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To: Yorikke who wrote (372)3/8/2007 1:12:50 PM
From: Yorikke   of 825
 
Walker's World: India's nuke deal falters
By MARTIN WALKER
UPI Editor Emeritus


MUMBAI, March 6 (UPI) -- There is a serious problem with this week's detailed negotiations on the nuclear cooperation agreement between India and the United States, whose success is essential if the Bush administration's rhetoric about "strategic partnership" with India is to become a reality.

Among the diplomats and officials in Washington and New Delhi, the pact is seen as a done deal, with only a few technical issues left to be resolved and critics of the agreement are dismissed as "isolated voices" and "a handful of disaffected scientists."


But in a leafy suburb of Mumbai, sitting over cups of tea in his living room, the grand old man of India's nuclear scientists told United Press International that he was firmly opposed to the deal, and that as currently drafted it would fatally compromise Indian sovereignty over its nuclear program.


"I do not think I am a lone disaffected scientist," said Peter Ayengar, former chairman of India's Atomic Energy commission. "Every other living former chairman of the Commission agrees with me. Indeed, I do not know any Indian nuclear scientists who do not agree."


"As currently drafted, the agreement would force us to stop re-processing nuclear fuel, something we have been doing for thirty years. It would terminate our strategic program (India's nuclear weapons program) by exposing us to sanctions if we conducted nuclear tests. And it puts impossible barriers in our path to ongoing and future research, including our well-developed programs for fast-breeder reactors and to use thorium rather than uranium as a nuclear fuel," he added.


"By saying that India shall not re-process fuel and not develop the fast-breeder reactors, this deal undermines our ability to produce energy in the future when uranium runs out," Ayengar went on. "This is a question of national sovereignty, of India's right and ability to decide such things for ourselves."


Ayengar could speak out because he is retired. Other Indian nuclear scientists who are still serving, who spoke to UPI off the record because of a gag order issued by the Indian government, agreed with his objections to the deal. Some went further, claiming "we believe the real U.S. motive is to take control over India's nuclear capabilities."


The deal began as a way to allow India legal access to U.S. nuclear technology and to uranium fuel for its nuclear power stations. This required India to join the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the international control system, which India has for 40 years refused to do. In the initial agreement of July 2005, the Bush administration thought it had met India's concerns by allowing India to separate its military from its civilian reactors, and to limit the intrusive inspection regime to the civilian sector.


As then written, Ayengar thought the deal might be acceptable. But by the time it had gone through the U.S. Congress, he told UPI, "the terms had been substantially rewritten. It is no longer a partnership agreement between India and the United States but a non-proliferation mechanism that puts us in the corner."


The opposition of Ayengar and other nuclear scientists has thrown up formidable political hurdles to the deal in India's Parliament. Leftist members of the governing coalition are against it from a deep-rooted suspicion of U.S. policies in general, while the conservative and nationalist opposition parties oppose it for compromising Indian sovereignty.


Prime Minister Manmohan Singh backs the deal for three main reasons. First, it ends India's status as a nuclear pariah by bringing it within the NPT system. Second, this means that India can in future legally import uranium as fuel for its reactors. (Ayengar confirmed that this had not been much of a problem in the past, and that he had been able to acquire uranium from China.) Third, it opens the way for India to start exporting its nuclear power technology and to sell nuclear power stations into what looks to be a booming future market.


India's newest reactor, the 220-Megawatt pressurized heavy water reactor called the Kaiga 3, went critical last week and will start delivering power later this month. Anil Kakodkar, current chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, says the extraordinary low costs and the short 5-year construction time "has set a new international benchmark."


India's Nuclear Power Corporation claims that it can build export versions of Kaiga 3 for "less than half the current international average cost of $1,500 per installed Kilowatt." Indian media reports suggest that initial negotiations have begun for export sales to Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.


After detailed talks last week between Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon and U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns, American officials claimed they saw no real problem in drafting an agreement that would satisfy India -- that it would be guaranteed future uranium supplies and allowed to conduct nuclear tests. But both Indian and U.S. negotiators told reporters the issue of India's right to re-process spent nuclear fuel "would be the toughest nut to crack" and would probably require "political intervention at the highest level."


There is no doubt that both governments want the deal to succeed, primarily as a symbol of the new strategic friendship of India and the U.S. This is rooted in the way that each country feels the need for support as the world's two largest democracies confront the challenge of China's dramatic rise in economic and military potential, a challenge that was emphasized this week with China's announcement of another 18 percent increase in its military budget.


The question for Ayengar and India's nuclear scientists is whether the price the Americans are now demanding is too high.

upi.com 

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To: Yorikke who wrote (373)3/8/2007 1:21:06 PM
From: Yorikke   of 825
 
Q&A With: Sudhinder Thakur
By Harry Goldstein

This leading executive in India's civilian nuclear power program tells us that his country's recent agreement with the United States will help in a plan to use thorium as a fuel

Sudhinder Thakur, a 58-year-old mechanical engineer with a degree from the University of Delhi, is executive director of corporate planning for the Nuclear Power Corp. of India Ltd. (NPCIL), a government enterprise charged with building and running the country’s nuclear power plants. He sat down with IEEE Spectrum Senior Editor Harry Goldstein in the company’s offices in Mumbai in January to talk about the recent agreement between the United States and India that could ultimately provide India with access to light-water reactor technology and uranium. Thakur also spoke about India’s indigenous program, which will ultimately rely on a combination of fast breeder reactors and thorium, an element that in India is more plentiful than uranium.

Spectrum Online: What is the status of the fast breeder program?

Sudhinder Thakur: In October 2004, we poured the first concrete for a 500-megawatt fast breeder reactor, the first of its kind for commercial purposes in India, and it is expected to be completed in 2011. It is being set up near Chennai at Kalpakkam by Bhavini, a satellite company that the Indian government has set up to build fast breeder reactors. At the moment, nuclear power plants can be set up only by government companies.

SPECTRUM: Is that going to change with the agreement with the United States?

ST: Yes, hopefully. That is what we are waiting too see. The government is considering opening up the nuclear sector to private partners. There needs to be an amendment to the act of 1962, which states that only the government can build, own, and operate nuclear facilities on its own or through government companies.

SPECTRUM: Eight years—is that usually how long it takes to build a nuclear plant?

ST: This is the first of its kind. NPCIL has set up other kinds of reactors in about five years, from the first pouring of concrete to criticality, and then another six months before commercial operations begin.

SPECTRUM: What is India’s total nuclear-generating capacity?

ST: We have today 3900-MW capacity and 2880 MW of capacity under construction, in addition to the 500-MW fast breeder reactor.

SPECTRUM: How does the U.S. agreement to supply uranium and light-water reactors help India move to thorium and fast breeders?

ST: We have a very limited amount of uranium but plenty of thorium, so we have developed a three-stage program to exploit it. In the first stage, we load pressurized heavy-water reactors with natural uranium, which consists of 99.3 percent uranium 238 and 0.7 percent uranium 235. That 0.7 percent produces most of the power. Some of the uranium 238 does, however, get converted to plutonium, and when the spent fuel comes out, we can separate the plutonium out.

In the second stage, we load the right mix of plutonium and uranium 238 into fast breeder reactors, which produce energy and more plutonium. Later on, we put a blanket of thorium around the reactor, and some of it converts to uranium 233, which we extract. In the third stage, we use the uranium 233 as fuel.

We have enough thorium in the country to meet requirements for thousands of years, much more than our supplies of coal or other sources of fuel. So, this three-stage program has great potential, but the technologies needed for the final stage will take decades to fully develop.

SPECTRUM: What about India’s more immediate needs?

ST: We are consuming about 600 kilowatthours per capita annually, compared with 13 000 kWh per capita in the U.S., and we are importing most of our energy, in the form of oil, gas, and some coal. If we can import uranium, then we can set up these nuclear power stations based on international cooperation, in addition to our indigenous program.

We think that 20 000 to 40 000 MW of capacity can be added with this cooperative program with the U.S. in the next 30 years. It depends upon how fast—you know, sometimes these international developments go very fast and then sometimes they are very slow.

SPECTRUM: Japan and France both had fast breeder reactor programs, but neither one is operational now. Why will India’s fast breeder succeed where others have failed?

ST: The requirements of each country are different. For us, what’s important is energy self-sufficiency. Japan is interested because fast breeders use the waste left over from the first stage. And now people are realizing that at the rate we are using uranium, the world’s supply will be exhausted by the year 2050. So fuels are going to have to be reused.

SPECTRUM: Within the next two to three years, you’ll have an additional 2880 MW of capacity coming online from nuclear reactors?

ST: Yes.

SPECTRUM: But, conceivably, all of this could accelerate quickly if parts of the industry are privatized?

ST: It is not a question of privatization but of international access to reactors and fuel. When privatization comes, the next question is how much we can set up in the existing framework. In the next five-year plan, from 2007 to March 2012, we will propose to the government that we add 10 000 MW of nuclear capacity through this imported route. This is in addition to the 2880 MW of capacity that our indigenous program will add.

SPECTRUM: What were the circumstances that lead to the new agreement?

ST: We agreed to separate our civilian from our military programs, which will be subjected to the same inspections that other countries are subjected to. Whatever we have agreed to for our civilian nuclear facilities, we have also agreed to for power production.

SPECTRUM: What’s the next step?

ST: We will separate our activities, and we will be subjected to IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] inspections. It is not right to say that first we will separate our activities and then we will sign an agreement. All these things are happening simultaneously. We will negotiate what is known as the 1-2-3 agreement with the United States—which will mark the conditions for the availability of the technology from the U.S. and nuclear supplies, too—and we will negotiate further international agreements with the Nuclear Suppliers Group [a group of nuclear supplier countries that seeks to contribute to the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons] and the IAEA.

SPECTRUM: How much does electricity generated by your nuclear plants cost now, and will this agreement ultimately make it cheaper?

ST: Using indigenous supplies of uranium, we are competitive at distances of 800 to 1000 kilometers from the closest coal mine, because of the cost of transporting the coal. Now, suppose we had access to international fuel; then the same reactors would be competitive even much closer, and possibly they would be “location neutral,” which means that wherever you are, you should be able to compete. With the availability of uranium at international prices, the nuclear power reactors set up with foreign cooperation will be competitive with thermal power plants located much closer to the coal mines. The tariff of our oldest power station at Tarapur (the Tarapur Atomic Power Station or TAPS-1&2) is about 2 cents per kilowatthour and the average tariff of nuclear power in the country is about 5 cents per kilowatthour.

For more about India’s nuclear power program, visit NPCIL’s Web site at npcil.nic.in. 

spectrum.ieee.org 

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To: Yorikke who wrote (374)3/12/2007 1:43:33 PM
From: Yorikke   of 825
 
A scientific solution for the Iranian crisis?
3/10/2007 8:00:00 AM GMT

aljazeera.com 

I post this only because of its interest in terms of it appearance in the 'arab' media, and the level of knowledge and sentiments of the posts responding to it....

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To: Yorikke who wrote (375)3/13/2007 6:21:58 AM
From: Yorikke   of 825
 
US energy MNCs come calling to push N-deal
GIRISH KUBER

TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ TUESDAY, MARCH 13, 2007 02:24:49 AM]

economictimes.indiatimes.com 

MUMBAI: Even before India and the US could iron out their differences on the nuclear deal, multinationals have begun lobbying for business worth billions of dollars in the energy sector.

Representatives from 38 US-based industries, including energy majors like GE, Bechtel, Edlow International, Nukem, Thorium Power and Westinghouse are currently in India to explore bilateral business opportunities. They have arrived just before US energy secretary Samuel Bodman’s meeting with Indian energy officials later this month. This is the third visit by global energy players in the last three months.

“Industries in both countries will benefit immensely from the passage of this Bill. It’s time Indian and the US governments turn a green light on the Bill,” Graham Wisner, brother of Frank Wisner, the former US Ambassador to India, told ET. A lawyer by profession, Mr Wisner represents Washington-based legal firm Patton Boggs, which is lobbying for the passage of the Bill that would allow nuclear energy cooperation between India and the US.

The deal, which could end a 30-year freeze on sharing nuclear technology, has faced opposition in India and the US. Some US lawmakers want to deny India nuclear fuel since it has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, while the Indian opposition parties feel the Bill is loaded in favour of the US.

Mr Wisner, however, doesn’t think so. “People from both sides are beginning to realise that it’s a win-win situation. There is remarkable change in the political atmosphere. Democrats and Republicans want to see Indo-US relationships improve,” he claimed. In India, the group has met parliamentarians belonging to all major parties. “The atmosphere here too is conducive for the Bill’s passage,” he said.

“India has a large manufacturing and engineering sector. The passage of the Bill will open up major business opportunities for Indian companies, while we can offer state-of-the-art nuclear technology,” Timothy Richards, director of GE’s international energy policy, said.

Incidentally, GE is one of the five global players who stand to gain directly from the deal. The others are Westinghouse Electric , Toshiba, Atomprom — the single holding company for the Russian civil nuclear industry — and the French state-controlled Areva.

These companies, experts say, control the production of key nuclear reactor components. “Indian forging companies can look forward to major business opportunities,” said David Sloan, director, Nukem, one of the biggest firms with expertise in nuclear waste management.

economictimes.indiatimes.com 

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To: Diamond Daze who wrote (371)3/13/2007 9:42:55 AM
From: thorium   of 825
 
DD, 100 bil in fuel alone? my guesses were more around 15-20bil. did you get the 100 bil form a source or is that an estimate?

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To: thorium who wrote (377)3/13/2007 2:14:45 PM
From: Diamond Daze   of 825
 
I thought I had read that I was mistaking...

Cornelius J. Milmoe (Bio):

"From 1994 to 2000, Mr. Milmoe served as General Counsel for General Electric's nuclear fuel business that provided nuclear fuel fabrication, software, and design services to 50 nuclear reactors in the U.S., Europe, Japan, Mexico, and Taiwan. At GE Nuclear Fuel, Mr. Milmoe led legal negotiations for all reactor reload contracts (valued at $30-$300 million each), created a Joint Venture with Hitachi and Toshiba to build a $70 million modern fuel processing plant that reduced costs by 30% and environmental effluents by 90%, and created a marketing Joint Venture with ENUSA that led to GE Nuclear's first fuel sales at plants in Germany and Finland. After leaving GE in 2000, Mr. Milmoe has run his own consulting firm, focusing on international energy transactions. Mr. Milmoe formed a project team to recover low enriched Uranium for fuel fabrication from Uranium concentrates at the Ulba Metallurgical plant in Kazakhstan. The United States Department of Energy ("DOE") - supported project team included GE, Brookhaven National Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Kazatomprom, and RWE Nukem. Mr. Milmoe's other projects include construction of a copper-beryllium alloy processing plant in Kazakhstan, sourcing zirconium components in Russia for Western nuclear power plants, and R & D agreements for advanced nuclear technologies. "

Also something on Rubbia, notice he mentions Russia in last paragraph, no doubt Thorium Power.

Thorium: Is It the Better Nuclear Fuel?
It may turn out to be a quantum leap in the search for economy and safety.
Carlo Rubbia won a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1984 for the discovery of two elusive high energy particles, called the W and the Z. The discovery was a feat not only of physics, but of engineering. He is good at both, and now has another idea which could revolutionize the methods we use to retrieve nuclear energy.
You may never have heard of thorium. It is a plentiful element; there is more of it in the earth's crust than uranium. No, it is not fissionable. But it can be made into a low weight isotope of uranium that is fissionable. Rubbia thinks it may be worth the trouble to do that, even if it is a roundabout route to nuclear fission. countries.
A good introduction to Rubbia's idea is in "Megawatts and Megatons," (pp153-163) by Richard Garwin and Georges Charpak, Knopf, NY 2001 (originally published in 1997 in French). Another summary, just 3 pages long, is in the CERN Courier, a publication of the European collider laboratory, of April 1995, available on the web at einstein.unh.edu  . The CERN report closes with this sentence: "With the heavy ecological implications of present nuclear and conventional energy sources, it is surprising how little R&D work is being invested anywhere in this potentially rewarding alternative energy solution."
What is special about thorium?
(1) Weapons-grade fissionable material (uranium233) is harder to retrieve safely and clandestinely from the thorium reactor than plutonium is from the uranium breeder reactor.
(2) Thorium produces 10 to 10,000 times less long-lived radioactive waste than uranium or plutonium reactors.
(3) Thorium comes out of the ground as a 100% pure, usable isotope, which does not require enrichment, whereas natural uranium contains only 0.7% fissionable U235.
(4) Because thorium does not sustain chain reaction, fission stops by default if we stop priming it, and a runaway chain reaction accident is improbable.
Besides, the priming process is extremely efficient: the nuclear process puts out 60 times the energy required to keep it primed. Because of this, the device is also called, (quite inappropriately) an "Energy Amplifier."
Naturally occurring thorium is in the form of the stable isotope, 90Th232. Notice that thorium is just two places removed on the periodic table from Uranium. In a sequence of nuclear processes exactly like those by which the non-fissionable isotope, 92U238 is bumped up through Neptunium to Plutonium, 94Pu239, Thorium can be bumped up to a light weight isotope of Uranium, 92U233. (See p 135, Eq 15.01 and 15.02 of "A serious but not ponderous book about Nuclear Energy".) In each case, a non-fissionable isotope is converted to a fissionable one.
Plutonium, while highly radioactive, can be shielded and concealed for shipping and storage, because the alpha rays that it emits do not penetrate lead. On the other hand, uranium233, the weapons-grade material that could be recovered from the thorium reactor, can not be as easily concealed. U233 is almost inextricably accompanied by 0.1% of U232, which, after a series of dissociations (to thallium208) emits gamma rays that penetrate everything.

Here is the thorium sequence in the Rubbia reactor: A neutron is captured by 90Th232, which makes it 90Th233.

90Th232 + 0n1 -> 90Th233 [1]

Thorium-233 spontaneously emits a beta particle (an electron from the nucleus, see p 173), leaving behind one additional proton, and one fewer neutron. ("...Nuclear Energy" p134) This is called "beta decay."

90Th233 -> 91Pa233 + ß [2]

The element with 91 protons is Protactinium (Pa). The isotope 91PA233 also undergoes beta decay,

91Pa233 -> 92U233 + ß [3]

The U233 isotope that is produced in step [3] is fissionable, but has fewer neutrons than its heavier cousin, Uranium-235, and its fission releases only 2 neutrons, not 3.

92U233 + 0n1 -> fission fragments + 20n1 [4]

If this sequence [1 through 4] is to replicate itself, it would require one neutron to generate the next U233 nucleus [1–3] and another would be required to induce the U233 nucleus to fission [4]. A chain reaction, then, could occur only with 100% utilization of the 2 neutrons emitted in [4]. 100% utilization means none can be allowed to get away, an ideal that can not occur in practice. With 98% utilization, the generation ratio (p 87-93) would be 0.98, and the half-life of the decline of the number of fissions per generation would be 50 generations. (1000 fissions in the zeroth generation would decline to 1000/e, or 368, fissions in 50 generations.)

This means that by itself, the fission process would die out very quickly. With a steady supply of "priming" neutrons, one can obtain, on the average, 50 new fissions from each priming neutron. There is, of course, a cost in providing the priming neutrons. But because the energy cost of the priming neutron is about 30 to 60 times less than the energy yield of the fissions it triggers, there is a net gain of energy of about 30 to 60. This is why it is called an Energy Amplifier (EA).
The priming neutrons are emitted in a process called "spallation," which is the induced splitting of an otherwise non-fissionable large nucleus. In the EA, a proton beam impinges on lead, the high energy protons splitting lead nuclei, leading to release of neutrons. In Rubbia's design, the molten lead doubles also as primary coolant. The diagram at the left shows the proposed arrangement, most of it below ground level. High energy protons emerge through a window in the tip of the proton beam tube inside the core. Protons split lead nuclei, with neutrons emitted into the core. The molten lead carries nuclear heat upward by convection.
Pumping is required only in the secondary coolant loop, which carries the heat to where steam is made for the turbines. All other circulation is convection-driven, with no moving machinery. The lead and air circulation is guided along partitions that are not shown.
The lead vessel is nearly 30 meters long and 6 meters in diameter, and contains 10,000 tons of lead. Control rods are not needed, either to regulate energy production or to stop fission in an emergency, because the fission rate is determined by the proton accelerator. If the accelerator stops sending protons, fission stops almost instantly. In an emergency, the proton accelerator can be switched off by a trigger signal, or it can be shut off automatically if overheating causes the expanding lead to overflow into the accelerator.
Once fission is stopped, there is still the heat released from radioactive fission fragments that were produced before the shut-down. Although this rate of heat generation is a small fraction of that during normal operation of the reactor, the after-shutdown heat can accumulate rapidly if it is not removed (p 208). In the conventional uranium reactor this heat can be sufficient to melt the core and the bottom of the containment.
There is no reason to believe that the prevalence of short-lived radioactive fission fragments (after fission is stopped) will be much different in the Rubbia reactor from that in uranium 235 reactors (p 208). But the EA is undoubtedly a safer reservoir for the after-shutdown heat than the conventional reactor, because it is filled with heat absorbing material (lead) that does not leak, does not require pumping to distribute the heat evenly, and will not boil away or make bubbles, as water does. Simple calculations suggest that the lead in this reactor has sufficient heat capacity to keep the temperature in the reactor below 1300oC even in the worst case, if the cooling system shuts down completely and no heat is removed from the reactor.
The radioactive waste from the thorium reactor contains vastly less long-lived radioactive material than that from conventional reactors. In particular, plutonium is completely absent absent from the thorium reactor's waste. While the radioactivity during the first few days is likely to be similar to that in conventional reactors, there is at least a ten-fold reduction of radioactivity in the waste products after 100 years, and a 10,000 fold reduction after 500 years. From a waste storage point of view, this is a significant advantage.
It is certainly premature to celebrate this technology yet. Much of the feasibility data is from small scale tests and from simulations. There are technical challenges that will have to be overcome. One of these is to find a containment material that does not have the nasty tendency that steel has to dissolve in molten lead.
An encouraging fact is that so far, the simulations and tests have supported the theoretical predictions, which is a testament to the engineering savvy of Carlo Rubbia. In addition to the CERN group, several laboratories in the US, Japan, and Russia are working on various aspects of the EA technology.

To NUCLEAR ENERGY UPDATE #1

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From: thorium3/14/2007 12:06:49 PM
   of 825
 
Thorium Power at Westminster Energy Forum Wednesday, March 14, 2007 .

This is interesting. This year the UK is going to decide what to do with nuke weapons they have. All of them are getting old. They will either dismantle them or re-work them into newer technology.

I would not be surprised if Thorium Power is in talks with the UK government about energy options etc...

The problem with this stock is a lot of the stuff going on behind the scenes probably can't even be reported as news because of government’s secrecy on their energy programs they are working with. They could be in talks with more countries and be well into deals, but they can't announce them yet if other parts of the programs are not finalized on the governments side.

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To: thorium who wrote (379)3/14/2007 12:21:46 PM
From: thorium   of 825
 
MAR 14th 2007 - THE FUTURE OF UK NUCLEAR ENERGY POLICY
The aim is to examine global and strategic nuclear issues, as a context for a subsequent, more UK-focused discussion which develops on from policy and regulatory examinations to a more delivery-oriented analysis of supply chain issues.

westminsterenergy.org 

Topics include:
Keynote Session: Global & Strategic Contexts for Nuclear New Build
Strategic Plans & Milestone in the delivery of fusion
The UK’s role in nuclear non-proliferation: export & trade activities
Post-Review perceptions of energy & Party policies among the UK public
UK political and regulatory framework development
Evaluation of key framework components & response
Live NGO issues: Pre-licensing, Site Selection, Planning & Enquiry
Emerging issues regarding environmental impact assessments: decommissioning & new build
Commercial Perspectives: key issues for consortia and the delivery chain
Project financial management: potential pitfalls emerging post-Review
Legal and planning issues arising from the nuclear policy framework
Quality audit and risk mitigation of new build constructions: global comparison
The tracking-and-tracing of nuclear materials in a UK new build era
Corporate perspectives & plenary discussion
Thorium as a fuel in the strategic new build era: global developments
PLENARY DEBATE: Industry perspectives on the nuclear framework

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From: Yorikke3/15/2007 2:10:48 PM
   of 825
 
'Moratorium is voluntary'
T.S. SUBRAMANIAN

(A good summary of where India is in its nuclear program and what its hopes are with respect to the US-India Treaty.--- I get the feeling that the Indian Government is moving a lot faster than most might have thought they would.)


An Interview with Dr. Anil Kakodkar, Chairman, AEC.

Dr. Anil Kakodkar, Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission.
THE year 2006 was "exciting" for the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) on several counts. It kicked off the year with the inauguration of the golden jubilee celebrations of its nerve centre, the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Trombay on January 20. It was on this day 50 years ago that Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru formally inaugurated the Atomic Energy Establishment, Trombay (AEET), making the beginning of India's atomic energy programme. The AEET, founded in 1957 by Homi J. Bhabha, the paterfamilias of the programme, was renamed after him in January 1967, by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Today, BARC is the largest research and development organisation in the world. Dr. Anil Kakodkar, Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission and Secretary, DAE, calls it "a technology powerhouse".

Dr. Srikumar Banerjee, Director, BARC, describes it as "the fountainhead of all major activities" of the DAE.

On March 2, 2006, during U.S. President George W. Bush's visit, India and the U.S. agreed upon a Separation Plan document, which enables export of nuclear reactors to India from other countries. The plan was a sequel to the Joint Statement made by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Bush on July 18, 2005, in Washington D.C. It entailed that India would place 14 of its 22 pressurised heavy water reactors (PHWRs), in operation or under construction, representing 65 per cent of its nuclear capacity, under the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) safeguards. The DAE was, however, firm that its breeder reactors, would be kept out of the purview of these safeguards.

On May 21, 2006, the third reactor at Tarapur, an indigenous PHWR with a capacity of 540 MWe, reached criticality. India will no longer build 220 MWe or 540 MWe PHWRs. All its future PHWRs that use natural uranium as fuel will be of 700 MWe capacity. A problem, however, remains: the shortage of natural uranium that fuels the indigenous PHWRs. The projects for mining uranium are delayed because of the local opposition especially in Meghalaya and Andhra Pradesh. This in turn has led to a delay in starting the construction of 700 MWe indigenous PHWRs. The capacity factor of the operating 220 MWe PHWRs has also dropped because of the shortage.

Kakodkar and representatives of six other countries signed an agreement in Brussels on May 24, 2006 to launch the construction of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), which is a fusion reactor.

The year was not without its share of big controversies. In April/May 2006, Russia supplied about 50 to 60 tonnes of enriched uranium for the two light water reactors at Tarapur, invoking the safety clause of the Nuclear Suppliers' Group guidelines. This angered the U.S.





The mill under construction at Turamdih in Jharkhand to convert the natural uranium mined in the area into yellow cake, which will power Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors.

On July 26, 2006, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the "United States and India Nuclear Cooperation Promotion Act of 2006." The Bill provoked angry reaction in India from the media, academics and nuclear science community because it imposed many new, tough conditions that were not part of the joint statement by Manmohan Singh and Bush. As Dr. M.R. Srinivasan, former Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission, said, "During much of July and August 2006, politicians, Members of Parliament, media, public opinion and the scientific community were greatly agitated over the attempts of the U.S. Congress to rewrite what India perceived as a settled agreement." There was a similar angry reaction when the U.S. Senate passed in September 2006 the "United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act." The Hyde Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in December 2006, was equally unpalatable to the DAE officials.

Asked whether the Hyde Act impinged on India's strategic programme, Kakodkar, in an interview published in The Hindu of January 27, 2007, said, "... Whether you take it at the level of the sense of the Congress, the level of U.S. policy or the assessment and reporting requirement, there are a fairly large number of sections which essentially seek to, sort of contain or cap the Indian strategic programme. And in fact, in some places, it also articulates a policy or philosophy of rollback. This is a very serious issue and we need to seek clarifications. This is one of the most important things. There are of course many others."

Problems have surfaced again between India and the U.S. in the negotiations leading to the "123 agreement" with the U.S. insisting that India could not conduct any more nuclear tests and India sticking to its position that its unilateral voluntary moratorium "cannot be converted into a bilateral legality." The DAE is also firm that India should get lifetime of fuel supply for the reactors it places under the IAEA safeguards, not merely one extra "core" of fuel that the U.S. says these reactors are entitled to.

It was in this context that T.S. Subramanian met Dr. Kakodkar at BARC on March 2, 2007, for an interview:

What will be the future thrust of BARC activities?

BARC is a technology powerhouse. The future thrust will essentially be, of course, in the utilisation of thorium as fuel, which has been the thrust all along. Next comes the generation of nuclear energy at high temperature so that we can produce hydrogen in addition to electricity because hydrogen is likely to be another important carrier of energy in future. Then another thrust will be on ways of using technologies for storage, transportation and utilisation of hydrogen. We are also talking about the role of particle accelerators.

Do you mean accelerator-driven systems?

A lot of technologies have to be developed because particle accelerators can be used for energy production, for example, through accelerator-driven systems. This is as far as area of energy is concerned.

There are other areas. The spent fuel that comes out of the reactor contains a lot of radioactive products such as cesium. It is an important material for radiation processing. It is better than cobalt.

Can cesium be used for irradiation of spices, potatoes and onions to increase their shelf-life and prevent sprouting?

We can have a whole set of new technologies for radiation processing using cesium. Other thrust areas will be a host of technologies, including MEMs [micro-electro-mechanical systems], high-precision engineering and even futuristic micro-maching.

When will you start the construction of the Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR) that will use thorium as fuel, which will signify the beginning of the third stage of India's nuclear power programme? When you were BARC Director, you had written an article in the BARC newsletter in 1999 that India should accelerate the utilisation of thorium, which we have in plenty.

Correct.

In 2003, you said the DAE will start the construction of the AHWR in 2004. It is 2007 now.

I know.

Construction of the AHWR has not begun. You said it would begin in 2004.

The peer review was completed sometime ago. It was being looked at by the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board for pre-licensing review. I believe that has just been completed. They are now preparing the project document. So we want to start the construction this year. That will be our attempt.

Has Tarapur been selected as the site for the AHWR?

We have not decided on the site yet.

How was the criticality of the third nuclear reactor at Kaiga, Karnataka on February 26?

Kaiga-3 criticality went off very well.

It is said there has been a delay in starting the construction of the 700 MWe PHWRs because the natural uranium supply from the country will not match the demand. (The indigenous PHWRs use natural uranium as fuel and heavy water as both coolant and moderator).

Yes. We have to make some more progress on the mining and milling capacity of natural uranium in the country. We have this new mine coming up now.

Where is this new mine?

The uranium mine at Bandurung [near Jaduguda in Jharkhand State] is ready. The erection of a mill at Turamdih [also near Jaduguda for processing the natural uranium] is almost complete.

We have the environmental clearance for the Tumalapalle mine in Andhra Pradesh. We also have the environmental clearance for exploratory mining at Gogi in Karnataka.

Is the mine at Bandurung producing uranium ore?

They have reached the ore body. As soon as the mill at Turamdih starts working, they will start producing the ore at Bandurung. The mill is mechanically complete. They must be commissioning it now.

You have not been able to bring around the Meghalaya government to start the process of uranium mining in the State.

In Meghalaya, some progress is there. It will take time. In the meantime, we are working on the preliminary activities on [starting the construction of] 700 MWe reactors [at Rawatbhatta in Rajasthan and Kakrapar in Gujarat].

You said in September 2006 that India would not allow its unilateral, voluntary moratorium on nuclear tests into a bilateral legality with the United States. The U.S. officials have told their Indian counterparts during their negotiations on the "123 agreement" that it is not merely a nuclear test by India but any event in India that "jeopardises supreme U.S. national interests" will lead to the termination of the Indo-U.S. nuclear cooperation.

The question is our position remains the same. The Prime Minister has very clearly stated our concerns in Parliament. Now, we are, of course, approaching the whole matter in a positive spirit. So what we would like to see is explicit provisions that safeguard our interests in the light of the concerns that were expressed in Parliament by our Prime Minister. That will be the basis on which we will approach the negotiations.

If the U.S. insists that India should not conduct any more nuclear tests and that it will terminate the Indo-U.S. nuclear cooperation if we do the tests...

We don't want to convert this [unilateral, voluntary moratorium on nuclear tests] into a bilateral legality. We cannot do that. The moratorium on nuclear testing is unilateral, voluntary. So that is the position. Nothing more than that.

The U.S. says that it would supply only one extra "core" of fuel for the reactors instead of the lifetime fuel supplies which had been agreed upon earlier by India and the U.S.

The March 2006 Separation Plan document has a clear provision for building stockpiles of fuel to meet the lifetime requirements of reactors placed under the International Atomic Energy Agency's safeguards. That is what I am saying. We need everything to be built into the 123 agreement in a very explicit manner so that our interests are protected.

At what stage is our negotiations with the U.S. on the 123 agreement?

The 123 draft has just been given to them.

hinduonnet.com 

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To: Yorikke who wrote (381)3/15/2007 3:50:35 PM
From: Diamond Daze   of 825
 
THORIUM POWER, Ltd.
News Update: March 14, 2007
Letter from Seth Grae, CEO
Dear Stockholders:
I hope you have had an opportunity to read the press release we distributed last week
and which I’ve reprinted below. In it, Thorium Power announced the successful completion of a
key step in the validation process of our thorium-based nuclear fuel designs. We are now on
track for the full scale validation of our fuel in a commercial reactor and will accelerate our
technology demonstration and commercialization schedule.
This latest development marks an important new chapter for Thorium Power, just as the
nuclear power industry is entering a new period of growth. According to the latest projections
from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the World Nuclear Association, we are
at the leading edge of decades-worth of new reactor design and construction. Further, there is
a palpable sense of urgency throughout the industry, given growing concern over the emission
of greenhouse gasses and the realization that massive sources of new energy must be found to
meet demands in both developed and developing countries. And if there is a consensus on
anything, it is that nuclear energy is a viable option to support large scale economic growth. We
believe the future nuclear industry growth will include many countries that do not currently have
a nuclear energy industry.
This favorable industry trend supports our core business activities and will enable us to
further expand our commercial activities globally. Curiously, as many of you know, there are
few ways to invest in the coming nuclear renaissance. Other than uranium mining stocks, most
major companies involved in nuclear power are either government entities, privately held, or
large multinationals where nuclear concerns represent only a very small percentage of their
overall business. Thorium Power is one of the few “pure plays” in nuclear. Moreover, Thorium
Power is uniquely positioned as a source of solutions to address all key major concerns of the
industry: how to solve proliferation, reduce waste and improve profitability.
Given all of this, we have many reasons to be optimistic about the future. As always, we
will continue to share with you the latest developments and news. Our annual shareholders
meeting will be in New York on April 25th. Further information will be available on our Website
as we get closer to that date.
Very truly yours,
Seth Grae
Chief Executive Officer
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thorium Power Reaches Major Milestone in Testing of Its Proprietary Nuclear Fuel
Company Announces Successful Test of Scaled Up Nuclear Fuel for Commercial
Reactors
McLEAN, Va., March 6, 2007 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News Network/ --
Thorium Power Ltd. (OTC Bulletin Board: THPW), the leading developer of low waste, nonproliferative
nuclear fuel technology for existing and future reactors, today announced the
successful completion of thermal-hydraulic experiments, a key step in the validation process
of its thorium-based nuclear fuel designs. The work was performed at the thermal-hydraulic
facilities of OKBM, the leading nuclear design bureau in Russia.
The recently completed testing consisted of two experiments simulating emergency pressure
and temperature conditions inside the core of commercial reactors: The first included a onemeter
long complete seed and blanket assembly compatible with the VVER-1000 reactor
design. The second experiment simulated conditions in Western PWR reactor designs, and
was performed on a one-meter long partial seed fuel assembly consisting of 25 rods.
Thorium Power's CEO Seth Grae said: "This is a breakthrough result for Thorium Power. It
confirms that our thorium-based fuel designs are scalable and can meet the pressure and
temperature performance standards for commercial light water reactors. We are on track for
the full scale validation of our fuel in a commercial reactor."
Dr. Andrey Mushakov, Thorium Power's Executive Vice President- International Nuclear
Operations, added: "Over the last three years we have successfully demonstrated the
promise of our fuel designs on a small-scale basis by fabricating fuel samples for irradiation
testing in the IR-8 research reactor. We have now successfully scaled up our designs - by
more than a factor of three - to fuel rods of a full meter. The final step will be to increase the
scale of the rods to the size used in commercial reactors - approximately three and a half
meters. Further, while our initial thermal- hydraulic testing involved separate seed rods and
blanket rods, the new tests combined the seed and blanket bundles in a single fuel assembly
- the exact configuration we will use in full scale commercial VVER-1000 reactors. Thorium
Power's Technical Advisory Board, comprised of nuclear industry experts with long track
records of designing and selling new fuels and reactors worldwide, met from February 28th
to March 2nd and reviewed these results in the course of developing plans to accelerate the
technology demonstration and commercialization schedule."
Mr. Grae continued: "Going forward, the company will execute fuel product validation steps
leading to demonstration of our fuel (so-called lead test assemblies, LTAs) in a VVER-1000
nuclear power plant powering over one million households. These validation steps include:
• Scaling up the fuel fabrication process to full length (10 feet) rods used in commercial
VVER-1000 reactors
• Validating thermal hydraulic performance of full size (10 feet) seed and blanket fuel
assembly
• Completing ampoule irradiation testing and perform post-irradiation examination to
confirm fuel performance
• Obtaining final regulatory approvals for insertion of fuel in VVER-1000 commercial
reactors."
About Thorium Power Ltd:
Thorium Power Ltd. is involved in the nuclear power sector. Its focus is on technologies and
services that will benefit from, and help lead to, expanded use of nuclear power generation.
The company has assembled an International Advisory Board comprised of key national and
international leaders in the fields of Nuclear Energy, Finance, Government Affairs, Nonproliferation
and Diplomacy. Thorium Power Ltd. also has put together a Technical Advisory
Board made up of top scientists and practitioners from the world's major nuclear companies.
Thorium Power Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Thorium Power Ltd., is a leading
developer of proliferation resistant nuclear fuel technologies. Thorium Power Inc. designs
nuclear fuels, obtains patent protection on these fuels, and coordinates fuel development
with commercial entities and governments. The company has been working in Russia with
Russian nuclear engineers and scientists for over a decade.
DISCLAIMER
This press release may include certain statements that are not descriptions of historical
facts, but are forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities
Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These forward-looking
statements may include the description of our plans and objectives for future operations,
assumptions underlying such plans and objectives, statements regarding benefits of the
proposed merger and other forward-looking terminology such as "may," "expects,"
"believes," "anticipates," "intends," "expects," "projects" or similar terms, variations of such
terms or the negative of such terms. There are a number of risks and uncertainties that could
cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements made herein.
These risks, as well as other risks associated with the merger, will be more fully discussed in
any joint proxy statement or prospectus or other relevant document filed with the Securities
and Exchange Commission in connection with the proposed merger. Such information is
based upon various assumptions made by, and expectations of, our management that were
reasonable when made but may prove to be incorrect. All of such assumptions are inherently
subject to significant economic and competitive uncertainties and contingencies beyond our
control and upon assumptions with respect to the future business decisions which are
subject to change. Accordingly, there can be no assurance that actual results will meet
expectations and actual results may vary (perhaps materially) from certain of the results
anticipated herein.
Further information is available on Thorium Power Ltd's website at
thoriumpower.com 
For more information:
Peter Charles
Thorium Power Ltd.
Ph: (703) 918-4932
Email: ir@thoriumpower.com
SOURCE Thorium Power Ltd.
THORIUM POWER, Ltd.
News Update: March 9, 2007
Asia Times (03.10.07) – The paper reports on the US business delegation on a four-city tour of
India to mark the one-year anniversary of US President George Bush’s visit will take forward the
US-India civilian energy nuclear deal. The article mentions that Thorium is among eighteen
companies that companies in India that are in the civil nuclear industry.
Indo-Asian News Service (03.07.07) – The article reports that the US business delegation now
on a four-city tour of India “is a pointer to the things to come as far as burgeoning India-US trade
is concerned.” The report notes that bilateral trade between India and the US is growing and
quotes US Ambasssador to India David C. Mulford, who said that foreign direct investment
(FDI) from the US to India was expected “to exceed $1 billion by the end of the current fiscal
year ending March 31.” The article also notes that Thorium Power is among companies that are
part of the Commercial Nuclear Executive Mission (CNEM), “a significant component of the
visiting delegation.”
Resource Investor (02.22.07) – In a detailed article titled “Thorium: An Alternative to Uranium,”
Jack Lifton reevaluates the current focus on uranium and concludes that “investors who think
about the long-term need to take a serious look at thorium – which would have been the metal
of choice for the development of nuclear powered electric generating stations.” In revisiting
thorium’s history, Lifton acknowledges that the public needs a re-education with regard to the
utility and future of thorium power” and makes the following assessment:”Thorium Power, Ltd.,
is at the forefront of thorium power technology. The principals of the company in fact give it a
continuity and breadth of expertise in engineering, government, law and the military that is
outstanding and unbroken from the very dawn of the idea of safe civilian nuclear power. The
company’s website makes fascinating, and I think, today, compulsory reading for any investor
who wants to participate for the long run in the continuation and maintenance of a society and
polity, the United States of America, that can improve and expand the quality of life for the
earth’s billions without the need for depriving its own citizens of anything or of controlling the
lives of others.”
Times of India (02.25.07) –The Times notes an interesting exchange between India’s president
and a student who asks if India could become self-sufficient in nuclear power. Following are the
excerpted comments from President Kalam: "We are advocating energy independence and will
produce 1,000-2,000 MW power in the next two or three years by using solar, bio and nuclear
power generators. Uranium, the main material needed for generation of nuclear power, is limited
with us, whereas we have abundant quantities of thorium and it has to be made fissile by using
fast breeders and by the year 2030 we can produce 50,000 MW power.”
Michigan Daily (02.21.07) – In an article about Green Energy, the reporter makes the following
conclusion: “Even nuclear power has a green side: Thorium reactors can burn plutonium waste
left over from Cold War-era weapons programs, turning a long-standing problem into a source
of power. They have political advantages as well, because they can be engineered to work
without uranium or plutonium. That means Iran could pursue this technology all it wanted and
never be able to build a bomb - removing any opportunity to use nuclear power as an excuse to
develop nuclear weapons.”
Energy Business Review (02.20.07) – In an article about the state of Britain’s nuclear industry,
the reporter makes the following conclusion: “It recently emerged that the Norwegian
government is studying the use of thorium as an alternative to uranium as a nuclear fuel.
Thorium reactors are considered safer than uranium and more environmentally friendly than
gas-fired plants. Not only are meltdowns impossible, but these reactors produce less waste and
spent fuel than conventional uranium reactors - something that must surely be of interest to the
UKAEA.”
Times Community Newspapers (02.07.07) – The Virginia-based newspaper chain references
Erik Hallstrom’s appointment as COO, noting that Mr. Hallstrom previously served in the
Swedish army, as a diplomat in Eastern Europe and as an SVP at WorldSpace Satellite Radio.
India, US at the business end of nuclear deal
By Siddharth Srivastava
Asia Times
March 10, 2007
NEW DELHI - It is one year since US President George W Bush visited India. To mark the
occasion, a high-powered US business group is in India to take forward what will be a major
milestone of Bush's tenure as commander-in-chief: the US-India civilian energy nuclear deal.
Representatives of 38 major companies of the US-India Business Council (USIBC), a leading
lobby group, are in New Delhi to "keep the ball rolling" after the nuclear pact, cleared by the US
Congress and ratified by Bush, which will enable India to import
international technology estimated to require foreign investment of over US$100 billion.
The USIBC team is led by US Chamber of Commerce executive vice president Lieutenant-
General (retired) Dan Christman and USIBC president Ron Somers, and is upbeat. Christman
said: "The future is bright for our partnership and industry looks forward to working together to
meet India's future energy needs."
Somers said, "We have brought 38 major US companies to India to make sure that we keep the
ball rolling on US-India business cooperation. Eighteen of these companies are in the civil
nuclear industry. US-India peaceful atomic energy cooperation is good for India and the United
States. Commercial implementation of US-India civil nuclear cooperation will open the door to a
wide range of cooperation in high technology." The USIBC comprises more than 300 US
companies.
Promoting his company's case, Tim Richards, director of General Electric, said: "We know
India's need for nuclear power. We support India's fast movement into the Nuclear Suppliers
Group [NSG] and India signing the International Atomic Energy Agency [agreement]. There are
huge opportunities in civilian nuclear cooperation between India and the US. We have high-end
technology to offer. We have set up the most advanced nuclear reactors in Japan and Taiwan."
More firms looking at garnering business include Westinghouse Electric Co, which supplies
technology to almost half of the world's operational nuclear power plants. Companies and
institutions in the nuclear energy business - such as GE Energy, Nuclear Energy Institute,
Thorium Power, Westinghouse Power and WM Mining Co are also making pitches.
Others that have touched base with Mumbai-based state-run Nuclear Power Corp India Ltd
(NPCIL), which builds and operates India's atomic power stations to generate electricity, include
French nuclear power major Areva NP and Russian nuclear plant manufacturer
Atomstroyexport.
As per New Delhi's revised targets of nuclear power generation, India will have to build at least
30 more reactors of 1,000 megawatts each and spend over $40 billion in the international
market.
New Delhi has announced plans to double electricity production from nuclear power plants by
2030 to realize the target of 20,000MW and scale it up to 40,000MW by 2030. At the current
levels of 3,900MW, nuclear energy constitutes only 3% of the installed capacity in the country.
As domestic uranium supplies are not enough to deliver such a big target, NPCIL is working on
a plan to set up 10,000MW of new capacity via imported uranium over the next five to 10 years.
NPCIL is also planning to add another 5,600MW of nuclear power capacity through domestic
uranium supplies. The utility is currently building around 3,000MW of additional capacity that is
expected to produce electricity in the next two years.
New Delhi is working on amending the Atomic Energy Act to facilitate private sector participation
in nuclear power production that has so far been the exclusive fief of government agencies.
Many Indian private players, including Reliance and Tata, have expressed interest.
India is also looking to turn into a supplier of low-cost nuclear reactors to other countries, once
international roadblocks are finally cleared. India may look to export pressurized heavy water
reactors. According to Indian nuclear officials, India could export designs to countries, such as
Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, for less than $30 per kilowatt, much cheaper than
the international average of $1,500 per kilowatt.
India is keen to keep its options open rather than rely too heavily on the US for its nuclear fuel
supplies, due to Washington's past record of sanctions.
This week. Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee told Parliament that the Indo-US nuclear deal is
independent of India's cooperation with Russia, which will help in building four more atomic
plants.
The proposal came about during the recent visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to India.
Two nuclear power plants have already been built in the country by Moscow.
Mukherjee said that India's collaboration with Russia in civil nuclear field had started before the
Indo-US deal and it is a "continuing and long-term" one. Mukherjee is slated to visit Japan later
this month with nuclear diplomacy at the top of his agenda.
But the US is going to bargain hard. Washington has already impressed on New Delhi that it will
expect special leverage due to its critical role in pulling India out of global nuclear isolation. The
US also expects a few big-ticket defense contracts to come its way as well.
Diplomatic efforts
Intense diplomatic efforts continue to take the nuclear deal to a final fruition.
India and the US still have to sort out a final 123 Agreement, while the 45-nation NSG has to
arrive at a consensus on accepting India as a "nuclear exception" due to its good record as a
responsible democracy, despite not signing the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Indian Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon has presented a draft of the 123 Agreement - an
agreement for cooperation as a prerequisite for nuclear deals between the US and any other
nation - for discussions with Nicholas Burns, US under secretary of state for political affairs,
during his visit to the US last month.
The US Congress has to approve the 123 Agreement, to be followed by a go-ahead from the
NSG before actual nuclear trade can take place.
New Delhi also has to negotiate a safeguard agreement between with the International Atomic
Energy Agency that will apply only to the separated civil nuclear sector.
Recently, Richard Boucher, assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs, told
a hearing of the foreign affairs sub-committee: "Progress is being registered on all the
necessary key steps, perhaps not as rapidly as we might desire, but in a manner that is
consistent with the complexity and weight of the issues under consideration."
While Russia, the US, France, Canada and the United Kingdom will pitch for India for the sake
of their own business interests, New Delhi is aggressively lobbying other countries such as
Brazil, Japan and China.
Shyam Saran, the prime minister's special envoy on the India-US civil nuclear deal, has been
visiting major NSG countries to elicit support. Saran has already visited Japan, Sweden and
Norway, known to be a bit sensitive about issues related to nuclear proliferation.
In the recent past, both Japan and China have been more positively inclined towards the deal,
with Beijing hinting that it is not averse to bagging a few big contracts. Australia, which is
already dealing with China, has also softened its stand after initially refusing to sell uranium to
India.
Siddharth Srivastava is a New Delhi-based journalist.
Jumbo US biz team a pointer to growing India-US trade
Indo-Asian News Service
March 7, 2007 2:10 PM EST
New Delhi, March 7 -- A jumbo-sized US business delegation currently on a four-city tour of
India is a pointer to the things to come as far as burgeoning India-US trade is concerned.
The trip is organised by the US-India Business Council (USIBC), the voice of the American
private sector investing in India, to coincide with the first anniversary of US President George W.
Bush's trip to New Delhi.
Though growing in recent years, bilateral trade between India and the US has been relatively
small despite Washington being New Delhi's largest trading partner. It stood at less than $40
billion until 2004, compared to the Sino-US trade volume of $235 billion.
However, the scenario is fast changing. With India on the growth path and the two countries
negotiating a historic bilateral civilian nuclear agreement, there is a marked optimism on both
sides.
This was evident at the second annual conference on "Indo-US Economic Cooperation:
Developing a Strategy for Closer Partnership", organised by the Confederation of Indian
Industry (CII) and USIBC here Tuesday.
Addressing the 230-member strong visiting delegation and captains of Indian industry at the
conference, US Ambasssador to India David C. Mulford said that foreign direct investment (FDI)
from the US to India was expected to exceed $1 billion by the end of the current fiscal year
ending March 31.
Until now, FDI levels from the US have tended to run at the rather modest level of $300-400
million a year, Mulford said.
"For the full year ending March 31, we expect the figure to exceed $1 billion and before long -
considering the announced investment plans of US companies - to eclipse the total US FDI
base in 2005 which stood at only $8.5 billion," he said.
This escalating investment in India reflects the recognition among US investors that the
entrepreneurial and innovative talent in India that leverages US technology transfer and
business management skills is an important part of their global strategies, the ambassador said.
Presenting India's growth story in the inaugural session of the conference, Deputy Chairman of
the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia said that the Indian government aims to have
an average growth rate of nine percent in the next five years ending with 10 percent growth in
the last year of the 11th Five-Year Plan.
"Agriculture is going to be the main focus of the government along with development of
infrastructure in the 11th Plan 2007-12," he said.
Dan Christian, leader of the delegation, which includes representatives of 38 top American
companies, and also a senior vice-president of the International US Chamber of Commerce,
touched upon the WTO issue and called upon India to work on concluding the Doha trade talks
successfully.
He urged India to adopt multi-lateral as well as bilateral strategies to mobilise the global trade
opportunities.
"The US and EU (European Union) are reaching an agreement on agriculture, and I hope India
and Brazil would not oppose progress in the NAMA (Non-agricultural Market Access)
negotiations."
At a special session on US-India bilateral trade and investment in the conference, Sunil Mehta,
country head of the AIG insurance company, called upon US federal authorities to allow more
Indian banks to operate in the US.
He said that it was ironic that, despite India and the US witnessing extremely good relations, this
has not converted into a quantitative relationship as far as bilateral trade was concerned.
A significant component of the visiting delegation is the Commercial Nuclear Executive Mission
(CNEM). Comprising representatives of US nuclear power firms, the CNEM members are here
to explore the Indian nuclear power market even as the two countries negotiate the bilateral
civilian nuclear deal.
Stating that the civilian nuclear deal is broader than just the nuclear sector, Tim Richards,
director (International Energy Policy) of General Electric, said: "We know India's need for
nuclear power."
He said that there were huge opportunities in the civilian nuclear cooperation between India and
the US. "We have high-end technology to offer. We have set up the most advanced nuclear
reactors in Japan and Taiwan.
"We support India's fast movement into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and India signing
the International Atomic Energy Agreement," Richards said, speaking at a special session on
energy and civil nuclear cooperation.
Supporting Richards' view, Planning Commission Member Kirit Parikh said: "The scope for
India-US collaboration in nuclear power is enormous. We would like to improve our nuclear
plants and technology."
Parikh said that if India were to grow at 8-9 percent a year, in 30 years it would need 1,800-
2,000 million tonnes of oil to meet its energy needs. "Today we produce 30 million tonnes and
that too is stagnating," he said.
Parikh said that energy requirement in India would be around 800,000 to one million MW by the
year 2030-31. "Our current capacity is only 160,000 MW."
Following Tuesday's conference, the CNEM group is peeling off from the USIBC delegation and
heading to Mumbai where it will meet officials of the Nuclear Power Corp of India and the Indian
private sector to discuss collaborations and opportunities in nuclear power industry.
Apart from General Electric, the CNEM group includes major companies like Bechtel, Edlow
International, Nukem, Patton Boggs, Thorium Power and Westinghouse.
Other US companies represented in the USIBC delegation are infrastructure majors EP-Team,
Leading Authorities, Parsons Brinckerhoff International and the Wire Group, retail giant Best
Buy, power company PSEG, hedge funds firm Lighhouse Funds, defence major ITT, insurance
company Max New York Life and consumer finance giant American Express.
The rest of the mission is travelling to Kolkata to meet the West Bengal government and UPA
coalition leadership. This visit will mark USIBC's first foray into West Bengal in 10 years.
The mission will also travel to Chennai to meet Tamil Nadu leaders and captains of south Indian
industry to learn more about opportunities in India's infrastructure and manufacturing sector.
Published by HT Syndication with permission from Indo-Asian News Service.
Thorium: An Alternative to Uranium, 2007 Update
By Jack Lifton
Resource Investor
February 22, 2007
DETROIT (ResourceInvestor.com) -- The component of the global warming agenda that is
purely political is the driving force behind the contemporary uranium “boom.” Doomsayers and
scaremongers are shouting, not whispering, that we must stop using the sources of heat, which
have been discovered, chosen and used universally to power our industrial civilization during
the last two centuries, and choose, overnight, something else, which is now in limited use
(nuclear power) or is basically just emerging from the laboratory (solar power) or is understudied
but dramatic in appearance (wind, tide and geothermal).
Rather than trying to catch the uranium roller coaster on a down loop investors who think about
the long-term need to take a serious look at the naturally occurring radioactive metal, thorium,
which but for the exigencies of the last truly global war and the need for some nations to defend
themselves from other nations that would conquer them in the name of the latest and greatest
social movement, or that old time religion, would have been the metal of choice for the
development of nuclear powered electric generating stations.
Is it time for thorium to make its re-entry on the global stage? The answer is yes, and therein
lays an opportunity.
Just about one year ago I wrote an article for Resource Investor entitled “Thorium: An
Alternative to Uranium.” A lot has happened since then with regard to both uranium and thorium,
but only the run up in the price of uranium has been covered by the financial press. Even that
run up has been covered by short sighted analysts as if an increasing demand for uranium is a
given. I want to bring the readers of RI up to date on the very significant events that have
occurred in thorium power technology and the re-assessing of America’s thorium reserves since
then.
There is no serious fundamental immediate or near-term basis of supply shortage to account for
the tripling of the price of uranium in the last year. There are no more uranium fuelled nuclear
power plants today than there were a year ago, and no new plants have been ordered in the
United States. It is in fact not at all clear just who or what is buying uranium to increase the
demand so substantially in such a short time. Uranium mining stocks are being traded in a
frenzy that masks the discussion of whether or not there is any need for such an investment in
uranium production. It is therefore absolutely necessary for investors to keep in mind the
distinction drawn by television investment evangelist, “Mad Money Jim Cramer,” that short-term
ownership of a stock is a trade as opposed to a long term hold, which is an investment.
There are lots of hazy stories around to justify the uranium frenzy. I have been told, for example,
that uranium fuelled nuclear power plants scheduled to be decommissioned will now be kept in
service, but this does not require any new supply! I have also read that China will build 20 new
pebble-bed (i.e., cheap to construct) reactors to produce electricity in remote regions without the
need for coal or oil in the next 20 years. But even Chinese long-term thinking wouldn’t justify
buying so much nuclear fuel in advance, would it?
What has happened is that investors and mining companies are speculating on a nuclear power
boom that they think will shortly begin due to the widespread concern, even fear, generated by
the study of global warming, which holds that:
It has been proven scientifically that the earth’s climate is entering a period of rapidly escalating
global warming; It has been accepted that if this global warming has been caused by
anthropogenic (i.e., man made) activity, and the IPPC is 90% certain that this is scientifically
proven, then the primary bad actor is the carbon dioxide naturally formed by the burning of coal,
oil and natural gas to produce electric power and vehicular propulsion, and; If the burning of
coal, oil and natural gas for these purposes is not eliminated, or, at least, substantially curtailed
(or, if it is held at present levels and all the carbon dioxide generated by stationary power plants
is somehow “sequestered,” i.e. stored) then the global economy will suffer irreparable damage
as the climate shifts permanently causing massive changes in the habitability and agricultural
usefulness of the earth’s surface, and therefore coal, oil and natural gas must be replaced as
sources of heat as soon as possible.
The only well understood, well-known and developed technology that can possibly, in a
relatively short time frame, substitute for the generation of heat by the external combustion of
carbon-based fuels is based on nuclear reactors, the heat from which can (and, indeed, now
does) produce superheated steam to turn turbines to produce electricity. By locating nuclear
power plants on shore lines, the electricity they produce could be used not only directly for
commercial, municipal and residential power, but also to electrolyze water (including sea water)
to produce hydrogen as a clean burning fuel for vehicular propulsion. The burning of hydrogen
by internal combustion engines produces only water as a waste product, and the principle, and
only draw back to the mass production of hydrogen powered internal combustion engines is the
lack of a fuel production and distribution infrastructure.
Speaking of hydrogen for a moment, I think that investors should, perhaps, now be looking at
Hydrogen Engine Center, Inc. (HEC), a company founded by an engineer who was with the
Ford Motor Company when that company actually had a plan to maintain a leading place in the
development of alternatively fuelled power plants. Ford discontinued the program, but the
engineer did not. HEC is making and selling hydrogen fuelled internal combustion engines (ICE)
right now, and its website has some good discussions of sources for hydrogen, other than the
electrolysis of water, which I think are worth looking at. I am “warming” up to the idea of
hydrogen powered internal combustion engines for mobile (vehicular) power plants both as
direct motive power and as on-board sources of electricity generation either for direct
application to the motive wheels or for recharging batteries as needed.
When I read the website of this company, and I read news articles about BMW, a first class
automotive engineering company, putting hydrogen powered big engine (V-12!) cars on the test
road, I am tempted to reassess my original scepticism about hydrogen as a direct fuel for ICEs
in cars. What I haven’t changed my mind about is the mistake that the Ford Motor Company
made in choosing development intensive paths instead of this one, hydrogen powered ICEs, for
immediate consideration.
Now back to the main discussion. There are sufficient global uranium reserves to supply the
needs of all the nuclear power plants that our global industrial civilization could build even if it is
decided politically, because economically it is nonsense, to replace 100% of carbon burning
plant currently generating electricity. There is also sufficient uranium to fuel all of these plants
for centuries. Clearly the price of developing all of the known uranium reserves and looking for
more will not be an issue if governments decide that this emergency is upon us.
The speculation that nuclear reactors will produce electricity so that, even if carbon burning
power plants are phased out, there will be no reduction in available electric power is also driving
into high gear (excuse the pun) research into the critical components for vehicles that can no
longer use carbon-based fuels such as high capacity, long service life, rechargeable lithium-ion
battery technology for plug-in hybrid electric ground vehicles (cars, trucks and trains) using
storage batteries and a small internal combustion engine to generate electricity.
These are already seen to be themselves only an intermediate technology awaiting the arrival of
a hydrogen distribution system in the next generation that will allow internal combustion engines
burning hydrogen to either generate electricity directly to drive ground vehicles or be used to
charge higher capacity batteries than we now have for propulsion systems.
Mobile hydrogen burning fuel cells may replace the projected substantial size battery packs and
even on board hydrogen burning internal combustion engines for charging them if a fuel cell
catalyst system can be found that doesn’t involve the need for huge amounts of platinum group
metals that simply do not exist in the quantities required for global use even if hydrogen burning
internal combustion engines completely replace hydrocarbon (gasoline and kerosene) and
oxygenate (ethanol) burning ones thus eliminating completely the need for catalytic converters,
which today are the principle demand drivers for platinum group metals.
In 1939, it was publicly announced that the fission of some of the isotopes of a few heavy
elements had been induced by a man made experiment, which was in fact designed to build
heavier elements not break apart the ones being targeted. It was immediately obvious to a few
specialized scientists that if a system could be constructed in which the newly named “nuclear
fission” were produced and controlled, i.e., it could be started and stopped, then a new source
of, essentially, limitless power (heat) could be constructed that would not need to burn carbonbased
fuels.
At the same time it was theorized that if sufficient quantities of the rare isotopes of uranium or
thorium that exhibited the property of being fissile could be concentrated then it should be
possible to, by known engineering, produce a special minimum quantity of them, a critical mass,
in which once fission had been triggered by an outside source the fission would generate
additional fission, through a chain reaction, so rapidly that a large quantity of the potential
energy. Perhaps as much as a few percent would be released in a fraction of a second.
This theory so impressed the world’s then best known scientist, Albert Einstein, that he signed a
letter to then president Franklin D. Roosevelt that stated that he agreed that if such a bomb
were constructed it might be possible, for example, to contain it in a seagoing vessel, which, if
brought into a port and detonated, would destroy the port. World War II had already begun in
Europe and Asia when Roosevelt’s scientific advisors concluded that Einstein’s conjecture was
not only possible but that research into constructing such a weapon was probably already under
way in both Germany and Japan.
Thorium although it had a relatively abundant fissile isotopes was immediately relegated to a
back seat, because its properties dictated that although it could be used to manufacture a
nuclear reactor it could not be used to or be useful in the construction of a fission weapon!
Thorium powered reactors were designed and built during and just after World War II to test
power an ocean going vessel and to create the first civilian use only nuclear power plant at
Shippingport, Pennsylvania.
Early proponents of civilian nuclear power did not want to manufacture devices from which
weapons grade materials (i.e., highly enriched uranium or the new synthetically produced and
highly fissile plutonium) could be easily extracted, because at the beginning of the “atomic age”
it was believed that only a massively expensive and sophisticated industrial nation could afford
to build the enormously costly and limited use base to produce weapons grade materials.
So, the development of thorium-based nuclear reactors was continued for a while in parallel with
those using uranium and/or plutonium-based technologies. Then a series of intelligence
underestimates and political errors combined to terminate government support and funding of
what parallel development there was and to propel uranium to the first and only place in the
race.
First, the devastated, and by American standards, primitive Russian industrial base produced
and detonated a test atomic bomb in 1949. Then Great Britain whose scientists had contributed
to the bomb’s development way out of proportion to their numbers, but whose industrial base
was considered to have been shattered by the war, followed the Russians shortly after with a
successful test of their own even though Britain had been cut off from research and
development information almost as soon as the war ended.
The atomic arms race was on, and it became the obsession of the world’s politicians that the
future must belong to the leader in numbers of atomic weapons. Thorium reactors were quickly
forgotten for the same reason as they had once appealed. They could not be used, in any easy
way, to make weapons grade material. Uranium and its daughter element, plutonium, were
crowned the undisputed queens of nuclear power.
The governments of the nuclear powers went on a 50 year binge of hypocrisy. They talked
about clean cheap safe civilian nuclear power but they skewed the nuclear power industry
through subsidies towards uranium. This kept the weapons grade uranium and plutonium
pipeline with a backup system and kept the nuclear fuel reprocessing industry in business
economically. Most insidiously the public was trained to view safety as the prevention of
detonations (not possible) or leaks (less likely than at carbon-based power plants) rather then
the prevention of any possibility at all, of producing weapons grade material. Thus thorium was
relegated to the back of the funding line.
The United States and the Russian Federation today have many times the number of nuclear
weapons either one would need to destroy civilization. In addition Great Britain, France, China,
Israel, Pakistan, India and bankrupt and starving North Korea have nuclear weapons and
delivery systems for them. All it seems to take today to build a nuclear weapon is a uraniumbased
reactor, time and a knowledge base. The world does not need any more nuclear reactors
based on uranium and/or plutonium!
The speed with which it is claimed that global warming is advancing dictates that we need
immediately to begin to switch over to nuclear reactors to produce the heat upon which the
generation of electricity is based.
It is too dangerous to build or allow remaining in operation nuclear reactors that can produce
weapons grade material. The answer is thorium-based nuclear reactors.
An American company, Thorium Power, Ltd., [OTCBB:THPW], is at the forefront of thorium
power technology. The principals of the company in fact give it a continuity and breadth of
expertise in engineering, government, law and the military that is outstanding and unbroken
from the very dawn of the idea of safe civilian nuclear power. The company’s website makes
fascinating, and I think, today, compulsory reading for any investor who wants to participate for
the long run in the continuation and maintenance of a society and polity, the United States of
America, that can improve and expand the quality of life for the earth’s billions without the need
for depriving its own citizens of anything or of controlling the lives of others.
Although thorium power is today a common topic among the punditocracy - just “Google” the
term “thorium” to see what I mean - it is not at all clear how to invest in the mining and
production of thorium.
Look at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) documentation on thorium, but, be aware, that it is
out of date. The current USGS material shows the U.S. with less than 200,000 tonnes of
thorium reserves. In fact a new company, so far private, Thorium Energy, Inc. told me that the
unpublished results of a new study commissioned by it from the USGS that show that TE’s
Lemhi Pass property in Idaho has 600,000 tonnes of thorium reserves by itself. This if proved
out would give the U.S. the largest reserves of thorium in the world, and would in fact be more
than 1/3 of the world’s known thorium.
The Lemhi Pass deposit is said to be primarily thorium, and this is rather unusual historically.
Most of the world’s known thorium reserves are byproducts of rare earth minerals such as
monazite, which, coincidentally, is also found in a property called the Mountain Pass site in
southern California, which environmentalists shut down because of the radioactivity from the
thorium in the tailings - the thorium was not concentrated and removed because it had little or
no commercial value.
The mine was ironically discovered by prospectors using Geiger counters looking for uranium in
the first, post World War II, uranium boom! Molycorp moved away from the original discovery
because of the radioactivity and developed another, relatively non-radioactive, ore body on the
property and then fruitlessly tried for decades to create a market for the rare earths produced. I
don’t know who owns this property now, but keep an eye open for it. Mountain Pass could come
roaring back.
The main source of rare earths today, globally, is China, and the principal producer of rare earth
metals there is a unit of the parent company, Baotou, of China’s third largest steel maker,
Baosteel. The products of Baotou’s rare earth production unit are marketed in North America by
a Canadian subsidiary named HEFA. It is intriguing that the website for HEFA, which names all
of the rare earth products available from the company does not mention thorium. Does this
mean that the Chinese do not know the thorium is there, or does it mean that they do know but
have no wish to sell material outside of China that can be used in place of uranium?
The American company, W.R. Grace [NYSE:GRA] has been in business since 1854 and has
processed rare earth ores for decades. It was even doing so when the ores were produced in
the United States. It certainly has the technology, at least historically, to produce thorium metal
and its alloys if required as it did during World War II when the company was called upon to
produce uranium chemicals, metals and alloys for the Manhattan Project.
Thorium Power, Inc. has told me that they already have the technology to “switch over” from
uranium to thorium more than 60% of the reactors in use today in the world.
They said that a switched over or built from the ground up thorium powered reactor has for the
“blanket” a total of three times the life of a uranium powered reactor. This would mean that the
savings during the first fuel cycles will pay for the changeover in the case of a “retrofit.” The core
can be used to burn fissionable grade plutonium to non weapons grade material while the
blanket will be made from thorium and uranium-233, not 238, so that no weapons grade
plutonium-239 can be produced in the reactor.
In the last analysis of what keeps the uranium reactors running is unsurprisingly your tax dollars.
The U.S. Federal Government subsidizes the storage of “spent” fuel from nuclear power plants.
It (with our taxes) pays “private” utilities to store dangerous-because weapons grade material
can e extracted from it and it is intensely radioactive to boot-spent fuel rods while awaiting that
far off day when there will be a national repository for such waste. It has become a lawyer’s trick
to sue the Federal Government on behalf of a utility that needs more storage space or operating
funds claiming a breech of the contract implied by the government’s promise to maintain a safe
operation and to defend the country.
If this subsidy were to be phased out or reduce ed it would immediately point the utilities
towards the longer and thus cheaper fuel cycle of thorium power, which produces less waste, as
well as towards reducing the security aspect of the cost of storing and transporting materials
from which weapons grade materials can be extracted.
The public is generally unaware of the history of thorium as an alternative to uranium for the
production of electricity by nuclear reactors. Those that are aware believe that thorium
technology was a dead end path undertaken and finished many years ago. Long term investors
might want to gamble that global warming will shortly reveal that the public needs a re-education
with regard to the utility and future of thorium power.
Life is a song if you love your job
By Raju Gavali
Times of India
February 25, 2007
BELGAUM: When Padmaja Pavaskar, a student of Maratha Mandal’s institutions, asked
President Kalam if India could become self-sufficient in nuclear power, the President could not
just resist from terming her question "fantastic" and said India was aiming at producing 50,000
MW power by 2030 after the thorium-based fast breeder nuclear reactors were activated.
President Kalam on Sunday participated in the platinum jubilee celebrations of the Maratha
Mandal Group of Educational Institutions here. Interacting with the students, he said "We are
advocating energy independence and will produce 1,000-2,000 MW power in the next two or
three years by using solar, bio and nuclear power generators.Uranium, the main material
needed for generation of nuclear power, is limited with us,whereas we have abundant quantities
of thorium and it has to be made fissile by using fast breeders and by the year 2030 we can
produce 50,000 MW power."
Another student, Ajay Prabhu, asked the President which role he cherished most in his long
career from Rameswaram to New Delhi. The President said his first love was teaching. He said
that after education, 90% go for in for employment, as that was the way of life and 10% get what
they want. One should start loving the job and life would be beautiful. Or else would become
miserable.
To another question by Y Rameshwar as to why despite controls the standards of education
were falling, the President said there was no shortage of manpower and the government was
setting up a chain of institutions for teaching and research and a network would be formed to
enable students to go in for research after their 10+2 education. Good teachers would man the
institutions, he added.
Earlier, addressing the students on "creative leaders", the President gave the example of one G
R Shanmugappa, vice-president, All India Motor Transport Congress and president, Karnataka
Lorry Owners Association,who started as a porter in Bangalore. Today, he employs around
1,200 persons to run the trucks and premixed coffee and tea business.
"Through this example,we can see how enthusiasm, hard work with devotion and above all the
will to succeed made Shanmugappa, a successful entrepreneur." "On his invitation, I
inaugurated the Motor Transportation Congress, of which he had become the Chairman. I was
happy and privileged to sit by his side to understand further his dreams. India needs many
Shanmugappa-like leaders."
Citing the example of the first project entrusted to him in 1972 and which had to be completed in
seven years, the President said it worried him as many seniors were working. "The then ISRO
chief Satish Dhawan had told me that if you don’t do anything there would be no problem, but if
you do a difficult mission/task difficult problems would come and problems need to be defeated.
The problem should not be the captain, but we."
Green goes green
By Toby Mitchell
Michigan Daily
February 21, 2007
Imagine never having to endure the stink of gasoline or the pain of paying at the pump. Imagine
cities that smell as clean as the countryside and towns that pump electricity back to the cities
from solar plants and wind farms. Imagine energy so cheap and machines so efficient that an
energy crisis will seem as antiquated as a flat Earth. Now stop imagining. The technology to do
this is already here. The only thing America is missing is the nerve to take it.
With a sleek aluminum and carbon fiber body, a 250-mile range and the ability to accelerate
from 0 to 60 as fast as your average Ferrari or Porsche, the Tesla Roadster shatters the
stereotype that paints electric cars as little more than golf carts. Powered by 900 pounds of
batteries, it has a two-gear transmission, zero emissions and a gas pedal without the gas.
Not surprisingly, Tesla Motors wasn't founded in Detroit. The Silicon Valley entrepreneurs-goneautomakers
behind the company could never have got started in the land where dinosaurs still
stalk the roads - and the boardrooms. Unfortunately, many Americans share the same view as
Michigan's shockingly imbecilic auto executives; it's either environment or economy, golf carts
or gas guzzlers, and never the twain shall meet.
Al Gore summed up the dinosaur view in "An Inconvenient Truth." On one side of a balance,
there are some gold bars. On the other side, there's the entire planet. This picture is as
inaccurate as it is ridiculous. As the Tesla Roadster shows, economic and environmental
progress aren't mutually exclusive but complementary.
For an example of what this could mean for the energy business, consider GreenFuels. This
tech start-up produces bio-fuel from algae at a rate 40 times greater than the manufacture of
corn-based ethanol. The algae itself feeds on exhaust from fossil-fuel power plants, reducing
those plants' carbon emissions by 40 percent. GreenFuels already has $11 million in venture
capital, but future profits from green energy will make that figure look like chump change.
More ambitious schemes are in development. The Solar Chimney channels hot air from a huge
desert greenhouse through a mile-high concrete tower, driving a 200-megawatt turbine at a total
cost only somewhat greater than coal. Even nuclear power has a green side: Thorium reactors
can burn plutonium waste left over from Cold War-era weapons programs, turning a longstanding
problem into a source of power. They have political advantages as well, because they
can be engineered to work without uranium or plutonium. That means Iran could pursue this
technology all it wanted and never be able to build a bomb - removing any opportunity to use
nuclear power as an excuse to develop nuclear weapons.
Now that even the U.S. Army is researching hybrid electric tanks, it may finally be time to admit
that so-called alternative energy has gone mainstream. Supplies of solar panels can't keep up
with demand. Wind turbines now pay for themselves within a few years in many states. There's
a lot of money to be made in green energy - it'll just be different people making it.
Oil companies have seen the writing on the wall. They've poured millions into propaganda
outfits like the Competitive Enterprise Institute, an Exxon-Mobil-funded think-tank whose
manufactured experts appear in the media to denounce alternative energy as a wasteful
government subsidy. This is pure hypocrisy - there never was a free market for energy. The
entire nuclear industry was literally engineered by the government, and the oil companies'
primary market was created by the largest continuing federal subsidy in history - the interstate
highway system. The real debate isn't over whether or not to subsidize, but whether to keep
subsidizing the status quo and face diminishing profits or to make a leap to technology that pays
far bigger dividends in the long run.
Liberals who want others to want to protect the planet need to get real. Unless going green
starts to pay some green, it won't happen. Fortunately, profitability is almost a reality. The
government just needs the courage to make traditional energy industries pay their own bills.
Imagine how much better the economics of green energy would look if some of the estimated
$58 billion in federal dollars that will be spent on nuclear waste storage in Nevada went to green
energy instead.
Bull-headed fiscal conservatives will be repulsed by the idea of a Green New Deal, as
suggested by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. Democrats should do what
Republicans did with global warming and simply call the idea by a different name. What America
needs is a broad array of performance-driven energy initiatives that foster the best solutions for
individual cities and states. After all, even the most uneducated investor can tell you that the
surest way to good returns is through a diversified portfolio.
Energy Business Review
By David Niles
February 20, 2007
As recent events have illustrated, the UK nuclear industry is under pressure from all angles, with
its future in jeopardy. Not only does it need government and investor support, but the industry
has to sway public opinion and battle its own internal demons. Clearly, a constructive and
pragmatic plan is needed to resurrect the nuclear debate from limbo.
The UK nuclear industry has just experienced what must have been 'the mother of all bad
weeks'. Firstly, on February 13, 2007, British Energy's effort to encourage new nuclear build
was labeled hopeless. Although the UK government claims to support nuclear build, it has ruled
out subsidies, which are critical for build. Secondly, a viable nuclear alternative hinges on its
ability to compete with gas and coal, and, presently, nuclear is not price-competitive with either.
Then, on February 15, 2007, the industry did not do itself any favors when the UK Atomic
Energy Authority (UKAEA) admitted that it had illegally released radioactive waste for more than
20 years, between 1963 and 1984.
The third blow came one day later when anti-nuclear campaigners won a court (and PR) battle
for a judicial review of the government's nuclear consultation paper. The ruling said that the
government failed to present clear proposals and information on key issues surrounding a new
generation of nuclear plants, such as the disposal of radioactive waste and the financial costs of
plant build. Additionally, it dismissed the information given in the paper as inadequate and
misleading.
Nuclear can be a viable option in achieving energy security and curtailing carbon emissions;
however, the challenges of regulatory approval, planning, decommissioning, pre-licensing plant
designs, assessing sites for suitability, financing and swaying public opinion are tough dragons
to slaughter.
The UK government cannot afford to stick its head in the sand and pretend nuclear is a
foregone conclusion. Italy, for example, is reconsidering its anti-nuclear position as it confronts
environmental obligations and growing dependence on foreign energy.
The UK industry needs a pragmatic and comprehensive government policy to sway the hearts
and minds of investors and the public, and possibly a bit of luck.
It recently emerged that the Norwegian government is studying the use of thorium as an
alternative to uranium as a nuclear fuel. Thorium reactors are considered safer than uranium
and more environmentally friendly than gas-fired plants. Not only are meltdowns impossible, but
these reactors produce less waste and spent fuel than conventional uranium reactors -
something that must surely be of interest to the UKAEA.
Times Community Newspapers
February 7, 2007
Thorium Power Ltd., a developer of nuclear fuel technology for existing and future reactors, has
announced the appointment of Erik Hallstrom as chief operating officer. Hallstrom served in the
Swedish army and as a diplomat in Eastern Europe and has experience in high-tech industries.
Hallstrom has served as senior vice president of WorldSpace Satellite Radio, an early provider
of satellite-based radio to markets in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

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