Boris Adonyev's story of radiation exposure in the Soviet Union
’In an office in suburban home, Boris Adonyev pores over a 1980s-era map of Russia's Ural Mountains region and jabs at a spot replete with lakes and rivers. "Here it is," he says, referring to the city of 80,000 where he grew up and later worked in a plutonium plant that has fed the Russian atomic-weapons industry for decades. "This is Ozersk." Mr. Adonyev's hometown is not actually marked on the government-approved map. It was one of the ex-Soviet Union's "closed cities," a secret and barricaded enclave that was the target of a famously ill-fated spy-plane flight by the United States and, for cartographers at least, did not officially exist. The Mayak Production Association plant itself was also the source of a series of environmental disasters, and remains a living laboratory for the effects of chronic radiation exposure on nuclear workers and others. Earlier this year, Health Canada commissioned a study of the facility's thousands of current and former employees, and specifically the link between radiation and heart disease. Mr. Adonyev says it seems as if most veteran workers at the plant die by middle age from cancer or cardiac illness. He once had his own accidental exposure to radioactive strontium-90, although he is still going strong at the age of 53. "If you some day visit our city -- a small city, 80,000 population -- you will see we have two huge cemeteries," Mr. Adonyev says. "Take a look at dates of birth and dates of death. Very, very many graves: 49, 51 years old."’

Report: Iran incapable of producing nuke within six to eight years
’A Washington Post report published Sunday is drawing a wave cheers across the Internet for revealing what is being hailed as "the truth" about Iran's nuclear program. Specifically, the report states that Iran is incapable of producing a nuclear bomb within the next six to eight years, turning on ear repeated claims in media that Iran is only a short time away from possessing such a weapon. "The regime's most likely path to the bomb begins in Natanz, in central Iran, the site of the nuclear facility where over the past three years about 1,500 kilograms of uranium gas has been enriched to low levels," Joseph Cirincione wrote. "Iran could kick out U.N. inspectors, abandon the Non-Proliferation Treaty and reprocess the gas into highly enriched uranium in about six months; it would take at least six more months to convert that uranium into the metal form required for one bomb. Technical problems with both processes could stretch this period to three years. Finally, Iran would need perhaps five additional years -- and several explosive tests -- to develop a Hiroshima-yield bomb that could be fitted onto a ballistic missile." William Hartung, writing for Talking Points Memo, called the report "tremendously useful," praising it as "the truth" about Iran's program. "This means there is plenty of time to engage in smart diplomacy aimed at heading off this possibility," he wrote. "And since there's no evidence that Iran is currently going full speed ahead towards a bomb, this timeline may be extended."’

MOX fuel loaded into Saga reactor
’SAGA (Kyodo) The key part of preparations for Japan's first plutonium-thermal power generation was completed Sunday as Kyushu Electric Power Co. finished loading plutonium-uranium mixed oxide, or MOX, fuel into a reactor at its Genkai nuclear power plant in Saga Prefecture a day ahead of schedule. In the process that began Thursday at the plant's No. 3 reactor, 80 of 193 uranium fuel bundles were replaced with new ones, of which 16 contained MOX fuel, according to the utility. The company plans to commence test runs of "pluthermal" power generation at the reactor starting early next month and to gradually increase its output to begin commercial operations in early December, they said. Shikoku Electric Power Co. and Chubu Electric Power Co. are also planning to launch pluthermal generation at their nuclear plants.’

It’s Not Iran, Stupid: US is in violation of NPT
’President Obama sent a message, via Energy Department Secretary Steven Chu, to the September meeting of the General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency, reaffirming the commitments he made, to seek "a world without nuclear weapons," in his "electrifying" speech in Prague and in his United Nations Security Council Resolution 1887. In making their decision to award Barack Obama the Nobel Peace Prize, the Nobel Committee "attached special importance to Obama’s vision of, and work for, a world without nuclear weapons." And rightly so. Just a few weeks before, Obama had chaired a truly historic session of the Security Council, challenging other Council members - including the heads of state of Russia, China, Great Britain and France - to "overcome cynicism" about the possibility of a world without nuclear weapons. Result? Obama’s UNSC Resolution 1887, which begins by; "Resolving to seek a safer world for all and to create the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons, in accordance with the goals of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), in a way that promotes international stability, and based on the principle of undiminished security for all," Obama then "Calls upon all States that are not Parties to the NPT to accede to the Treaty as non-nuclear-weapon States so as to achieve its universality at an early date, and pending their accession to the Treaty, to adhere to its terms;" Did you Likudniks all hear that? The Security Council - the folks that gave us UNSC Resolution 487, which "strongly condemned" Israel for attacking the IAEA-Safeguarded nuclear reactor in Iraq - is once again calling upon Israel to place all its nuclear facilities under IAEA
safeguards.

India's desperate pursuit of nuclear energy risky
’Ever since the Indo-US nuclear deal signed in October last year lifted 34-year-old global sanctions that denied India access to the international atomic energy market, including uranium, Delhi has been on a shopping spree, buying nuclear fuel and reactors. India has signed civil nuclear agreements with France, USA, South Korea and Russia in the past 18 months. India wants to expand its nuclear power by 15 times (from 4,120 MW to 63,000 MW) by 2032, according to the Planning Commission's 2006 integrated energy policy report. In terms of the percentage of the total energy mix, the nuclear share will double from 3 per cent to 6 per cent. "We hope to touch 7,000 MW by next year," said S K Jain, chairman and managing director of India's public sector nuclear utility Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL). Till a few years ago, nuclear energy was dirty business, fraught with risks and cost overruns. But growing concern over global warming has conferred upon it respectability overnight since carbon emissions from nuclear power plants are negligible. The nuclear industry has even coined a phrase for the change in sentiments: nuclear renaissance.’

Euro Utilities Eye £2.3 billion BE Stake
’The potential sale of a 20% stake in UK nuclear power plant operator British Energy (BE) by Electricité de France (EdF) has attracted interest from a variety of European utilities. EdF has been acting to reduce its debt by EUR 5 billion ($7.4 billion) before the end of 2010, and has already announced the potential sale of the transmission business of EDF Energy - the UK subsidiary it used to take over BE. Centrica came in as a 20% equity partner in the purchase of BE and the sale of another 20% portion and the new build program would be an option, but bidders would be unlikely to pay more than the £2.3 billion ($3.7 billion) Centrica paid according to a French banking source. GdF-Suez is seen as the most likely bidder, said a source familiar with EdF. However, a spokesperson for the company said it had no comment on a potential bid for 20% of BE, but did note that the group has extensive nuclear experience, including in Belgium, the UAE and the UK, and is open to opportunities. Other interested parties may include any of the utilities that originally circled BE, including Scottish and Southern Energy although it has a large debt pile, as well as RWE, EOn and the Spanish energy giant Iberdrola, through UK subsidiary Scottish Power. Italy's Enel could also look at a bid, said an equity analyst, as could Vattenfall of Sweden, despite forswearing the UK market until the recession is over.’

More bad news for USEC
’The Energy & Water appropriation, sent to the White House this week by Congress, does not include $30 million promised by the Department of Energy (DOE) to USEC (NYSE:USU) to help it with its plans to build a uranium enrichment plant in Piketon, OH. It is the second time in recent months that DOE's plans to rescue the project have run into a political firewall. In September uranium miners lobbied Congress to prevent DOE from selling surplus uranium to raise $650 million to pay for accelerated cleanup at the Piketon plant. The governor of Wyoming weighed in saying that if a butterfly flaps its wings in Ohio, it does matter in his state, a major producer of uranium. DOE's plan was to fund 800 nuclear waste cleanup jobs while it tried to get USEC's enrichment plant back on track. So far, the effrot to pay for R&D and cleanup in Piketon, OH, have failed to produce the expected results. Republican Rep. Jean Schmidt, who's district includes the plant, was livid, but that didn't stop her from voting against the appropriation bill. DOE has also done some fancy footwork to avoid inking the "denied" stamp on USEC's application for a $2 billion loan guarantee for its American Centrifuge uranium enrichment plant. It's not that DOE didn't have good reasons to do it. The plant's technology lacked sufficient testing for reliability and there are reports of supplier problems with component quality.’