Ill. nuclear reactor loses power, venting steam (AP)

BYRON, Ill. ? A nuclear reactor at a northern Illinois plant shut down Monday after losing power, and steam was being vented to reduce pressure, according to officials from Exelon Nuclear and federal regulators.

Unit 2 at Byron Generating Station shut down around 10:18 a.m., after losing power from an off-site source, Exelon officials said. Diesel generators began supplying power to the plant equipment and operators began releasing steam from the non-nuclear side of the plant to help cool the reactor, officials said.

Even though the turbine is not turning to produce electricity, "you still need to cool the equipment." said U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokeswoman Viktoria Mitlyng. Releasing steam helps "take away some of that energy still being produced by nuclear reaction but that doesn't have anywhere to go now."

The steam contains low levels of radioactive tritium, but the levels are safe for workers and the public, federal and plant officials said.

Unit 1 was operating normally while engineers investigate why Unit 2 lost power, which comes into the plant from the outside power grid, Mitlyng said. Smoke was seen from an onsite station transformer, she said, but no evidence of a fire was found when the plant's fire brigade responded.

Exelon spokesman Paul Dempsey said there is "no reason we can pinpoint right now" for the power loss.

Mitlyng said Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspectors were in the control room at Byron and in constant contact with the agency's incident response center in Lisle, Ill.

Byron Generating Station is in Ogle County, about 95 miles northwest of Chicago.

In March 2008, federal officials said they were investigating a problem with electrical transformers at the plant after outside power to a unit was interrupted.

In an unrelated issue last April, the commission said it was conducting special inspections of backup water pumps at the Byron and Braidwood generating stations after the agency's inspectors raised concerns about whether the pumps would be able to cool the reactors if the normal system wasn't working. The plants' operator, Exelon Corp., initially said the pumps would work but later concluded they wouldn't.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120130/ap_on_bi_ge/us_nuclear_plant_illinois

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Reports: Maradona on short list to coach UAE

Associated Press Sports

updated 8:23 a.m. ET Jan. 30, 2012

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -Diego Maradona is reportedly among the candidates to take over as coach of the United Arab Emirates national team.

Yousuf Al Serkal, chairman of the UAE's Football Association interim committee, was quoted Monday in the local media as saying the Argentine great is on a short list that contains at least three names.

A decision is expected before the UAE's league season wraps up in May.

Last month, Maradona said would accept the job "with pleasure." He has coached Dubai-based Al Wasl since last year.

The UAE has had a caretaker coach since Srecko Katanec of Slovenia was fired after a 3-1 loss to Lebanon in September.

? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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Roundup: Arsenal kept its bid to end a seven-year trophy drought on track Sunday.

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/46186822/ns/sports-soccer/

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Sarkozy admits election defeat is a possibility (Reuters)

PARIS (Reuters) ? French President Nicolas Sarkozy is facing up to the possibility that he could lose power in April's election, admitting to aides that a stubborn lead in polls by his Socialist rival means his days could be numbered.

The conservative leader, stuck with dismal ratings as France endures a third year of economic gloom, sounded uncharacteristically defeatist as he remarked during a weekend trip to French Guyana that the election could spell the end of his political career.

"In any case, I am at the end," Sarkozy told aides and a pool of accompanying reporters in off-record comments leaked in French media on Tuesday. "For the first time in my life I am facing the end of my career."

Sarkozy, known for his breathless pace of activity and a tendency to micromanage, said that if he lost the two-round election on April 22 and May 6 he would quit politics and swap public life for a quieter working life with four-day weekends.

"In any case, I would change my life completely, you would no longer hear anything of me," he said, in remarks published in the dailies Le Monde and Le Figaro.

Sarkozy has been behind Socialist Francois Hollande in the polls for months, and has far-right leader Marine Le Pen and Centrist Francois Bayrou snapping at his heels. Hollande could beat him by 10 percentage points in a runoff, surveys show.

Environment Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, photographed next to a stony faced Sarkozy during a shallow boat trip in Guyana, played down the comments as a "non-event" and said the media were giving them an inappropriate political spin.

A longtime adviser to Sarkozy told Reuters he was simply being honest. "Sarkozy always says what he thinks. He said he hopes to win but he could be beaten; it's simply the truth. It's a big discovery, yes, but he's not daft," he said.

"Imagine if he had told them there is no chance he could be beaten - the headline would have been 'This guy is crazy'."

LAST-MINUTE CAMPAIGN

A powerful orator who took France by storm in his 2007 campaign by painting himself as a breath of fresh air who would get people working more to earn more, Sarkozy is waiting until close to a March 16 deadline to announce his reelection bid.

He has been in campaign mode for months, however, using a televised New Year's speech to appeal to the nation to be stoic in the face of further economic malaise and unveiling a 430 million euro crisis plan for unemployment last week.

He has told aides he is confident he can pull voters to his side in a punchy last-minute campaign that will be honest about mistakes made in office but show him as best-placed to make France more competitive and pull it out of crisis.

The loss of France's AAA credit rating this month, when Standard & Poor's downgraded a slew of euro zone countries, was seen as a huge blow for Sarkozy, and was followed this week by an S&P downgrade of its ratings of France's top banks.

But the conservative leader preempted the downgrade, saying in December that it would not be "insurmountable" and switched his focus from deficit-cutting to growth, hosting talks with unions last week to work out a crisis plan to stem unemployment.

Under the plan, the state will increase its spending on job training and an underused partial unemployment scheme designed to keep workers employed during downturns. Sarkozy plans to unveil deeper reforms at the end of January.

Economic discontent is boosting support for Le Pen, whose poll scores suggest she could even make it into the May 6 runoff. Bayrou's surging poll ratings make him a growing threat.

Hollande wowed anti-capitalist voters on Sunday, showing a panache that even impressed Sarkozy aides, with a keynote speech that declared war on the world of finance.

Sarkozy is disliked by many French for his brash, over-familial style, but he believes the weight he has as president and his experience on the world stage still give him an edge over Hollande, who has never held a ministerial post.

A BVA survey in the daily Le Parisien on Tuesday found that Hollande is indeed seen as having less of a presidential air, yet is rated much more highly than Sarkozy for credibility on economic issues such as unemployment, growth and purchasing power.

Fighting back, the ruling UMP party published a pamphlet on Tuesday listing Sarkozy's achievements in power.

In what some see as another pre-election maneuver, the UMP got a bill passed in the Senate on Monday that would make it a crime to deny the mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915 was genocide. Many of the 500,000 Armenians in France can vote, but far fewer of the Turks have voting rights.

(Additional reporting by Brian Love; Editing by Alison Williams)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120124/ts_nm/us_france_sarkozy

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Jorge Posada: 17 seasons, 5 titles and 1 team

New York Yankees baseball player Jorge Posada smiles while standing behind five World Series trophies he helped to win during a news conference to announce his retirement at Yankee Stadium in New York, Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

New York Yankees baseball player Jorge Posada smiles while standing behind five World Series trophies he helped to win during a news conference to announce his retirement at Yankee Stadium in New York, Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

New York Yankees baseball player Jorge Posada, center, is flanked by teammates Mariano Rivera, left, and Derek Jeter, while standing behind five World Series trophies during a news conference to announce his retirement at Yankee Stadium in New York, Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

New York Yankees baseball player Jorge Posada becomes emotional during a news conference where he announced his retirement, at Yankee Stadium in New York, Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

New York Yankees baseball player Jorge Posada, second from left, sits with his family, wife Laura Posada, second from right, and his children Paulina Posada, left, and Jorge Posda Jr., during a news conference to announce his retirement at Yankee Stadium in New York, Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

New York Yankees baseball player Jorge Posada becomes emotional during a news conference where he announced his retirement, at Yankee Stadium in New York, Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

(AP) ? Jorge Posada was watching television when he saw speculation on which teams were interested in signing him as a free agent.

"They put my face on different uniforms," he said. "And it didn't look good."

He began a Yankee and ended as a Yankee, spending his entire career in pinstripes.

Flanked by his wife and children, with five World Series trophies sitting on a table to his right, the five-time All-Star catcher retired at age 40 on Tuesday after 17 major league seasons. He finished with a .273 career batting average, 275 home runs and 1,065 RBIs.

At a crowded Yankee Stadium news conference, Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera and CC Sabathia were among those who watched Posada fight off tears as he sat on a dais with wife, Laura, 12-year-old son Jorge Jr. and 9-year-old daughter Paulina. It was clear the rest of the family also wanted to be Yankees lifers.

"This is so cool," Paulina said to her dad as she picked up the cardboard in front of her seat with her name and the famous interlocking "NY" logo. "I'm going to keep this."

Posada joins Bernie Williams and Andy Pettitte in retirement, leaving only the 37-year-old Jeter and 42-year-old Rivera from the core group that led the Yankees to four World Series titles in five years from 1996-2000.

"Mariano said this is it. He says one more year. But Derek says he's got like three more to go. So we'll see," Posada said, adding he didn't expect the great closer to quit after next season.

"I don't think about it right now. But the time will come," Rivera said. "Definitely the time will come when I'll have to just admit it and hang (up) the glove and the uniform and move on. We all go through that."

Jeter, the Yankees' captain and leader, expects to outlast Rivera.

"Mo's still got to go first. He's a lot older than me," he said before adding with a laugh: "Mo's going to be here longer than all of us."

Shrieking at success and fuming over failure, Posada often was nuclear fission at the center of the Yankees and what became known as the Core Four. While Jeter and Rivera rarely reveal their feelings, and Pettitte does only on occasion, Posada has been a passionate open window into the Yankees, praising, strutting, venting and battling.

"We feel the same way; I'm just better at hiding it. But we feel the same way inside, and I think that's why we've gotten along so well throughout the years," said Jeter, who first played alongside Posada in the minors in 1992.

He has called him "Sado" for years, since late Yankee Stadium public address announcer Bob Sheppard mispronounced Posada's name when he pinch ran for Wade Boggs in Game 2 of the 1995 AL playoffs.

In the same room where Pettitte announced his retirement 11? months ago, select season ticket holders were invited to sit in the audience.

Posada talked with great fervor about the team that drafted him in the 24th round in 1991.

"Every time I stepped through the Yankee Stadium doors," he began, "I quoted Joe DiMaggio and said, 'I want to thank the good Lord for making me a Yankee.'"

"I could never wear another uniform," he said. "I will forever be a Yankee."

Posada's voice broke up, especially when he spoke in Spanish about his parents. He thanked his teammates, rubbing his chin three times and wiping his eyes. He called Rivera "my brother" and praised Jeter "who helped me stay focused and positive."

"Hopefully you won't miss me that much," he said.

Diana Munson, wife of the late Yankees catcher Thurman Munson, spoke admiringly of Posada, who kept a quote from her husband in his locker: "Batting fourth and being in the lineup is important, but I think the stuff I do behind the plate is more important." One day at Yankee Stadium, Posada sat next to her and told her about his admiration for the former captain, who died in a plane crash when Posada was 7. She wound up following Posada in the box scores.

"He in fact is the one who brought me back to baseball again. After losing Thurman, I kind of lost my heart for baseball," she said. "He plays the game I think the way Thurman played it: a lot of grittiness, lot of toughness. ... I think he and Thurman would have been best buds. He definitely has the 'it' factor. I can't describe it. I don't know what it is. But I knew immediately upon meeting him that he had it, and I think the Yankee fans also have realized that, and I imagine they're as sad today as we all are."

She was followed by a video of fan tributes and by Lisa and Brett Niederer from Bristol, Wis. She talked about the Jorge Posada Foundation and its emotional support and financial assistance to families affected by craniosynostosis, a disease that causes bones in the skull to fuse prematurely.

Jorge Jr. has had nine operations, and Lisa Niederer was watching on television when the father and son went onto the field together during the introductions for the 2002 All-Star game. Brett, then 2?, was diagnosed with the disease around the start of that year, and they talked about the Posada family's assistance.

"I knew we were not alone anymore," said Lisa, who has become a mentor for the foundation.

When the focus returned to baseball, Posada recalled how he started his professional career as a shortstop, was moved to second base and was asked by the Yankees to move to catcher after the 1991 season.

"I felt like it was the worst decision ever," he said, remembering all the passed balls he allowed while catching top draft pick Brien Taylor. "It was not a pretty sight."

He went on to have one of the better offensive careers by a catcher. The switch-hitting Posada made the decision to retire during a season that turned tumultuous May 14 when he was batting .165 and was dropped to No. 9 in the batting order against Boston. He asked to be taken out of the lineup, saying he wasn't ready to play.

Posada rallied to hit .268 for the rest of the season, leaving him with a .235 average, 14 homers and 44 RBIs. And then on Sept. 21, his two-run pinch-hit single beat Tampa Bay to clinch the AL East and earn another huge ovation. He hit .429 (6 for 14) in the five-game loss to Detroit in the division series.

Yankees manager Joe Girardi and general manager Brian Cashman said that was just a blip in his career ? part of Posada's fiery disposition, the one that drew fans to him, one that he may take with him into coaching or managing ? after the Yankees likely honor him with a tribute this year.

That nature caused him to tell his agents not to negotiate with other teams.

"They kept saying that people are asking about you," Posada said. "I'm like ? not interested."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2012-01-24-Yankees-Posada%20Retires/id-2c4cc11c50354ee283763d203870e40d

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Apple Just Incentivized Every College Kid To Get An iPad. As For High Schoolers?

aAs I watched Apple's iBooks event in New York City last week, my mind began to race about the?ramifications?of such?announcements. Everyone had a pretty good idea for weeks (or months if you read the Steve Jobs biography) that textbooks would be a focal point for Apple, but there wasn't much thought given to what this would mean. During the event itself, I just kept thinking, "wow, Apple just incentivized every college student to get an iPad". Except, they didn't. Not yet.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/m8YhsPrGJl4/

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Johnny Depp As Barnabas Collins In Dark Shadows

Well look who’s at it again! Johnny Depp and Tim Burton have teamed up for Dark Shadows, which looks like an awesome vampire movie! Johnny Depp and Tim Burton are coming together once more to work on a new gothic vampire flick, Dark Shadows, which will hit theaters on May 11 2012 . The movie, which is based off of an ABC soap that aired from 1966 to 1971, is going to be a big bag of paranormal, with the show featuring witches, werewolves, zombies, vampires and a whole bunch of other things that you wouldn’t want as your roommate. Depp is going to be taking on the role of Barnubus Collins, the one that made the show the cult classic that it is. It is also the character who Johnny Depp has said to have been obsessed with as a child. Creepy. In contrast to our most beloved vampires at the moment (Yes, I’m talking to you Twi-hards), Depp?s character has dark circles around his eyes, hands with claw-like finger nailsclaws, and overall features that make you compare him to a bat. Looks aside, I’m sure the immortal love child of Burton and Depp with give the Cullen?s a [...]

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Spokesman: Paterno in serious condition

People gather at a statue of former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno in State College, Pa, on Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012. Joe Paterno's doctors say the former coach's condition has become "serious" after he experienced complications from lung cancer in recent days. (AP Photo/John Beale)

People gather at a statue of former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno in State College, Pa, on Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012. Joe Paterno's doctors say the former coach's condition has become "serious" after he experienced complications from lung cancer in recent days. (AP Photo/John Beale)

FILE - In this Nov. 7, 2009, file photo, Penn State Coach Joe Paterno stands with his players before taking the field for an NCAA college football game against Ohio State in State College, Pa. A family spokesman says the former Penn State coach, who is battling lung cancer, is in serious condition after experiencing health complications. The 85-year-old Paterno has been in the hospital since Jan. 13 for observation for what his family had called minor complications from cancer treatments. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

People gather at a statue of former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno in State College, Pa., on Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012. Paterno's doctors say the former coach's condition has become "serious" after he experienced complications from lung cancer in recent days. (AP Photo/John Beale)

FILE - In this Oct. 13, 2007, file photo, Penn State head coach Joe Paterno stands with his team before they take the field to play for an NCAA college football game against Wisconsin in State College, Pa. A family spokesman says the former Penn State coach, who is battling lung cancer, is in serious condition after experiencing health complications. The 85-year-old Paterno has been in the hospital since Jan. 13 for observation for what his family had called minor complications from cancer treatments. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

Candles, flowers, notes and other mementos are placed at a statue of former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno in State College, Pa., on Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012. Paterno's doctors say the former coach's condition has become "serious" after he experienced complications from lung cancer in recent days. (AP Photo/John Beale)

(AP) ? Joe Paterno's doctors said Saturday that the former Penn State coach's condition had become "serious," following complications from lung cancer in recent days.

The winningest major college football coach, Paterno was diagnosed shortly after Penn State's Board of Trustees ousted him Nov. 9 in the aftermath of the child sex abuse charges against former assistant Jerry Sandusky. While undergoing treatment, his health problems worsened when he broke his pelvis ? the same injury he sustained during preseason practice last year.

"Over the last few days Joe Paterno has experienced further health complications," family spokesman Dan McGinn said in a brief statement to The Associated Press. "His doctors have now characterized his status as serious. His family will have no comment on the situation and asks that their privacy be respected during this difficult time."

Paterno's sons Scott and Jay each took to Twitter on Saturday night to refute reports that their father had died.

Wrote Jay Paterno: "I appreciate the support & prayers. Joe is continuing to fight."

Quoting individuals close to the family, The Washington Post reported on its website that Paterno remained connected to a ventilator, but had communicated his wishes not to be kept alive through any extreme artificial means. The paper said his family was weighing whether to take him off the ventilator on Sunday.

The 85-year-old Paterno has been in the hospital since Jan. 13 for observation for what his family called minor complications from his cancer treatments. Not long before that, he conducted his only interview since losing his job, with the Post. Paterno was described as frail and wearing a wig. The second half of the two-day interview was conducted from his bedside.

Roughly 200 students and townspeople gathered Saturday night at a statue of Paterno just outside a gate at Beaver Stadium. Some brought candles, while others held up their smart phones to take photos of the scene. The mood was somber, with no chanting or shouting.

"Drove by students at the Joe statue," Jay Paterno tweeted. "Just told my Dad about all the love & support--inspiring him."

Penn State student David Marselles held a candle in his right hand and posed next to a life-sized cardboard cutout of Paterno that he keeps at his apartment. A friend took a photo on the frigid night.

"I came to Penn State because of Joe Paterno. Since I was a little kid, I've been watching the games ... screaming 'We Are ... Penn State' because of him. ... He inspired me to go to college," Marselles said. "With such a tragic event like this, I just thought it was necessary to show my support."

The final days of Paterno's Penn State career were easily the toughest in his 61 years with the university and 46 seasons as head football coach.

Sandusky, a longtime defensive coordinator who was on Paterno's staff during two national title seasons, was arrested Nov. 5 and ultimately charged with sexually abusing a total of 10 boys over 15 years. His arrest sparked outrage not just locally but across the nation and there were widespread calls for Paterno to quit.

Paterno announced late on Nov. 9 that he would retire at the end of the season, but hours later he received a call from board vice chairman John Surma, telling him he had been terminated. By that point, a crowd of students and media were outside the Paterno home. When news spread that Paterno had been dumped, there was rioting in State College.

Police on Saturday evening barricaded the block where Paterno lives, and a police car was stationed about 50 yards from his home. Several people had gathered in the living room of the house. No one was outside, other than reporters and photographers.

Trustees said this week they pushed Paterno out in part because he failed a moral responsibility to report an allegation made in 2002 against Sandusky to authorities outside the university. They also felt he had challenged their authority and that, as a practical matter, with all the media in town and attention to the Sandusky case, he could no longer run the team.

Paterno testified before the grand jury investigating Sandusky that he had relayed to his bosses an accusation that came from graduate assistant Mike McQueary, who said he saw Sandusky abusing a boy in the showers of the Penn State football building.

Paterno told the Post that he didn't know how to handle the charge, but a day after McQueary visited him, he spoke to the athletic director and the administrator with oversight over the campus police.

Wick Sollers, Paterno's lawyer, called the board's comments this week self-serving and unsupported by the facts. Paterno fully reported what he knew to the people responsible for campus investigations, Sollers said.

"He did what he thought was right with the information he had at the time," Sollers said.

Sandusky says he is innocent and is out on bail, awaiting trial.

The back and forth between Paterno's representative and the board reflects a trend in recent weeks, during which Penn State alumni ? and especially former players, including Hall of Fame running back Franco Harris ? have questioned the trustees' actions and accused them of failing to give Paterno a chance to defend himself.

Three town halls, in Pittsburgh, suburban Philadelphia and New York City, seemed to do little to calm the situation and dozens of candidates have now expressed interest in running for the board, a volunteer position that typically attracts much less interest.

While everyone involved has said the focus should be on Sandusky's accusers and their ordeals, the abuse scandal brought a tarnished ending to Paterno's sterling career. Paterno won 409 games and took the Nittany Lions to 37 bowl games and those two national championships, the last in the 1986 season. More than 250 of the players he coached went on to the NFL.

Throughout his coaching years, Paterno maintained that, yes, winning was important, but even more important was winning with honor.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-01-22-Penn%20State-Paterno/id-65e609a0835648bbba01c7b4b0aa3736

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IRL: The CES 2012 Edition, featuring AirDrop, a new MBP and Crumpler

Welcome to IRL, an ongoing feature where we talk about the gadgets, apps and toys we're using in real life and take a second look at products that already got the formal review treatment.

We came, we saw, we collapsed. After seven days in Vegas and 700-plus posts, we'd love nothing more than to catch up on The Daily Show, eat something other than In-N-Out Burger and bask in what we hope will be a slow news week. Alas, though, the show must go on, and so must our gadget ramblings. And what better place to start than with the gear we schlepped to CES? You'd think, like marathoners prepping for a race, that we'd stick with the high-tech equivalent of broken-in sneakers, red gatorade and other safe bets. But in fact, the week saw a few of us taking a chance on unfamiliar tech -- everything from the Elgato Turbo H.264 to the Sony NEX-C3. For Darren, the transition from thumb drives to AirDrop was benign, though largely ineffectual. In Terrence's case, an impulsive foray into the world of Macs left him without functioning USB ports. Good times, right? Meet us past the break for a few tales of what went right (or dreadfully wrong) last week in Vegas.

Continue reading IRL: The CES 2012 Edition, featuring AirDrop, a new MBP and Crumpler

IRL: The CES 2012 Edition, featuring AirDrop, a new MBP and Crumpler originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Jan 2012 14:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mayor: Ambitious new London airport gets support (AP)

LONDON ? Support is growing for constructing a brand-new London airport in the Thames Estuary region of southeast England, the capital's mayor said Wednesday.

Boris Johnson said the government was "increasingly interested" in the ambitious proposal, which would see a massive new air hub built where London's River Thames meets the North Sea. Although detailed plans are likely to be years in the making, one high-profile proposal would see a 150 million passenger-a-year airport built at the edge of the sea for 50 billion pounds ($76 billion).

Johnson acknowledged that building an entirely new airport would be costly and time-consuming, but he argued it was critical to the country's economy.

"You can't go on expecting Britain to compete with France and Germany and other European countries when you simply can't supply the flights to these growth destinations," he told BBC radio.

Johnson's new airport would effectively replace Heathrow, London's current long-haul hub. The airport handles 65 million passengers annually, making it Europe's busiest, but longstanding plans to build a third runway there were scrapped following a drawn-out and acrimonious debate with local residents and environmental groups.

Gert Zonneveld, a transport analyst at Panmure Gordon, said that the capital's other four airports are either too small or too dominated by short-haul, low-cost carriers to take on Heathrow's role.

That has led Johnson to champion an entirely new airport built about 40 miles (65 kilometers) southeast of central London. A proposal recently published by London-based Foster & Partners envisions a multi-runway facility on the Isle of Grain, a marshy, sparsely populated peninsula at the edge of the estuary.

The airport would be linked to London by a four-track, high-speed train line which would plug into the Channel tunnel rail link and a planned high-speed line to Birmingham. Concept drawings published by the architecture firm show bullet trains pulling into a glass-domed terminal building at a massive airport at the edge of the sea, as well as a futuristic-looking flood-protection barrier aimed at generating tidal power for the region.

Critics say the plan is expensive, impractical, dangerous and environmentally destructive.

Foster & Partners' proposed price tag of 50 billion pounds is nearly half the size of Britain's budget deficit. Local council leaders have expressed outrage, saying the airport would be on the wrong side of London and that flight paths would slice through an area which is home to thousands of migratory birds.

The fact that the Isle of Grain also handles a fifth of Britain's liquefied natural gas imports has raised safety concerns, and there's a further danger lurking just below the surface of the water: The SS Richard Montgomery, a World War II-era American munitions ship, remains submerged with 1,400 tons of explosives only four miles from the proposed terminal building.

The government is planning to soon publish proposals for a possible expansion of Britain's airports, a spokeswoman for British Prime Minister David Cameron's office said Wednesday. The consultation is expected to include proposals for a new London hub, including Johnson's estuary idea.

Zonneveld said that technical challenges could be overcome ? but suggested that cost would be the biggest stumbling block.

"From an engineering point of view, yeah sure it could be done," he said. "Clearly it needs to be paid for."

___

Associated Press writer David Stringer contributed to this report.

___

Online:

Foster & Partners' proposal: http://www.fosterandpartners.com/News/458/Default.aspx

___

Raphael Satter can be reached at: http://twitter.com/razhael

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/britain/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120118/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_britain_new_airport

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