Platts - Wednesday, July 21, 2004 
http://www.platts.com

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Germany unlikely to decommission nuclear power rceators:
Zeit

London (Platts)--21Jul2004

Germany is unlikely to really decommission all its
nuclear power reactors, an article in weekly Die Zeit to
be published Thursday said. "We will make an exit from
the exit," said the newspaper. The paper, pointing to
representatives of the energy industry, said even though
generators would shut more nuclear power plants over the
next year or so, bigger reactors like Biblis, for
example, were unlikely to be decommissioned. 

"We will first see that generators will lengthen the
time for which they operate their plants, and after that
they will build new ones," said the paper. Die Zeit
reasoned that nuclear power was "appreciated" across the
European Union, that more nuclear plants were being
built across the world, mainly in Asia, and the
foreseeable "Renaissance of reactors" in industrial
nations.

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Some LANL work on hold until corrective actions
satisfied

Washington (Platts)--20Jul2004

Classified Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) work
involving such things as computer disks won't resume
until high-level DOE officials are satisfied that the
laboratory's corrective actions "will provide for
complete and verifiable custodial control of such
media," Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said today.
Abraham said that DOE Deputy Secretary Kyle McSlarrow
and National Nuclear Security Administrator Linton
Brooks concluded following a visit to LANL this week
"that the failure to follow appropriate procedures is
widespread and extends beyond the security area." He
added that they concluded that "Los Alamos lacks an
effective system to ensure the proper accountability of
so-called Controlled Removable Electronic Media such as
computer disks and hard drives." The restart of various
operations at the lab, Abraham said, is likely to occur
in stages.

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NRC report looks at international digital I&C

Washington DC (Platts)--19Jul2004

International experience with digital I&C systems may
help NRC to develop a licensing approach for advanced
nuclear plants, NRC said in a report released today. The
study, "Advanced Reactor Licensing: Experience with
Digital I&C Technology in Evolutionary Plants"
(Nureg/CR-6842; ORNL/TM 2004/74), was sponsored by NRC's
Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research, with work
performed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Preferred
Licensing Services, and Longenecker & Associates. The
report looked at reactors that had fully integrated
digital control rooms, particularly in Europe, Japan,
and Korea. Using the insights from performance
experience at foreign reactors could be beneficial for
reviewing advanced instrumentation & control (I&C)
systems in future reactors, NRC said. The 84-page report
is on NRC's document system Adams, accession number
ML04190046.

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