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Feds: TVA Executive Traded Nuclear Information For Cash In Chinese Espionage Case (knoxnews.com)
mdsolar quotes a report from Knoxville News Sentinel: An East Tennessean who served as a senior manager in the Tennessee Valley Authority's nuclear program swapped information with one of China's top nuclear power companies in exchange for cash, according to federal court records unsealed Thursday. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Knoxville on Thursday announced an espionage conspiracy indictment against China General Nuclear Power, Chinese nuclear engineer Szuhsiung 'Allen' Ho, and Ho's firm, Energy Technology International. Prosecutors said Ho conspired with the companies to lure nuclear experts in the U.S. into providing information to allow China to develop and produce nuclear material based on American technology and under the radar of the U.S. government. Ho was taken into custody in Atlanta on Thursday afternoon and will be returned to U.S. District Court in Knoxville to face the two-count indictment. The indictment consists of one count of conspiracy to illegally engage and participate in the production and development of special nuclear material outside the U.S. and one count of conspiracy to act in the U.S. as an agent of a foreign government.
I am curious: what information did he get in return?
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
To clarify this is from TFA:
Among the six unidentified American co-conspirators listed in the indictment is a person labeled "U.S. Person 1," described as the TVA senior manager for the probabilistic risk assessment in the Nuclear Power Group from April 2010 to September 2014. The TVA executive was born in Taiwan and became a naturalized citizen in 1990, according to the indictment. A payment by Ho to the TVA executive was sent to Chattanooga, according to the indictment.
Silence is a state of mime.
Therefore what is the scope of this investigation? Trying to prevent P.R.C. from extending their scope of nuclear-electric energy production, so they cannot fight coal-burning pollution and global warming? Trying to slow their nuclear-medical capability so that asian cancer patients die earlier?
Yes, yes! All of this in sad fact... though the indictment is deliberately crafted to scare people and I'm not surprised it has become anti-nuke clickbait at Slashdot.
NO, It's certainly not a Rosenberg spy leak to bring the POWER OF DOOM to our enemies...
NO, it's not really international espionage in any sense of 'actionable' secrets...
NO, it's not even direct 'corporate' espionage... so what is it,,really? Here's the meat,
[TA] The TVA executive in 2013 used TVA ties to access the nonprofit Electric Power Research Institute and provided China General with the nonprofit's reports on nuclear power that were supposed to be restricted to members of the research firm, according to the indictment.
This is a butt-hurt nonprofit suing its executive for moonlighting, and he clearly betrayed their trust by sharing proprietary information. So they have cooked up something that sounds (to gullible people, anti-nuclear activists, and hopefully a judge) as if it was a sensitive leak of critical nuclear secrets to nail the guy.
TVA wants to have their cake and eat it too. As a proponent and purveyor of civilian nuclear energy they have suffered along with the whole nuclear power industry, from the cold war fallout that confers an absurd level of oversight to the whole supply side of lightly enriched uranium fuel, which you can handle with your bare hands and for which there are NO real 'secrets' left... AND YET, they'll pander to the process by manufacturing a faux Rosenberg-style scandal if it suits them. They should be ashamed.
[TA] The indictment alleges Ho "entered into contracts with" the TVA executive and "other U.S.-based experts to provide assistance to" the Chinese-owned nuclear power company --- one of the three largest in China --- related to the "development and production of special nuclear material" in the People's Republic of China.
Gee... lemmie guess... this almost sounds like information on solid fuel assemblies for nuclear power plants, the kind China has made for decades and is also making, under license from Westinghouse and others.
I see 'plutonium' is mentioned in the article too because it is a by-product in the fission of uranium, is used in the manufacture of bombs and is on the 'special' nuclear materials list. Nice way to tie this ball-less issue to nuclear weapons. Nitroglycerin tablets are a dangerous by-product of the pharmaceutical industry and their use in controlling heart attacks is a prime example of letting corporate medical interests undermine National Security. They are not explosive themselves but with a billion dollars' worth of them (small change to Our Enemies) A Bomb Could Be Made.
[TA] According to the indictment, the TVA executive provided Ho with Florida Power & Light "information regarding nuclear power plant outage times" in 2004 for use at China General's Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant and provided consulting services to Daya Bay during that time.
Does it sound kind of fishy that leaking information on outage times--- such as those posted publicly on Nuclear Street website so that migrant nuclear workers may plan to converge on plants during refueling outages --- would be valuable enough to put someone away behind bars?
Perhaps people clicked into this story because they thought the lid was being blown off of something.
Perhaps the news wires are fronting the story without perspective because the indictment has a delicious 'Rosenberg' flavor.
If so... enjoy the rusty nail soup. There really is nothing so see here, but don't move along. It's better than TV.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
Except there's been a long history of bogus espionage cases against Chinese scientists, going all the way back to Quan Xuesen, one of the founders of the JPL. We suspected that he was sharing his knowledge with China, so we exiled him to China, where he became the father of the Chinese missile and space programs.
Which, needless to say, is a strong indication he really was spying for the Chinese.
Because TVA is an electric utility, not a military organization, the nuclear information it possesses is purely for civilian use. If it allows China to emit less carbon by closing more coal plants, the net effect will be beneficial for everyone.
The crime here is not espionage, but theft of TVA's intellectual property.
Not only that - but the Nuclear Industry - as far as generating power and operating reactors safely and economically - they all share information widely and openly on how to achieve those aims, because they all know that the nuclear power industry as a whole rises and falls based on the performance of all of them, and a single bad operator can ruin the reputation and the industry for 10+ years (looking at you - Japanese operators).
I'm really concerned that law enforcement might not know the difference between "technology secrets" and "operational knowledge that is freely shared between operators in all countries".
It really hinges on this particular undefined statement:
> "development and production of special nuclear material" ..however that's immediately followed by this paragraph:
> " the TVA executive provided Ho with Florida Power & Light "information regarding nuclear power plant outage times" in 2004 for use at China General's Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant "
That sounds exactly like the type of information that operators throughout the world share amongst each other and work hard to help one another do better at!
But evil Chinese citizen not registered as an agent of a foreign power ... oooooh. Anyway, time will tell. Hope he has a good lawyer who knows how the industry operates.
Don't they know that - like many things, - it's only ok when the Clintons do it?
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS...