate it.

"The water testing, the reporting, everything is self-monitored. And with Smith Ranch-Highland, it didn't work very well, so we know our concerns are founded," Tope said.

Based on a high volume of interest and the potential for significant uranium activity in northeast Wyoming, DEQ officials scheduled a public meeting in Sundance. The meeting is set for 6 p.m. May 28 in the basement of the Crook County Courthouse.

"It's time to get out there and talk to people," said Don McKenzie, DEQ Land Quality Division administrator.

Tope and several other northeast Wyoming residents recently organized a group called Ranchers and Neighbors Protecting Our Water, in affiliation with the Powder River Basin Resource Council. She said Powertech Uranium Corp., and possibly other uranium producers, have acquired extensive lease acreages in northern Crook County, and test drilling is already under way.

"Our goal is to educate people about the process of in-situ mining and possibility of leaking and other dangers," Tope said.

People also want to know which water aquifers might be targeted for uranium in-situ leach mining. Based on the failures of DEQ's oversight at the Smith Ranch-Highland mine, bonding levels may need to be increased and DEQ may need to add more staff, Tope said.

"These are questions we'd like answered," she said. "We need baseline (groundwater) testing -- that way if something goes awry, we have proof of what our water quality was beforehand."

Violations

McKenzie said that despite regulatory violations at the Smith Ranch-Highland mine, DEQ can assure the public there's been no groundwater contamination from the mine. That's based largely on monitoring information provided by Cameco itself. However, DEQ has taken its own samples from the mine's monitoring wells throughout the years, according to the agency.

"There's always been monitoring," McKenzie said.

He said the biggest issue at Smith Ranch-Highland was that Cameco delayed aquifer remediation in several instances -- as long as a decade in some cases. Those aquifers were not completely abandoned and ignored, but they simply were not treated and reclaimed in a prudent amount of time, he said.

DEQ spokesman Keith Guille said the agency can collect dual samples from monitoring wells to be analyzed in separate labs. He said that has been done at Smith Ranch-Highland in the past, and remains an option for future monitoring efforts.

In light of the Smith Ranch-Highland report, DEQ said it would ask Cameco to increase its reclamation bonding to $80 million.

Cameco spokesman Gord Struthers said the company would comply and increase its bonding to that amount, but said that Cameco is still working out the details with DEQ.

Cameco is in the process of meeting several requirements set forth in a notice of violation issued by DEQ in March, including the addition of staff to oversee remediation and monitoring activities at Smith Ranch-Highland.

"We had two good meetings with DEQ. They were both positive and constructive," Struthers said.

Energy reporter Dustin Bleizeffer can be reached at (307) 577-6069 or dustin.bleizeffer@trib.com.