NUCLEAR NOTES

FROM THE CAPITOL CITY….

* The question: What could possibly bring together NIRS and the Nuclear Energy Institute in a united front against the NRC?

The answer: ADAMS.

ADAMS is the NRC’s new document retrieval system, and it is designed to ultimately replace paper documents at the NRC. In the agency’s Brave New World, there will be no paper documents—and no access to paper documents—instead there will only be the Internet, and anything you want to find out about anything at the NRC will have to be done via computer.

Can’t afford a computer? You’re out of luck, unless you’re near a newly-paperless NRC Public Document Room, which will consist, virtually entirely, of a computer terminal.

Use a local-area-network, as do both NIRS and NEI? Forget it, ADAMS probably won’t work, since it’s incompatible with many local area networks.

Have a computer, not on a network and need a document fast? Well, probably not, with a dial-up modem ADAMS is excruciatingly slow—so slow, you’ll probably forget what document you wanted by the time it shows up on the screen; even with a superfast DSL line, ADAMS drags.

In short, ADAMS has a lot of problems. But the NRC apparently sees ADAMS as its future, and is brushing off criticism of the program from environmentalists and nuclear industry representatives alike. Apparently, if it doesn’t work for anyone, it makes the NRC happy.

While the complaints of NIRS and NEI mostly revolve around ADAMS’ inability to be used at multiple computer stations on a local area network (the NRC’s response to NIRS was, literally, "buy a standalone computer to access ADAMS"—sure, when the NRC starts buying NIRS computers, we’ll buy one….), the program is surely more dangerous to those with minimal or no computer access, since the intent is that ADAMS soon will supplant paper documents. Documents submitted to the NRC via e-mail no longer will be available on paper; rather they’ll be available only on ADAMS. Never mind that every document retrieved under ADAMS carries a warning that, as an electronic document, it is not official (but, of course, you can’t get the official document), nor that every time one logs on to ADAMS, one receives a death-black warning note that your mere presence on this site may spark government investigators to monitor your every move. ADAMS is the future. Trust the Future. Live With the Future. Obey the Future.

You can complain by writing to NRC Chairman Richard Meserve, US NRC, Washington DC 20555. And NIRS, NEI and others are joining in the unholiest of coalitions to either fix or dump ADAMS. While NIRS supports the broadest possible use of electronic communications—as we have for a decade now—we believe paper copies remain a necessity while many people are without computers, and any computer program purporting to be a replacement for paper must be essentially flawless.

*This really isn’t a Washington story, but where else to put it? British Nuclear Fuels already bought Westinghouse; now they’re buying another major reactor manufacturer: ABB-Combustion Engineering. Purchase price: about 1/10^th of what it costs to build an ABB-Combustion Engineering reactor: approximately $485 million (of course, BNFL bought the Westinghouse nuclear division—which has built more than 50 reactors worldwide—for only $1.1 billion). Meanwhile, in the ever-increasing globalization of the nuclear industry, traditional competitors Siemens of Germany and Framatome of France announced in December that they are effectively merging their nuclear businesses. Watch for a special issue on the globalization of the nuclear industry, and its ramifications, in the April Nuclear Monitor.

*The Federal Trade Commission ruled December 22, 1999, that the nuclear power industry’s self-promoting advertisements would be deceptive if aimed at consumers. However, the FTC said that the ads in question were aimed only at "opinion leaders," and thus it would not rule them false. (ed. note: hey, what a great country! It’s ok to lie to Congress and the media, but not to John Doe in Peoria!). The FTC found that the nuclear industry’s ads lied when they said that nuclear power is "environmentally clean," and that if the industry had made such claims in direct ads to consumers, the FTC would have banned the ads. The charge against the nuclear industry’s ads was brought by the Natural Resources Defense Council, Public Citizen, NIRS, and other groups.

*The Department of Energy, bowing to pressure from environmental groups and others, has scheduled three additional hearings on its Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for Yucca Mountain and high-level radioactive waste disposal. This DEIS remains the only public comment opportunity for the DOE’s plans to ship high-level waste across the country, although the DOE steadfastly refuses to address possible shipping routes. The new hearings are in Lincoln, Nebraska, January 24; Cleveland, Ohio, January 28; and Chicago, IL, February 1. A large protest already is planned for Chicago—be there. If you’d rather attend one of the other hearings, contact Kevin Kamps at NIRS for more information.

…AND ACROSS THE GLOBE

Mexico: Greenpeace is demanding an independent audit of safety issues at Mexico’s only operating reactors, at Laguna Verde. The demand follows numerous safety-related incidents at the plant, including one in October 1999, when one reactor lost its coolant water. In another incident—not even worthy of Homer Simpson—a reactor operator arrived at work drunk, and proceeded to drop a nuclear fuel rod when he was moving it with a crane. At least Homer sticks to donuts when he’s inside the plant…..

Russia: Former Environment Minister Alexey Yablokov is warning that Russia is about to embark upon construction of new "floating" nuclear reactors. According to Yablokov, Russian authorities have been interested in small reactors that would be located in the Sea for several years, but it wasn’t until 1999 that money for the project found its way into the Russian budget. The reactor designs originally were intended for use as desalizination projects, but may now be converted to produce electricity and, if successful, would be promoted for export. For more information on how you can help stop this project, e-mail: yablokov@glasnet.ru

Meanwhile, it is becoming more and more difficult to be an environmentalist in Russia. Several anti-nuclear activists affiliated with Ecodefense! (a group close to NIRS’ Eastern Europe/CIS project) recently have been harassed by Russian security forces. Recent Russian media reports have lumped Greenpeace and NIRS together as threats to the Russian state (cutest quote: NIRS obviously represents the U.S. nuclear industry—how naïve can any media be?), while independent nuclear researcher Joshua Handler recently had his computer and disks confiscated by Russia’s modern-day KGB equivalent, the FSB.

Nothwithstanding FSB and media threats, NIRS intends to continue its program of assistance to environmental groups in Russia and throughout the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.