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This joint study by the U.S. National Academies and the Russian Academy of Sciences (NAS and RAS) will provide an assessment of the technical, economic, legal/regulatory, and non-proliferation criteria necessary for the implementation of an international civilian nuclear fuel cycle. The study is not intended to be a comprehensive treatment of the topics listed, but rather a high-level, first cut at these complex issues. Specifically, the proposed NAS-RAS joint study will address the primary issues and questions listed below under headings A and B. The secondary issues and questions will be addressed to the extent that budget and time permit::

EPA Issues Final Yucca Mountain Radiation Standards (9/30/08) EPA has established radiation standards for the proposed spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste disposal facility at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. EPA is required to set standards consistent with the findings and recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and satisfy a July 2004 court decision to extend the standards' duration. The Yucca Mountain standards are in line with approaches used in the international radioactive waste management community. The final standards will: * Retain the dose limit of 15 millirem per year for the first 10,000 years after disposal; * Establish a dose limit of 100 millirem annual exposure per year between 10,000 years and 1 million years; * Require the Department of Energy (DOE) to consider the effects of climate change, earthquakes, volcanoes, and corrosion of the waste packages to safely contain the waste during the 1 million-year period; and * Be consistent with the recommendations of the NAS by establishing a radiological protection standard for this facility at the time of peak dose up to 1 million years after disposal.

"The U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has repeatedly affirmed that any exposure to radioactivity, no matter how small, carries a health risk. In its 2006 BEIR VII report ("Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation," 7th iteration), NAS even reported mounting evidence that low dose radiation carries a supra-linear health hazard. That is, low doses are disproportionately more harmful, per unit dose, than high dose radiation. The bottom line is, exposure to low dose radiation, such as intentional "routine" discharges or "accidental" leaks of tritium into the Connecticut River and downstream drinking water supplies and food chains, risks human and wildlife health impacts. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's 20,000 picocuries per liter limit on tritium in drinking water is not a conservative health standard. The state of California has a goal to limit tritium in drinking water to 400 picocuries per liter, a fifty-fold strengthening. The state of Colorado's goal is 500 picocuries per liter, a forty-fold strengthening. EPA's and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) radiological health standards are inappropriately based on "Reference Man" faulty assumptions, which leaves more vulnerable women, children and fetuses at increased risk."

"Time is running out for those wanting to nominate someone for the committee that will study to determine whether uranium can be mined and milled safely in Virginia. "There is no specified deadline for submitting nominations, but they are unlikely to be considered if they do not get submitted by the end of next week," said Jennifer Walsh, spokeswoman for the National Academy of Sciences and the National Research Council, citing an e-mail from the study director for the project. The NAS/NRC is conducting the study that will focus on the scientific and technical aspects of uranium mining and milling. NAS/NRC officials expect it to be completed in the fall of 2011. "

Beyond Nuclear today raised concerns over the potential for nuclear industry bias in a proposed study that will look at cancer risks around U.S. nuclear power reactors. The study, initiated by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), has been offered to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). The two agencies will meet to discuss the investigation of cancer risks around U.S. reactors on April 26th, the 24th anniversary of the reactor explosion at Chernobyl in the Ukraine that dispersed radiation across the planet. The NRC had previously retained Oak Ridge Associated Universities to conduct the study, but has shifted to the NAS. The move came in an apparent response to earlier criticisms of potential bias after citizens' groups, sent a letter expressing strong apprehension over conflicts of interest and inappropriate study methodology. This study would update a 1990 National Cancer Institute study which had universally recognized design flaws.

"U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch is asking a national panel to take a fresh look at the science behind the government's program for compensating people who were injured by exposure to atomic-testing fallout and the uranium industry. Sponsor of the original Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), Hatch put the request in a letter Monday to the Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board of the National Academy of Sciences. His letter comes two weeks after the Utah Republican panned bipartisan legislation in Congress to expand RECA as overbroad and too expensive. "When I worked to enact the original RECA law to help Utahns exposed to radiation, the policy was based on scientific evidence -- an absolute must when you're talking about Hatch RECA letter (pdf) these types of programs," he said Tuesday. "The goal of the letter to the National Academy of Sciences [NAS] is to see whether or not new scientific data exists to justify expanding the RECA program; in the past it did not," he added. "I want NAS to examine the data and talk with Utah radiation victims to see if that is justified before anyone puts more taxpayer dollars on the line." Companion bills in the House and the Senate would expand RECA eligibility to those who suffered from exposure in seven states: New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana and Nevada. Only those in certain counties in three states are now eligible to apply for payments from the fund of $50,000, $100,000 or $150,000, depending Advertisement on whether they were exposed as millers, miners, ore transporters, atomic program employees or downwinders. The Utah counties now covered include: Beaver, Garfield, Iron, Kane, Millard, Piute, San Juan, Sevier, Washington and Wayne. The federal government's current program has paid nearly $1.5 billion to more than 22,000 people. Some 4,776 of them are Utahns who have received nearly $275 million from the federal program. "

Court rules damages paid earlier 'adequate' Twelve victims of radiation poisoning have lost their appeal for 12 million baht in compensation from an engineering and electrical equipment distributor over its reckless storage of radioactive materials. Sonthaya: Right hand crippled SURAPOL PROMSAKA NA SAKOLNAKORN The members of the group claimed Kamol Sukosol Electric Co Ltd was negligent when it stored radioactive materials not properly secured in its car park. This allowed a cylinder of cobalt-60 - a radioactive isotope that can cause cancer - to be stolen from the company property. But the Appeals Court yesterday ruled in the company's favour saying the 640,276 baht in compensation the Civil Court had earlier ordered Kamol Sukosol to pay was sufficient.

Court rules damages paid earlier 'adequate' Twelve victims of radiation poisoning have lost their appeal for 12 million baht in compensation from an engineering and electrical equipment distributor over its reckless storage of radioactive materials. Sonthaya: Right hand crippled SURAPOL PROMSAKA NA SAKOLNAKORN The members of the group claimed Kamol Sukosol Electric Co Ltd was negligent when it stored radioactive materials not properly secured in its car park. This allowed a cylinder of cobalt-60 - a radioactive isotope that can cause cancer - to be stolen from the company property. But the Appeals Court yesterday ruled in the company's favour saying the 640,276 baht in compensation the Civil Court had earlier ordered Kamol Sukosol to pay was sufficient.

n a last-ditch effort to avoid regulating widespread perchlorate contamination of drinking water, the Bush Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is calling for yet another blue-ribbon study of the toxic rocket fuel component and widespread pollutant. While the work of the National Academy of Sciences is highly respected, the EPA leadership's attempt to have NAS conduct a new review of perchlorate has to be seen as nothing more than an effort to dodge the issue and buy time for the defense, aerospace and chemical industries, which have been lobbying aggressively to avoid millions in perchlorate clean-up costs. "We know enough about perchlorate's thyroid-disrupting properties to understand that our government has to address this danger immediately," said Dr. Anila Jacob, Senior Scientist with Environmental Working Group (EWG). "EPA has fought every call for a safety standard for perchlorate in drinking water, prompting Congress to introduce measures compelling the agency to do so. Now, with less than two weeks left in power, the Bush team has come up with a last-minute ploy - another study that will amount to a delaying action."

Senators celebrated Steven Chu today as a scientist, administrator and Nobel Prize winner. But in the hearing on his nomination as President-elect Barack Obama's Energy secretary, Chu was cast in a new role: politician. Under gentle questioning from the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the physicist and director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory signaled his support for a variety of energy alternatives -- including coal -- to America's dependence on imported oil.

Neither the former workers at a nuclear weapons plant in Largo nor Sen. Bill Nelson are buying into a recently released Inspector General report. The report by the Inspector General for the federal Labor Department says claims for benefits under a program for sick plant workers are being processed according to law. Congress passed a program in 2000 to compensate sick workers at the General Electric plant and pay their medical bills.

Project Scope A National Academies committee will provide technical and strategic advice to the DOE-EM's Office of Engineering and Technology to support the development and implementation of its cleanup technology roadmap. Specifically, the study will identify: o Principal science and technology gaps and their priorities for the cleanup program based on previous National Academies reports, updated and extended to reflect current site conditions and EM priorities and input form key external groups, such as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, Environmental Protection Agency, and state regulatory agencies. o Strategic opportunities to leverage research and development from other DOE programs (e.g., in the Office of Science, Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, and the National Nuclear Security Administration), other federal agencies (e.g., Department of Defense, Environmental Protection Agency), universities, and the private sector. o Core capabilities at the national laboratories that will be needed to address EM's long-term, high-risk cleanup challenges, especially at the four laboratories located at the large DOE sites (Idaho National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and Savannah River National Laboratory). o The infrastructure at these national laboratories and at EM sites that should be maintained to support research, development, and bench and pilot scale demonstrations of technologies for the EM cleanup program, especially in radiochemistry.

Some communities welcome the jobs and cash created by the skyrocketing prices of metals, but in other areas, the surge has generated battles with the tourism business and environmental groups.

A shortage of energy and water will cap future uranium mine expansion in Namibia, but the country hopes to ease the bottlenecks through desalination and a new coal-fired power plant, an industry body said on Wednesday. The government has issued some 50 exclusive prospecting licenses for more uranium mining firms, but output of uranium is dependent on the availability of water.

South Africa was seeking commercial contracts with foreign companies to reprocess spent nuclear fuel, a senior government official said yesterday. The country plans to expand its nuclear industry and diversify its energy mix as it battles a crippling power shortage that has hit key mining, smelting and manufacturing sectors, trimming growth in the economy.

The response to the Georgia invasion is ill-timed, many experts say. WASHINGTON -- Nearly six weeks after Russia sent troops into neighboring Georgia, the Bush administration remains deeply divided over whether to retaliate against it -- and some officials fear the internal conflict is already undermining strategically important national security collaborations.

Power provider Entergy Corp. is advancing its plans to spin off nuclear plants that generate free-market electricity, a deal that may be a boon for shareholders but a potential burden for taxpayers, according to critics. If approved by regulators, Enexus Energy Corp., to be based in Jackson, Mississippi, will become a separate, publicly traded company in the next several months.

The federal government applied for a license Tuesday to build a long-planned dump for the nation's radioactive waste in Nevada, but state officials vowed a renewed effort to block it, saying Washington has "lost track of reality." After a quarter-century of scientific dispute and legal wrangling, the Energy Department officially launched what could be one of the most complex and costly engineering efforts in history. The Yucca Mountain repository, located 16 miles from the California border, would eventually store 70,000 metric tons of waste that has been accumulating since the first reactors went online.

WASHINGTON -- As head of analysis for all U.S. spy agencies, Thomas Fingar was making final edits last summer on a long-awaited intelligence report on Iran. The draft concluded that Tehran was still pursuing a nuclear bomb, a finding that echoed previous assessments and would have bolstered Bush administration hawks. Then, just weeks before the report was to be delivered to the White House, new intelligence surfaced indicating that Tehran's nuclear weapons work had stopped.

FORT WORTH, Texas: The nation's nuclear energy industry, all but stagnant for three decades, is quietly building toward a resurgence with more than two dozen new reactors on the drawing board. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has received applications to build 15 new reactors in eight states. Later this year, plants in seven other states plan to seek permits for a dozen more reactors. The first could be built and operating by 2016.

ALBUQUERQUE -- A state committee has approved a proposal from five American Indian tribes to give central New Mexico's Mount Taylor temporary protection as a cultural property at a contentious meeting. The state Cultural Properties Review Committee voted 4-2 Saturday in Grants for an emergency listing of more than 422,000 acres surrounding the mountain's summit on the state Register of Cultural Properties.