Platts - Wednesday, November 09, 2005 http://www.platts.com ------------ NRC's FY-06 funding increases to $743.3-million Washington (Platts)--8Nov2005 NRC will receive $743.3-million in fiscal 2006, a House-Senate conference committee decided last night. The amount is a $41-million increase over FY-05 funding. The increase would be used to support licensing of next generation reactors and would require NRC to undertake a security assessment of utility on-site spent fuel pool storage. ------------ Wilson says Niger U industry could not have supplied Iraq New York (Platts)--8Nov2005 The 2002 rumor that Saddam Hussein was buying 500 metric tons (MT) of yellowcake from Niger was not credible because Niger's uranium industry was incapable of providing the material to anyone without substantial investment to expand mines and transport, former ambassador Joseph Wilson said Oct. 31. Speaking to a National Press Club luncheon, Wilson, who went to Niger to track down the rumor at the request of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analysts, said providing that much material would have required Niger to expand its production capacity 40%. He said he had found, in speaking to officials in both the mining industry and the government in February 2002, no indication at all of any expansion. That was a key reason he concluded the rumor was false, he said. The claim that Iraq was attempting to buy U from Niger was used by President George W. Bush in his January 2003 State of the Union speech as one justification for invading Iraq. Bush attributed the allegation to British intelligence. The original allegation appears to have stemmed from forged documents rejected by a CIA station chief in Italy early in 2002 and then peddled to other intelligence services. Wilson, after several months of trying to get the White House to correct the record following the State of the Union address, went public with his finding in July 2003. Administration officials tried to downplay the revelation by discrediting Wilson, and one or more administration officials revealed the name of his wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, who worked in CIA covert operations. A two-year special investigation into that leak, which may have breached national security law, resulted in indictment of the vice president's chief of staff, Lewis Libby, on Oct. 28 on obstruction of justice charges. Wilson, a career Foreign Service official who was the last U.S. charge d'affaires in Iraq negotiating with Hussein before the first Gulf war, had been dispatched to Niger on missions several times during the Clinton Administration, on behalf of the National Security Council, and had served as ambassador to Gabon. He noted that Gabon, like Niger, has uranium mining that is controlled by French mining interests. In Niger, that is Cogema with other foreign partners including Spain's Enusa and Japan's Overseas Uranium Resources Development Co. Ltd. (OURD). Niger's Office National des Resources Minieres is a one-third partner in the mines. He said the costs of mining in Niger had been for some time higher than the U would fetch on the world market. According to a presentation at the 2004 World Nuclear Association conference, Niger produced around 3,000 MT U annually in the five years through 2003. Cogema and its partners continued to mine in Niger for their own purposes, he said, but the government, which he described as "bankrupt since independence," received very little revenue because the material was being taken by the private partners at a loss. If government officials had made any deal for expanded U sales that would have brought in revenue, he said, it would have precipitated a "scramble" that could not have been kept secret in that impoverished country. Moreover, Wilson said, the government does not control the mines. They are controlled by the mining companies and are under IAEA inspection. Since the mines "are in the middle of the Sahara Desert," the Cogema-led consortium would have had to increase both mining and transport capability to meet an order the size of 500 MT, he said. He said that his discussions with contacts in the mining group and with present and former government officials found "none of that took place." Wilson said he discussed his findings with the U.S. ambassador in Niamey, Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, who had come to the same conclusions from her own contacts. A third inquiry led by a Marine Corps general also came to the same conclusions, he said. But less than a year later, the allegation was part of Bush's State of the Union address, and the White House did not retract the claim that Iraq was seeking yellowcake to restart its nuclear weapons program until after Wilson went public with his dissent in early July 2003. The rumor of Iraqi U plans stemmed from documents purporting to show a deal between Saddam Hussein and Nigerien officials. Wilson said he never saw those documents and they did not enter into his investigation. The IAEA asked the U.S. to turn over the documents shortly after Bush's speech, since the IAEA is charged with investigating such issues. The agency quickly declared them a forgery. Last week, the Italian newspaper La Repubblica alleged the documents were created by Italian intelligence service Sismi to aid the government in gaining White House favor by supporting its ambition to dislodge Saddam Hussein. Sismi's chief strongly denied the allegation. For more information, take a trial to Platts Nuclear Fuel at http://nucfuel.platts.com. ------------ EC 'in no hurry' on EU nuclear safety, waste laws: Piebalgs Brussels (Platts)--8Nov2005 The European Commission is prepared to wait for the adoption of its two draft laws on nuclear safety and waste, European Union energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs told Platts on the sidelines of a nuclear conference in Brussels late Monday. "We're not in a hurry," said Piebalgs. The EC has been negotiating with the EU Council of member state governments since 2002 to get the two EU harmonized laws adopted under the Euratom treaty. The final versions have hit a stalemate in the Council, with a minority of member states blocking adoption but not enough to reject the proposal entirely. "The EC will continue to strive for adoption of the nuclear package," said Piebalgs. "Both safety and waste management must be ensured for nuclear to remain part of the EU energy mix." But for the moment Piebalgs is simply hoping for the Council to resume the debate. "It depends on the EU presidency--hopefully under Finland (January-June 2006) we'll get a deeper debate," he said. Finland has decided to build a nuclear power plant--the first newbuild in Europe for decades--to reduce its dependency on power imports from Russia. The EC is also impressed by Finland's thought out and publicly accepted decommissioning and waste management strategy--something it would like all member states to have. But Piebalgs was not expecting the debate to lead to immediate adoption. "Member states are cooperating on safety and so far it's not a problem," said Piebalgs. "It's a bottom up approach." The Council has set up a working party on nuclear safety to look at nuclear safety and waste management in the EU with the aim of reporting conclusions by end-2006. The WPNS is to take account of two reports by the Western European Nuclear Regulators' Association planned for end-2005--one on safety and one on waste management and decommissioning-- which are to recommend steps to a harmonized approach. Wenra members are to respond with national action plans before end-2006, which are also to feed into the WPNS report. Delegates at the conference supported the bottom up approach, arguing that the differences between each nuclear power plant's situation were too great for top down safety standards to be useful. But a bottom up approach does not rule out eventual binding rules. "Experience shows that all voluntary initiatives become directives eventually," said Piebalgs. The EC is also working on a non-binding recommendation on best practice for nuclear decommissioning funds. It wants member states to show that they can ensure that they have set aside enough available funds to pay for the decommissioning when needed, and that such funds are managed completely transparently. For more nuclear news, request a free trial to Platts Nucleonics Week at http://www.platts.com/Request%20More%20Information/ ------------ Salem-1 claims record for refueling/head replacement outage Washington (Platts)--7Nov2005 Salem-1 claimed a world record for shortest refueling outage that included a vessel head replacement. The PSEG Nuclear unit, a Westinghouse PWR, returned to service yesterday after 25 days, six hours and three minutes. PSEG Nuclear said the outage ended 10 days ahead of the original 35-day target, four days ahead of the previous world record (29 days at Asco-2, operated by Asociacion Nuclear Asco-Vandellos II in Spain) and seven days ahead of the previous U.S. record (32 days at Constellation Energy's Ginna). ------------