Platts - Friday, August 27, 2004 
http://www.platts.com

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Massachusetts nuclear engineering programs get DOE
grants

Washington (Platts)--26Aug2004

DOE has awarded grants totaling $490,000 to two
Massachusetts nuclear engineering programs. The
Massachusetts Institute of Technology received a
$257,000 matching grant for a reactor instrumentation
upgrade, and the University of Massachusetts at Lowell
received a matching grant of $233,000 for similar work.

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Fifth worker dies from Mihama PWR steam accident

Bonn (Platts)--25Aug2004

A fifth maintenance worker burned by hot steam and water
at Kansai Electric Co.'s Mihama-3 PWR has died, more
than two weeks after the mishap occurred and the victim
was placed on the critical list in a Fukui hospital.
Almost immediately after the secondary-side pipe
ruptured on Aug. 9, four workers were killed, and seven
others were taken to the hospital. The accident has
triggered a probe by Fukui prosecutors and regulators,
while Kansai has begun stepwise shutdowns of nine PWRs
to check on the integrity of turbine-side piping
affected in the Mihama-3 rupture. Prosecutors are
investigating whether Kansai Electric violated Japan's
Industrial Safety & Health Act in failing to inspect the
ruptured pipe segment prior to the accident.

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Admiral Bowman to be named new NEI president/CEO

Washington (Platts)--24Aug2004

The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) will name Admiral
Frank "Skip" Bowman as its new president and CEO. In a
press release to be issued tomorrow, NEI said that
Bowman will begin working Jan. 1 with Joe Colvin, the
group's current president and CEO, for a brief
transition period. Colvin announced last year that he
would retire sometime in early 2005. Bowman is currently
director of Naval Nuclear Propulsion and a deputy
administrator for naval reactors in DOE's National
Nuclear Security Administration. He will leave those
posts at the end of the year. In the release, Bowman is
quoted as saying that "nuclear energy plays and will
continue to play an important role in our nation's
energy future. We must take the necessary steps to
maintain the high levels of safe and reliable operations
at our current plants and ensure that these plants, as
well as new reactors, are part of a diverse energy
supply for our high-tech, electricity-driven economy."

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