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Newsletter
Issue #1/2002
January - February 2002
A collection of nuclear energy news from around the world
Uranium Information Centre Ltd, Melbourne, Australia ISSN 0728-2400
Last year may go down as something of a watershed in nuclear energy sentiment. Certainly there were more positive news and decisions affecting nuclear power than Recommendation on Yucca Mountain repository for perhaps two decades. In both the EU and the USA energy policies strongly affirmed the future role of Urenco and Exelon push US enrichment plans Greenhouse concerns seem certain to put a permanent UK government revamps nuclear establishment premium on non-carbon generation of electricity, and German and Swedish opinion remains pro-nuclear there is now enough wind capacity in place for both the virtues and limitations of that source to be evident. The uranium spot price steadily rose 35%, though the Australian uranium production & export up proportion of supply through the spot market rose only World Energy Council unequivocal on nuclear energy slightly to 11% of total. Cost projections for new nuclear French Academy denounces low radiation dose limits On 20 December the 50th anniversary of the first and two Russian models (see table page 2).
electricity to be delivered from a nuclear-powered The report was produced by the Near-Term Deployment generator (EBR-1 in Idaho, now a historical national Group, which complements the US-based Generation monument) went largely unnoticed. Two new IV International Forum (GIF) looking at the 30-year reactors - Volgodonsk-1 (nee Rostov-1) and Onagawa-3 perspective for advanced reactors and fuel cycle R&D.
started up in Russia and Japan. In the USA authorities are preparing for and have solicited applications to Separately, AECL has said that the cost of its 2-unit construct new reactors at both existing and new sites. CANDU power station three quarters complete at Qinshan, China, is US$ 1550/kW, and that it expects Ux Weekly 7/1/02, NucNet news # 347, 393/01 & 5/02. its CANDU-NG advanced reactor capital cost to be US$ 1000/kW with a total electricity cost target of 3 cents/ Several initiatives around the world are evaluating new reactor designs, first to see which might be deployed in A feasibility study on the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor the next 10-15 years, and secondly, to identify the most last year was very positive, and Exelon (the US worthy designs for longer term development.
member of the consortium developing it) is exploring the A new study for the US Dept of Energy’s Nuclear Energy Research Advisory Committee suggests that seven of the advanced reactor designs it evaluated could be Briefing papers published or updated in last two months deployed by 2010. The report said that capital costs (excluding interest) would need to be held to US$ 1500 per kilowatt. Based on vendor information, the total cost of electricity for the types considered ranged from US$ 3.6 to 4.6 cents/kWh (relative to expected market prices of 3.5 to 5.5 cents/kWh). Operating costs (fuel, O&M) should be held to 1 cent/kWh. Several promising advanced designs were not evaluated in the study, including the Framatome EPR, the CANDU-NG www.uic.com.au
Reactors evaluated for near-term deployment in USA
Design Supplier
Features
Record year for US nuclear plant uprates. evolutionary design certified by NRC, built & operating in The US nuclear industry in 2001 achieved its most expansive year for plant capacity increases, with a total of 1091 MWe being authorised by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for 20 of the nation’s 103 reactors. This is equivalent to the addition of one large new reactor, for a fraction of the cost (often as little as US$ 10 per kilowatt). Since 1977, a total of 3244 MWe of uprates have been carried out at 70 US units. BWR, based on simplified BWR, under development.
Licence renewal for further nuclear plant. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued its fourth 20-year licence renewal, for the two-unit Edwin Hatch power plant in Georgia. The utility Southern Nuclear applied almost two years ago to renew the licences for the boiling water reactors (797 & 806 MWe), which started up in 1974 and 1978. They will now be licensed to run for 60 years, to 2034 & 2038.
This means that out of 103 operating US nuclear power reactors, eight have been granted licence renewal, while applications for 14 more are under consideration. Following nearly two decades of exhaustive analysis, the US Energy Secretary has notified Nevada that he intends to recommend to the President next month that he approve the Yucca Mountain site as a permanent deep geological repository for the nations’ spent nuclear fuel and some military wastes. If the President accepts this, the Department of Energy will apply to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a licence to build and operate the repository. Some delay is likely if, as anticipated, Nevada forces a Congressional vote on the prospect of building up to 40 units in the USA. The date for starting construction of the first unit in South Africa was recently slipped to 2003 to allow Exelon’s design improvements to be incorporated, thereby expediting its US licensing prospects. Start of first US construction The US International Trade Commission has ruled 4-0 that USEC, the monopoly enrichment company and importer of would be 2006, at about $150 million per unit. The new blended-down Russian ex-military uranium, was being harmed Price Anderson Act proceeding through US Congress has by imports of low-enriched uranium from its competitors in a clause allowing multiple PBMR units at the same site Europe. At least one of these, Urenco, is considering an appeal to be treated as one unit for liability purposes. in the Court of International Trade. The ruling will now go to the Department of Commerce, which is expected to implement Another major international evaluation is the IAEA’s the duties announced in December: 2.2% on Urenco’s material International Project on Innovative Reactors and Fuel and 32% on Eurodif’s, for dumping subsidised uranium on the Cycles (INPRO). This brings together technology holders and technology users to foster the development The EU has threatened to take the matter to the World of economically-competitive reactor and fuel cycle Trade Organisation, and 19 US utilities warned of higher fuel innovations based on systems with inherent safety costs and potential plant closures if these financial penalties were imposed on the European imports. Cogema, the major features, minimal proliferation risk and low shareholder in Eurodif, said that this was an “erroneous environmental impact. INPRO is separate from an application of the law to incorrect interpretation of the ongoing three-agency study (by IAEA, OECD/NEA facts” and protested that Eurodif is not subsidised. It said & OECD/IEA) examining R&D on innovative reactor that to interpret Eurodif commercial contracts with French designs and from the GIF, but will seek input from utility EDF as involving subsidies “requires convoluted logic of immense proportions”. Cogema said it would seek to overturn both. It is distinct from GIF in its involvement of users, including developing countries, and in its breadth, NucNet business news # 101/01 & 6/02, Ux Weekly 28/1/02.
including a wide range of nuclear technologies for all Urenco and Exelon push US enrichment plans. Urenco, with its strong background in European centrifuge NucNet news # 237 & 331/01, Ux Weekly 10/12/01, FreshFuel 10/12/01, enrichment and Exelon, the largest US nuclear generator, have Nucleonics Week 15/11/01, summary DOE report 31/10/01, IAEA Worldatom.
met with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission to discuss building a new $1 billion centrifuge enrichment plant in the USA. An early decision is envisaged. Plans build on the Louisiana Energy Services proposal of the mid 1990s for a 1.5 The site of the new unit will be either at TVO’s Olkiluoto million SWU plant, which was aborted in 1998 due to despair plant or near Fortum’s Loviisa plant, each with two nuclear caused by regulatory delay and obstruction. The new plant reactors already in operation. Six potential designs have been would be about twice the size of the earlier proposal and submitted to TVO and reviewed by the national regulatory located on an existing nuclear industry site. Now involving authority: a 1360 MWe General Electric BWR (ABWR), a the main nuclear utilities, the move is seen as a strategic 1000 MWe Westinghouse PWR (APR-1000), a 1500 MWe challenge to USEC’s monopoly at a time when it still relies on Westinghouse-Atom BWR (BWR 90+), a 1550 Framatome outdated and inefficient technology which will not be replaced PWR (EPR), a 977 MWe Siemens BWR (SWR) and a 1070 MWe Russian PWR (probably similar to those being built in Exelon announces record nuclear performance.
NucNet news # 19/02, Foratom 17/1/02, Nucleonics Week 17/1/02, Helsingin Sanomat 18/1/02.
The US utility Exelon Nuclear has announced that its fleet of 17 reactors achieved a capacity factor of 94.4% in 2001, which UK government revamps nuclear establishment. is expected to be a few percent above the national average. The UK government has announced that it will set up a In 2000 the US figure was just under 90%, which represents a Liabilities Management Authority (LMA) to handle “the clean- dramatic rise over previous years: in 1980 it was only 56%, it up of the legacy created by the early years of Britain’s military reached 70% in 1991 and did not pass 80% until 1999.
and civil nuclear programs”. In particular it will take over all of the public sector civil nuclear liabilities now held by the NucNet business news # 7/02, Ux Weekly 21/1/02.
UK Atomic Energy Authority (£7 billion) and most of those USA narrows focus on plutonium disposition. held by BNFL (£35 billion), together with all BNFL’s assets at The US Department of Energy has completed an exhaustive Sellafield1, Capenhurst, Drigg and the elderly Magnox reactors review of the options for securely disposing of 34 tonnes of which came under BNFL’s wing in 1998. BNFL will continue weapons plutonium surplus to military stockpiles. Despite its to operate these facilities, notably the THORP and Magnox earlier commitment to a dual-track strategy, the immobilisation reprocessing facilities and the new MOX plant, under 10-15 option in a modified form of Synroc has now been dropped, year contracts. Once these end BNFL will have to compete and all 34 tonnes will be burned in mixed oxide (MOX) fuel.
to keep the work (though Magnox reprocessing will have concluded by then anyway). The relationship between the In 1998 the DOE published an EIS dealing with disposition LMA and BNFL will be much the same as between the US DOE of 50 tonnes of plutonium, 17 tonnes of which were to be immobilised and 33 tonnes used for MOX fuel for civil reactors. The recent review affirms the MOX route as a BNFL will become essentially a two-business company in proven technology, and is said to save nearly US$ 2 billion by terms of its balance sheet: Fuel Manufacture and Reactor eliminating the immobilisation pathway. MOX fuel fabrication Services through Westinghouse, and Nuclear Decommissioning and related facilities will be built at Savannah River, South & Cleanup, with the Spent Fuel & Engineering business unit Carolina, and the project is expected to cost US$ 3.8 billion and Magnox Generation becoming contractors. over 20 years. The 34 tonnes Pu in question (equivalent to Details will await a white paper and legislation in 2002, but about 9000 tU from a mine) is the amount specified for each essentially the LMA will undertake on behalf of the government country under the 2000 US-Russian Plutonium Management “to sustain a clean-up program extending into the next and Disposition Agreement. Russia is also committed to using century”, bringing together all the expertise available. “The LMA will work in partnership with site licensees, initially the NucNet news # 32/02, DOE 23/1/02, Ux Weekly 28/1/02.
UKAEA and BNFL, and the safety, security and environmental regulators to achieve the most effective and safe means of discharging the liabilities.” On its part, BNFL has revised its balance sheet regarding historic nuclear wastes arising from the early years of the UK nuclear program, resulting in an increase in liabilities of £1.9 billion. This will be addressed by the LMA, enabling privatisation to be progressed in 2004-05.
After considering an application made a year ago by Finnish DTI 28/11/01, BNFL 28/11/01, NucNet news 357/01, Economist 1/12/01, utility TVO, the government has approved by a 10-6 cabinet vote the building of a new nuclear unit. Parliament will now vote on the matter in a few months time. It rejected a similar UK Lords criticise government sloth on wastes. proposal in 1993, but the political climate is now much more The House of Lords Science & Technology Committee, which issued a major report on UK radioactive wastes early in 1999, has criticised the UK government’s lack of action on Finland’s four existing reactors (2656 MWe total) generated these wastes. Its Chairman said that “the technology to a record 22.5 billion kWh last year, about one third of the solve the problem is there but apparently not the will. The country’s electricity. These reactors are remarkable in the government’s consultative paper, which has taken the better extent to which they have been uprated since they were built. part of two years in gestation, is consulting only about how we Olkiluoto 1 & 2 started operation in 1978-79 at 690 MWe would like to be consulted. Effective action is now urgently (gross), they now produce 870 MWe each and their lifetime has required.” Their report points out that terrorist threats mean that “underground storage [is] the only realistic option” and TVO’s application is based primarily on economic criteria “effective action needs to begin now on the difficult and (lowest kWh cost, lowest sensitivity to fuel price increases), decades-long task of developing repositories”. However, lack of but it notes the considerable energy security and greenhouse a coherent waste strategy should be no bar to planning more benefits. Climate policy is a major reason for government support for the proposal, while its detractors support a massive increase in natural gas use (from Russia) for electricity generation. Projections suggest that about 7500 MWe of additional capacity is needed by 2030.
1 The Sellafield site was originally a weapons production facility and includes closed-down plant dating from the 1940s.
cheaper than building any replacement capacity. The four The energy policy review which has been undertaken by the Russian VVER-440 units (model 213, the second generation of cabinet office for the UK government has been delayed by that type) came on line 1983-87, and the review concluded disagreement over the future role of nuclear energy. The that there was no obvious reason why the units should not run report is to form the basis of a white paper on energy policy. for 50 years, after some further investment. This comes on top A series of leaks have disparaged nuclear energy and it now of existing plans for an 8% increase in their capacity. appears that conflict between two senior ministers is being sorted out by the Prime Minister. The Energy Minister has Russia signs up to complete Ukrainian reactors. pointed out that without nuclear power, security of supply would be compromised as the UK became “70% dependent on Russia and Ukraine have signed an agreement to fund the gas, 90% of which would be imported, some of it from places completion of the two Ukrainian reactors, Khmelnitsky-2 which I don’t think we would wish to stake our children’s and Rovno-4 after the European Bank for Reconstruction & future on”. Others are concerned that affirming nuclear would Development (EBRD) was spurned. It had been ready to mean backing off wind development and energy conservation.
confirm approval of a US$ 215 million loan, releasing a total of US$ 1480 million to complete the reactors in upgraded form to western safety standards. Loan conditions would have required higher electricity prices and enhancement of safety at The French ministry of economics, finance & industry has published a detailed study of long-term electricity generation The new agreement draws on funding already in Russia’s options, after 2020. It concludes that the least expensive, most 2002 budget and does “not exclude” future EBRD involvement. flexible and most judicious option is to extend the operating EBRD then announced that it had postponed consideration lifetimes of its 58 existing nuclear power units. This would of the loan, but some negotiations on revised conditions involve some modest refurbishment costs, but would result continued in December. After conflicting statements, at the in very competitive electricity production costs of about FF end of January the way forward was unclear.
8 cents/kWh (<1.1 cent US). Alternatively the progressively- NucNet news # 389/01, EBRD 29/11/01, Nucleonics Week 30/11/01, 3/1/02, Ux retired nuclear reactors could be replaced by combined gas cycle plants, giving an electricity cost of about FF 15 cents/kWh if gas prices remain low, plus significant macroeconomic effects. Thirdly, if safety authorities did not approve lifetime The German economics minister has published a long-awaited extension, present reactors could be replaced by new ones government energy policy paper which makes it plain that its which would produce at about FF 10 cents/kWh. 40% greenhouse gas emission reduction target is in practical terms incompatible with any major reduction in nuclear energy. Meeting the climate target without the country’s 19 emission- free nuclear plants which provide 31% of the electricity would require a doubling of gas consumption from much increased The latest poll in Sweden shows that 75% of people imports. The paper also presented cost estimates for nuclear give top environmental priority to restraining greenhouse phase-out, which have proved contentious.
gas emissions, 12% to protecting unspoiled rivers from hydro-electric development, and 10% to phasing out nuclear NucNet news # 356/01, Nucleonics Week 29/11/01 & 17/1/02.
power. On nuclear power matters, 19% support premature closure of Barseback-2 nuclear plant (as planned by the Siemens has confirmed that it will dismantle its unused mixed government), 37% favour continued operation of all the oxide fuel fabrication plant at Hanau. The decision was country’s 11 nuclear power units, a further 28% favour this taken after the G-8 summit in June failed to provide political plus their replacement in due course, and 11% want to further or financial backing for exporting the plant to Russia for develop nuclear power in Sweden. The pro-nuclear total thus disposition of 34 tonnes of excess military plutonium under the amounts to 76%, which is in line with earlier polls. US-Russian bilateral arms reduction agreement. A September 2001 poll (N=2071) just published shows continuing strong public support in Germany for nuclear energy. Most believe that nuclear power will continue to be very important for the country and that the current government policies driven by minority coalition partners will December’s EU summit in Laeken raised the question of EU not persist. Indeed, opposition policies for this year’s federal safety standards for nuclear power reactors. There was an election are already flagging nuclear energy as a significant assertion that EU standards needed to be “higher than those policy issue, with a view to reversing the present long-term set by the IAEA”, though there has been no serious suggestion that that IAEA safety standards fall short of any operational NucNet news # 391/01, 17 & 20/02.
or regulatory desideratum. Foratom, the industry association, has urged compliance with IAEA safety principles for aspiring Following issuance of its licence from the government Health & Safety Executive, BNFL has begun transferring plutonium- The 1994 Convention on Nuclear Safety sets international bearing material into its Sellafield MOX plant. This is the first benchmarks based on published IAEA safety criteria, but stage of commissioning, exactly on schedule. The plant will it is not designed to ensure fulfilment of obligations by ramp up to full commercial operation this year. Parties through control and sanction. It is based on their common interest to achieve higher levels of safety, and entered into force in 1996. Today the IAEA is fostering explicit harmonisation of standards particularly in the areas of Following a detailed technical and economic study, a decision emergency preparedness and response, legal and governmental has been taken to extend the operating licence of the four Paks infrastructure, site evaluation, reactor design and operation, nuclear units by 20 years. Paks has the lowest generating cost of any Hungarian power plant, at about US$ 2.0-2.2 cents/kWh, NucNet insider #45, Foratom, IAEA Worldatom.
and the study shows that lifetime extension will be much thus undermines any intention to ratify the climate change treaty, which would involve making the 6% national emission While Japan has been eager to ensure the success of the Kyoto The locally designed and built Qinshan-2 reactor achieved Protocol, its manufacturing industry is conscious of the fact criticality at the end of December, and the French-origin that China next door has no constraint on carbon emissions. Lingao-1 is expected to do so in February. Qinshan-2 is a 610 In November, under some political pressure from Europe, MWe pressurised water reactor, scaled up from its 279 MWe Japan announced that it would ratify the treaty despite US predecessor. Its construction started in 1996. The 984 MWe disengagement from it. Without Japan it would be unlikely Lingao-1 is very similar to the two nearby Daya Bay units, also that the present treaty could come into effect. The China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) has reported the start of site works at Sanmen, near Qinshan in Zhejiang The Myanmar government has announced that it will acquire province. Two 1000 MWe PWRs are to be built, apparently a 10MW Russian research reactor, to be built from 2003 by the first of a major tranche under the current 5-year plan. The Minatom for the Ministry of Science and Technology. The technology base for these remains undefined. CNNC has been country recently created a Ministry of Atomic Energy, and working with Westinghouse to develop a Chinese standard specialists have been trained in Russia. The reactor will 3-loop design, but Framatome ANP has also been commending produce radioisotopes for medicine, agriculture and education.
its CNP-1000 version developed from Daya Bay and Lingao, with high (60 GWd/t) burn-up and up to 24 month refueling Eight units already under construction or commissioning are: Qinshan phase 2 (units 2 and 3), locally-designed and constructed reactors scaled up from Qinshan-1; Qinshan phase 3 (units 4 and 5) using CANDU 6 technology, with Atomic Uranium production and exports increase. Energy of Canada (AECL) being the main contractor of the WMC’s quarterly production report for Olympic Dam shows project; two Lingao reactors using French technology supplied 678 tonnes uranium oxide concentrate (673 t U O , 571 tU) by Framatome ANP in Guangdong province; and two Russian produced to the end of December, less than half of the previous VVER-1000 reactors at Jiangsu Tianwan in Liangyungang quarter’s record, due to the solvent extraction plant fire. This province being constructed by Minatom but incorporating made 4379 tonnes (4355 t U O , 3713 tU) for the full year.
Finnish safety features and Siemens instrumentation and control systems. All these, totalling 6320 MWe, are due to start ERA has announced drummed production of 1154 tonnes U O (979 tU) from Ranger for the three months to end of December, giving a year’s figure for 2001 of 4203 t U O With air pollution, particularly from coal burning, now said to (3564 tU) - slightly down on 2000. Sales revenue was A$ 161 be the main cause of deaths and disease in China’s cities, the million for the 12 months on 4430 tonnes (4022t from Ranger, nuclear program is acquiring a popular impetus.
408t other), giving “disappointing” earnings (EBIT) of A$ 21.5 NucNet news #1/02, business news # 104/01 & 2/02, Nucleonics Week 14/1/02, Nuclear Engineering International October 2001, Australian 19/1/02, information/briefing paper on Nuclear Power in China.
This brings the calendar 2001 Australian production apart from Beverley (Heathgate Resources has not so far published any data) to 8558 tonnes U O (7257 tU) - representing almost half The seventh shipment of high-level radioactive wastes from of Australia’s energy exports in thermal terms.
France has been shipped to Japan via the Panama Canal, In 2001 Australia’s total uranium exports, including from arriving in January. The six robust casks containing 152 Beverley, rose slightly to 9239 tonnes U O (7834 tU) - to canisters of vitrified waste from reprocessing Japanese spent ten countries. The largest customer country was the USA, 3140 tonnes, followed by Japan - 3071 tonnes, then South Korea 874t, UK 683t, France 659t, Canada 210t, Sweden 204t, Belgium 176t, Germany 165t and Finland 165t.
WMC 14/1/02, ERA 30/1/02, DITR 24/1/02.
The Japanese utility Kansai Electric Power has suspended its orders for mixed oxide (MOX) fuel from France’s Melox plant after Japan’s ministry of economy, trade & industry refused to accept Kansai’s and Melox’s quality assurance procedures for the fuel. This follows quality assurance problems with eight MOX fuel assemblies supplied to Kansai by Britain’s BNFL from a small demonstration plant. Melox is a large Nuclear micro-batteries under development. highly-automated plant which has been operating for seven Research funded by the US Dept of Energy is developing years and last year received the Quality Award from the isotope thermo-electric generators to power micro- French ministry of economics, finance & industry for its quality electromechanical systems (MEMS) of a few cubic millimetres. These generators operate in the same way as the larger and well-proven satellite and spacecraft power systems based on plutonium-238, but employ shorter-lived isotopes such as Po-210 to generate electricity through thermocouples which The Japanese government has agreed not to subject industry to harness the decay heat. They have the potential for cheap any mandatory greenhouse gas emission reductions for at least mass production. Isotope-powered MEMS are likely to be used the next three years. The 1997 Protocol commits Japan to a for sensing and transmitting data from remote or inaccessible 6% reduction from its 1990 emission level by 2010-12, though current emissions are well over the 1990 level. The decision World Energy Council unequivocal on nuclear energy.
In its conclusions and recommendations from its 18th Congress in October 2001, WEC said: “For base-load electricity Geoscience Australia has released a Mineral Resource Report generation, the most effective means currently in use to reduce entitled Australia’s uranium resources, geology and CO emissions are nuclear power and hydroelectric power. Those countries with the highest proportion of nuclear and/or The report presents the latest information on Australia’s hydro power have the lowest CO emissions per kWh. Nuclear uranium resources, and descriptions of the geology of the energy and large hydro have advantages in terms of global deposits and prospects. In addition it gives a summary of warming, cost stability and high capacity factors which make the development of the uranium mines, including present them compatible with the goals of sustainable development for operations and earlier operations of the 1950s and 1960s.
tomorrow’s world. They should continue to play an important role in electricity generation. Available on the Geoscience Australia website at: “In particular, in the case of nuclear power there is Part A: (5.2 Mb) http://www.agso.gov.au/pdf/RR0030.pdf a range of options including plant life extensions, new Part B: (4.0 Mb) http://www.agso.gov.au/pdf/RR0031.pdf plants, reprocessing of spent fuel to maximise its use (where economically feasible), and innovative technologies Complete full resolution version (33.0 Mb) suitable for printing which address design, licensing, fabrication, construction, at: http://www.agso.gov.au/pdf/RR0076.pdf performance, safety and effective waste management. With the help of governments and industry, public acceptance of this It is available on CD but there are no present plans to publish significant source of energy will continue to improve.
“In the short term, some renewables, such as wind and geothermal, are a very suitable complement rather than a replacement for large-scale generation.” French Academy denounces low radiation dose limits. The French Academy of Medicine has renewed its opposition to a proposed 20 mSv annual occupational radiation dose limit and has denounced the use of the linear non-threshold (LNT) hypothesis to estimate health effects of low doses, saying it has been disproven by numerous experimental and epidemiological data. The Academy also condemns the use of collective doses to estimate health effects, “even if they appear convenient for administrative reasons”. The draft 20 mSv/yr occupational limit would “bring no health benefit, while hampering operation of medical radiology”. The Academy said France should adopt the Euratom radiation protection directive which sets a 100 mSv over 5 year limit with maximum of 50 mSv/yr. The full Academy adopted the statement unanimously.
The statement says that it is unacceptable that so few resources are applied to reducing medical radiation doses (95% of the artificial radiation received) compared with the high funding given to radiation protection in the power industry. It goes on to address disinformation about radiological risks from nuclear wastes and the health effects of the Chernobyl accident. Concerning wastes, the Academy says that attention needs to be on potential individual doses, not collective dose. It confirmed that no increase in thyroid cancer outside of the USSR could be attributed to Chernobyl. Published by Uranium Information Centre Ltd ABN 30 005 503 828 Phone: (03) 9629 7744 Fax: (03) 9629 7207 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.uic.com.au
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