tagged w/ Nuclear Reactors
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Japan shuts down last nuclear reactor
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By Kyung Lah, CNN
updated 1:57 AM EDT, Mon May 7, 2012
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Click link or photo above to play video
Japan is nuclear energy free
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STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Japan closed down its last operating nuclear reactor on Saturday
Final shutdown follows a swing against nuclear energy after the Fukushima meltdowns last year
Thousands marched through Tokyo Saturday to celebrate the final closure
Government has warned that summer energy demand may prompt rolling blackouts
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Tokyo (CNN) -- As Japan began its workweek Monday morning, the trains ran exactly on time, the elevators in thousands of Tokyo high rises efficiently moved between floors, and the lights turned on across cities with nary a glitch.
What makes this Monday so remarkable is that for the first time in four decades, none of the energy on this working day is derived from a nuclear reactor.
Over the weekend, Japan's last remaining nuclear reactor shut down for regular maintenance. In the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, reactors have not been allowed back on. Japan is now the first major economy to see the modern era without nuclear power.
Tomari Nuclear Power Plant's reactor 3 in Hokkaido shut down Saturday evening in a much-watched move by government, industry and environmentalists, who are waged in a public battle over the future of Japan's energy policy.
"I think it is not easy, but this challenge is worth fighting for," said Greenpeace Japan's Junichi Shimizu. "There is an increased chance of earthquakes in Japan, so that has a significant risk to the Japanese people and the Japanese economy. The only way forward is to rapidly shift the energy source from nuclear to other sources of energy."
That's not the call just from environmental activists, but from a public suspicious of nuclear energy and its regulatory bodies since a tsunami and earthquake triggered nuclear meltdowns at three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in March 2011.
Thousands marched through the streets of Tokyo on Saturday, celebrating the shutdown of the final reactor.
The protesters waved colorful, traditional "koinobori" carp-shaped banners for Children's Day that became a symbol of the anti-nuclear movement.
That movement grew from the grassroots level in the wake of the disaster, as the country watched tens of thousands of residents living within a 20-kilometer (12-mile) radius of the nuclear plant evacuated and the area remaining turn into a contaminated wasteland.
Prior to the Fukushima disaster, Japan relied on nuclear for approximately 30% of its energy. As reactors have come off-line, the country has increased its imports of fossil fuels.
Japan's government predicts it won't be able to keep up that pace, and the void will result in an energy crunch this summer, possibly leading to rolling blackouts.
The national government's ruling party, the Democratic Party of Japan, has been urging local communities to allow reactors to return to operation.
The DPJ's deputy policy chief, Yoshito Sengoku, bluntly said without nuclear energy the world's third largest economy would suffer. "We must think ahead to the impact on Japan's economy and people's lives, if all nuclear reactors are stopped. Japan could, in some sense, be committing mass suicide," said Sengoku.
Hiromasa Yonekura, chairman of Japan's biggest business lobby, Keidanren, joined the plea in an April press conference. "We cannot possibly agree to do the kind of energy saving yet again this year, or every year from now on," he said, referring to the country's efforts to turn off air conditioners and shift operation of production lines to weekends. "The government must bring the nuclear power stations back into operation."
Economist Jesper Koll, managing director at JP Morgan, says Japan could avoid the economic fallout by defining a clear energy policy, something it has failed to do so far.
"The issue to the private sector of Japan is the government is taking its time in a very emotional, highly politicized debate. And the end result is very, very slow or no decision making at all. After all, if you don't have an energy policy, you don' really have an economic policy because everything revolves around the energy," he said.
Japan's prime minister has promised a clear energy policy sometime this year, perhaps this summer.
But Yukie Osaki, who used to live in Fukushima, says she won't accept any policy that includes nuclear energy. "Nobody believes the government anymore when it says nuclear plants are safe," she said.
"Japan is an earthquake country. It is already dangerous to have nuclear plants here. If we have another accident, we won't have anywhere to live in Japan anymore."
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Japan shuts down last nuclear reactor
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By Kyung Lah, CNN... more
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MSNBC...
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Diablo Canyon nuclear plant in California knocked offline by jellyfish-like creatures called salp
Diablo Canyon Power Plant / AP
This photo provided by the Diablo Canyon Power Plant on Friday shows salp, a gelatinous sea creature, at a nuclear reactor intake structure.
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By James Eng, msnbc.com
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In Japan, it was a monstrous earthquake and tsunami that brought down the Fukushima nuclear plant. In California, it’s a tiny, jellyfish-like sea creature called salp that’s causing problems at the Diablo Canyon atomic plant.
An invasion of salp has prompted Pacific Gas and Electric Co. to temporarily shut down a nuclear reactor at Diablo Canyon, in Avila Beach, San Luisa Obispo County, on the central California coast.
A giant swarm of the transluscent barrel-shaped organisms this week clogged intake screens that are used to keep marine life out of the seawater that is used as a coolant for the nuclear plant.
On Wednesday, PG&E officials reduced power output at the Unit 2 reactor, then decided to shut it down altogether “until conditions improve at the intake structure.” The plant’s other reactor, Unit 1, had already been shut down earlier in the week for a planned refueling and maintenance outage.
“Safety being the number one priority, there was such an influx of salp and you need ocean water to cool the reactors,” PG&E spokesman Tom Cuddy told msnbc.com on Friday. “At that point we made a conservative decision to safely shut down the unit.”
PG&E owns and operates the Diablo Canyon Power Plant, whose two reactors together produce approximately 2,300 net megawatts of electricity – enough to serve nearly 3 million northern and central California homes.
Cuddy said he wasn’t sure when the Unit 1 reactor would come back online.
“We’ll turn the unit on to full power when it’s safe to do so – when the salps leave,” he said. “The bottom line is we’re taking a methodical and conservative approach.”
Lara Uselding, a spokeswoman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the federal agency that oversees reactor safety and security, said the plant is not in any danger.
“It’s not a normal operation condition, but the plant is safe and all the systems operated as designed,” she said.
Salps are tiny, gelatinous organisms that move by contracting, thus pumping water throughout their bodies. They can reproduce and multiply quickly.
Though salps look a bit like jellyfish, they are actually more closely related to organisms that have backbones. They typically grow to 1 or 2 inches long and usually do not appear at the coast, says Larry Madin, a salp expert and research director at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.
“They’re typically more of an offshore living organism," Madin says. He surmises that the swarm at Diablo may have been carried in on currents blown by wind.
Other than clogging the cooling system filters of a nuclear plant, the organisms pose no danger, says Bruce Robison, senior scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in Moss Landing, Calif. They don’t sting, they don’t have teeth and they’re not poisonous.
Salps passively feed off tiny organic particles in the water and can reproduce sexually or asexually. “They can have their population size expand tremendously within a short period of time, which makes them very abundant. In a small space, they can take up all the space,” Robison says.
Madin said the slimy swarm at Diablo would probably go away in a few days, carried off by currents. Or, says Robison, they’ll quickly die off when their food supply runs out.
So the best bet, experts say, is for nuclear officials to just wait it out.
Despite the outage, California is not expected to experience any electricity shortages because it has ample reserves, said Stephanie McCorkle, spokeswoman California ISO, which operates the state's power grid and wholesale markets.
It’s not the first time that sea creatures have interfered with nuclear plant activity.
In 2008, a swarm of jellyfish led to a sharp decrease in power generation at Diablo Canyon, according to the Los Angeles Times. Similar jellyfish problems have cropped up at nuclear plants in the U.S., Japan, Israel and Scotland over the years, the newspaper said.
“It happens. It’s something you would expect along the coast,” Uselding said.
But Madin said this is the first time he’s heard of salps interfering with the operation of a nuclear plant.
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Diablo Canyon nuclear plant in California knocked offline by... more
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ENE NEWS...
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HuffPo: Large amounts of radioactive materials could be deposited across 1,000s of miles if water lost at Fukushima fuel pool — Media just beginning to grasp that danger to world is far from over -Nuclear Expert
Published: April 22nd, 2012 at 4:54 pm ET
By ENENews
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Title: Robert Alvarez: The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster Is Far From Over
Source: Huffington Post
Author: Robert Alvarez*
Date: Apr 22, 2012
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More than a year after the Fukushima nuclear power disaster began, the news media is just beginning to grasp that the dangers to Japan and the rest of the world are far from over. After repeated warnings by former senior Japanese officials, nuclear experts, and now a U.S. Senator, it’s sinking in that the irradiated nuclear fuel stored in spent fuel pools amidst the reactor ruins pose far greater dangers than the molten cores. This is why:
• Nearly all of the 10,893 spent fuel assemblies sit in pools vulnerable to future earthquakes, with roughly 85 times more long-lived radioactivity than released at Chernobyl
• Several pools are 100 feet above the ground and are completely open to the atmosphere because the reactor buildings were demolished by explosions. The pools could possibly topple or collapse from structural damage coupled with another powerful earthquake.
• The loss of water exposing the spent fuel will result in overheating and can cause melting and ignite its zirconium metal cladding resulting in a fire that could deposit large amounts of radioactive materials over hundreds, if not thousands of miles. [...]
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*Robert Alvarez, an Institute for Policy Studies senior scholar, served as senior policy adviser to the Energy Department’s secretary and deputy assistant secretary for national security and the environment from 1993 to 1999. He is an award winning author whose work has appeared in The Washington Post, the Nation, Technology Review, and the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. He has also been featured on”60 Minutes”, Nova and All Things Considered.
Published: April 22nd, 2012 at 4:54 pm ET
By ENENews
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THE REPORT FOLLOWS...
.ENE NEWS...
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HuffPo: Large amounts of radioactive materials could be deposited... more
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http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Federal-Inspectors-Investigate-Problems-at-San-Onofre-143431286.html
NBC Los Angeles...
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Federal Inspectors Investigate Problems at San Onofre
Failed stress tests prompt inspection team to investigation the nuclear power plant, which leaked radiation in January
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By Dave Douglass and Antonio Castelan
| Monday, Mar 19, 2012 | Updated 9:08 PM PDT
A federal inspection team is beginning its examination of steam generator tubes at the San Onofre nuclear power plant. One of those tubes leaked in January, prompting a reactor shutdown, and more tubes failed during a series of tests last week. Antonio Castelan reports.
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KNBC-TV
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A federal inspection team is beginning its examination of steam generator tubes at the San Onofre nuclear power plant. One of those tubes leaked in January, prompting a reactor shutdown, and more tubes failed during a series of tests last week. Antonio Castelan reports.
An inspection team from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission began investigating faulty steam generator tubes at the San Onofre nuclear power plant Monday.
A series of failed tests last week involving steam generator tubes that are a key part of the plant's two reactors prompted the regulatory commission to send in a team of experts to find out why the vital energy source was failing.
The team plans to spend at least five days at the SoCal plant operated by Southern California Edison.
The trouble began in late January, when a tube in one of the reactors leaked.
That reactor was shut down, but not before a small amount of radioactive gas may have escaped into the atmosphere. Edison said neither plant employees nor the public was at risk.
Still, initial tests found that hundreds of steam generator tubes were showing signs of premature wear.
"We're seeing an unusual amount of wear in relatively new steam generators and, yes, that's unusual," said Victor Dricks with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The problems at San Onofre have residents in nearby San Clemente worried.
"This is a huge amount of risk for us to be living so close to," said resident Patty Davis. "It's a big concern."
The federal inspectors will be looking at the design and construction of the plant's steam generators, as well as their transport from Japan where they were manufactured.
Each reactor contains thousands of steam generator tubes. San Onofre's second reactor is also shut down right now for routine maintenance.
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Click on link to view video:
http://media.nbclosangeles.com/images/654*368/9121595_N7PPKGSANONOFREINSPE_722x406_2212490620.jpg
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The New York Times...
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February 27, 2012
Japan Weighed Evacuating Tokyo in Nuclear Crisis
By MARTIN FACKLER
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TOKYO — In the darkest moments of last year’s nuclear accident, Japanese leaders did not know the actual extent of damage at the plant and secretly considered the possibility of evacuating Tokyo, even as they tried to play down the risks in public, an independent investigation into the accident disclosed on Monday.
The investigation by the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation, a new private policy organization, offers one of the most vivid accounts yet of how Japan teetered on the edge of an even larger nuclear crisis than the one that engulfed the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. A team of 30 university professors, lawyers and journalists spent more than six months on the inquiry into Japan’s response to the triple meltdown at the plant, which followed a powerful earthquake and tsunami on March 11 that shut down the plant’s cooling systems.
The team interviewed more than 300 people, including top nuclear regulators and government officials, as well as the prime minister during the crisis, Naoto Kan. They were granted extraordinary access, in part because of a strong public demand for greater accountability and because the organization’s founder, Yoichi Funabashi, a former editor in chief of the daily newspaper Asahi Shimbun, is one of Japan’s most respected public intellectuals.
An advance copy of the report describes how Japan’s response was hindered at times by a debilitating breakdown in trust between the major actors: Mr. Kan; the Tokyo headquarters of the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power, known as Tepco; and the manager at the stricken plant. The conflicts produced confused flows of sometimes contradictory information in the early days of the crisis, the report said.
It describes frantic phone calls by the manager, Masao Yoshida, to top officials in the Kan government arguing that he could get the plant under control if he could keep his staff in place, while at the same time ignoring orders from Tepco’s headquarters not to use sea water to cool the overheating reactors. By contrast, Mr. Funabashi said in an interview, Tepco’s president, Masataka Shimizu, was making competing calls to the prime minister’s office saying that the company should evacuate all of its staff, a step that could have been catastrophic.
The 400-page report, due to be released later this week, also describes a darkening mood at the prime minister’s residence as a series of hydrogen explosions rocked the plant on March 14 and 15. It says Mr. Kan and other officials began discussing a worst-case outcome if workers at the Fukushima Daiichi plant were evacuated. This would have allowed the plant to spiral out of control, releasing even larger amounts of radioactive material into the atmosphere that would in turn force the evacuation of other nearby nuclear plants, causing further meltdowns.
The report quotes the chief cabinet secretary at the time, Yukio Edano, as having warned that such a “demonic chain reaction” of plant meltdowns could result in the evacuation of Tokyo, 150 miles to the south.
“We would lose Fukushima Daini, then we would lose Tokai,” Mr. Edano is quoted as saying, naming two other nuclear plants. “If that happened, it was only logical to conclude that we would also lose Tokyo itself.”
The report also describes the panic within the Kan administration at the prospect of large radiation releases from the more than 10,000 spent fuel rods that were stored in relatively unprotected pools near the damaged reactors. The report says it was not until five days after the earthquake that a Japanese military helicopter was finally able to confirm that the pool deemed at highest risk, near the No. 4 reactor, was still safely filled with water.
“We barely avoided the worst-case scenario, though the public didn’t know it at the time,” Mr. Funabashi, the foundation founder, said.
Mr. Funabashi blamed the Kan administration’s fear of setting off a panic for its decision to understate the true dangers of the accident. He said the Japanese government hid its most alarming assessments not just from its own public but also from allies like the United States. Mr. Funabashi said the investigation revealed “how precarious the U.S.-Japan relationship was” in the early days of the crisis, until the two nations began daily informational meetings at the prime minister’s residence on March 22.
The report seems to confirm the suspicions of nuclear experts in the United States — inside and outside the government — that the Japanese government was not being forthcoming about the full dangers posed by the stricken Fukushima plant. But it also shows that the United States government occasionally overreacted and inflated the risks, such as when American officials mistakenly warned that the spent fuel rods in the pool near unit No. 4 were exposed to the air and vulnerable to melting down and releasing huge amounts of radiation.
Still, Mr. Funabashi said, it was the Japanese government’s failure to warn its people of the dangers and the widespread distrust it bred in the government that spurred him to undertake an independent investigation. Such outside investigations have been rare in Japan, where the public has tended to accept official versions of events.
He said his group’s findings conflicted with those of the government’s own investigation into the accident, which were released in an interim report in December. A big difference involved one of the most crucial moments of the nuclear crisis, when the prime minister, Mr. Kan, marched into Tepco’s headquarters early on the morning of March 15 upon hearing that the company wanted to withdraw its employees from the wrecked nuclear plant.
The government’s investigation sided with Tepco by saying that Mr. Kan, a former social activist who often clashed with Japan’s establishment, had simply misunderstood the company, which wanted to withdraw only a portion of its staff. Mr. Funabashi said his foundation’s investigators had interviewed most of the people involved — except executives at Tepco, which refused to cooperate — and found that the company had in fact said it wanted a total pullout.
He credited Mr. Kan with making the right decision in forcing Tepco not to abandon the plant.
“Prime Minister Kan had his minuses and he had his lapses,” Mr. Funabashi said, “but his decision to storm into Tepco and demand that it not give up saved Japan.”
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PHOTO:
Issei Kato/Reuters, via Bloomberg
Journalists, in protective gear, were taken on a tour last week of Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, at the center of the crisis last yea
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.The New York Times...
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February 27, 2012
Japan Weighed Evacuating Tokyo... more
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CNN...
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New nuclear reactors set to be OK'd for Georgia
By Steve Hargreaves @CNNMoney
February 8, 2012: 3:33 PM ET
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The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is set to approve the construction of two new reactors at Georgia's Vogtle plant, seen here. It would be the first new construction license for a reactor granted in over 30 years.
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NEW YORK (CNNMoney) --
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The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is expected to approve licenses to build two new nuclear reactors on Thursday, the first approvals in over 30 years.
The reactors are being built in Georgia by a consortium of utilities led by Southern Co. (SO, Fortune 500) They will be sited at the Vogtle nuclear power plant complex, about 170 miles east of Atlanta. The plant already houses two older reactors.
Spokespeople for Southern Co. and the NRC were quiet on the matter Wednesday ahead of the vote set for Thursday at 1 PM ET. If approved, NRC staff would likely issue a construction and operating license within the next few days.
Although new nuclear reactors have been built in this country within the last couple of decades -- the last one started operation in 1996 -- the NRC hasn't issued a license to build a new reactor since 1978, a year before the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania. The reactors that have opened in the last decades were approved before 1978.
The combination of the Three Mile Island incident and the high costs of nuclear power turned many utilities away from the technology.
There are currently 104 operating nuclear reactors at 64 plants across the country that provide the nation with roughly 20% of its power. Half are over 30 years old.
The utilities building the new Vogtle reactors submitted their application seven years ago. Prep-work at the site has been under way for some time, but the actual reactors can't be built until NRC issues the final license.
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How close is your home to a nuclear plant?
The new reactors are a Westinghouse design called the AP 1000. Together they are expected to cost $14 billion and provide 2200 megawatts of power, according to a spokesman for Southern Co. That's enough to power 1 million homes.
The plants are being built with the help of a conditional $8.3 billion loan guarantee from the Department of Energy. The loan guarantee is part of DOE's broader loan program that has been criticized for backing companies like Solyndra, the bankrupt maker of solar panels.
The Southern spokesman said the loan guarantee, combined with other regulatory measures, enable the project to receive cheaper financing that will ultimately save ratepayers $1 billion.
The first reactor is expected to come online in 2016 and the second one in 2017, according to Southern Co.
The AP 1000 is the newest NRC-approved nuclear reactor. This would be the first one built in the United States, although four are already under construction in China, said Scott Shaw, a Westinghouse spokesman.
Critics have said the containment walls of the AP 1000 aren't strong enough to withstand a terrorist attack, but Shaw says they were redesigned after September 11, 2001 and have held up during simulations.
He also said the design's passive cooling system makes it much safer than older designs. The AP 1000 uses gravity and condensation -- not electricity -- to cool the fuel rods.
It was the loss of electric power that led to the meltdown of Japan's Fukushima Daiichi reactors following the tsunami in 2011.
Still, a coalition of nine mostly regional environmental groups say the current design is not safe. They are asking the NRC to delay its decision Thursday until they can file a challenge in federal court.
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First Published: February 8, 2012: 2:20 PM ET
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The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is set to approve the construction of two new reactors at Georgia's Vogtle plant, seen here. It would be the first new construction license for a reactor granted in over 30 years.
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CLICK ON LINK TO ARTICLE TO VIEW VIDEO
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New nuclear reactors set to be OK'd for Georgia
By Steve... more
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ENE News...
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Published: December 26th, 2011 at 10:02 PM EDT
By Enenews Admin
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Mainichi: Radiation detected in drinking water from underground source — Over 15 miles from Fukushima meltdowns
Water underground is contaminated, Fukushima Diary, Dec. 26, 2011:
Ministry of the Environment measured cesium from well water at 4 locations in Minamisoma [25 km north of Fukushima plant]. It was about 1.3~14.7 Bq/kg, it was for drinking. The samples were taken in October and November. [...]
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Babelfish Translation result for http://mainichi.jp/select/weathernews/news/20111227k0000m040028000c.html
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Headline: Fukushima 1st nuclear plant: From well water 4 places of cesium detection south Soma
Source: Mainichi.jp
Date: Dec. 26, 2011
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It announced that the environmental ministry on the 26th, inspected the density of the well underwater radioactive cesium of drinking which in emergency evacuation preparation area (in 9 ends of the month cancellation) inside Fukushima prefecture which is set after the Tokyo Electric Power Fukushima 1st nuclear accident is, detected the small quantity at 4 places of south Soma city. Being maximum, water 1 liter (kilometer) to hit and but with 14.7 Becquerel, below provisional regulation value (1 kilo- hit, 200 Becquerel) of the public welfare Ministry of Labor, the new reference level (same 10 Becquerel) which aims April toward of next year enforcement was exceeded at 3 places.
To investigate at 1317 places of the same city and Hirono Cho and Naraha Cho 10, in November, as for the other self-governing community and the like of the same area in the midst of continuation. At 1 places of the same Ku Kitahara as 2 places of south Soma Ichihara Cho Ku Kita Nagano, per 1 liters 11.4~14.7 Becquerel, 1.3 Becquerel were detected with the same Ku 萱 beach. As for detection lower limit value with 5 Becquerel, as for the other well it was non- detection. According to the environmental ministry you say that there is a possibility the earth near the cesium is attached blending. The well with private possession, has informed about the result, almost there is no possibility many people drinking.
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Published: December 26th, 2011 at 10:02 PM EDT
By Enenews Admin... more
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Los Angeles Times...
Japan says it was unprepared for post-quake nuclear disaster
In its report, Japan says, it needs to revise its nuclear safety preparedness and response in light of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant crisis. It also says the damage and radiation leak were worse than previously thought.
associated press
June 8, 2011
tokyo —
— Japan acknowledged Tuesday that it was unprepared for a severe nuclear accident like the tsunami-generated Fukushima disaster and said damage to the reactors and radiation leakage were worse than it previously thought.
In a report being submitted to the United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency, the government also acknowledged reactor design inadequacies and a need for greater independence for the country's nuclear regulators.
The report says the nuclear fuel in three reactors probably melted through the inner containment vessels, not just the core, after the March 11 earthquake, and the tsunami knocked out the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant's power and cooling systems. Fuel in the Unit 1 reactor started melting hours earlier than previously estimated.
The 750-page report, compiled by Japan's nuclear emergency task force, factors in a preliminary evaluation by a team from the International Atomic Energy Agency and was to be submitted to the IAEA as requested.
"In light of the lessons learned from the accident, Japan has recognized that a fundamental revision of its nuclear safety preparedness and response is inevitable," the report says. It also recommends a national debate on nuclear power.
The report says the "inadequate" basic reactor design — the Mark-1 model developed by General Electric — included the venting system for the containment vessels and the location of spent fuel cooling pools high in the buildings, which resulted in leaks of radioactive water that hampered repair work.
GE declined to comment on the specific conclusions of the report.
Hundreds of plant workers are scrambling to bring the crippled reactors to a "cold shutdown" by early next year and end the crisis. The accident has forced more than 80,000 residents to evacuate from neighborhoods around the plant.Los Angeles Times...
Japan says it was unprepared for post-quake nuclear disaster... more
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ChrisMartenson.com...
PART ONE.....
Exclusive Arnie Gundersen Interview: The Dangers of Fukushima Are Worse and Longer-lived Than We Think
Friday, June 3, 2011, 3:54 pm, by Adam
"I have said it's worse than Chernobyl and I’ll stand by that. There was an enormous amount of radiation given out in the first two to three weeks of the event. And add the wind blowing in-land. It could very well have brought the nation of Japan to its knees. I mean, there is so much contamination that luckily wound up in the Pacific Ocean as compared to across the nation of Japan - it could have cut Japan in half. But now the winds have turned, so they are heading to the south toward Tokyo and now my concern and my advice to friends that if there is a severe aftershock and the Unit 4 building collapses, leave. We are well beyond where any science has ever gone at that point and nuclear fuel lying on the ground and getting hot is not a condition that anyone has ever analyzed."
So cautions Arnie Gundersen, widely-regarded to be the best nuclear analyst covering Japan's Fukushima disaster. The situation on the ground at the crippled reactors remains precarious and at a minimum it will be years before it can be hoped to be truly contained. In the near term, the reactors remain particularly vulnerable to sizable aftershocks, which still have decent probability of occuring. On top of this is a growing threat of 'hot particle' contamination risk to more populated areas as weather patterns shift with the typhoon season and groundwater seepage.
In Part 1 of this interview, Chris and Arnie recap the damage wrought to Fukushima's reactors by the tsunami, the steps TEPCO is taking to address it, and the biggest operational risks that remain at this time. In Part 2, they dive into the health risks still posed by the situation there and what individuals should do (including those on the US west coast) if it worsens.
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Chris Martenson: Let’s just briefly review – if we could just synopsize – I know you can do this better than anybody. What happened at Fukushima – what happened and I really would like to take the opportunity to talk about this kind of specifically, like where we are with each one of the reactors. So first of all, this disaster – how did it happen? Was it just bad engineering, was it really bad luck with the tsunami? How did this even initiate – something we were told again and again – something that couldn’t happen seems to have happened?
Arnie Gundersen: Well the little bit of physics here is that even when a reactor shuts down; it continues to churn out heat. Now, only five percent of the original amount of heat, but when you are cranking out millions of horsepower of heat, five percent is still a lot. So you have to keep a nuclear reactor cool after it shuts down. Now, what happened at Fukushima was it went into what is called a “station blackout,” and people plan for that. That means there is no power to anything except for batteries. And batteries can’t turn the massive motors that are required to cool the nuclear reactor. So the plan is in a station blackout is that somehow or another you get power back in four or five hours. That didn’t happen at Fukushima because the tidal wave, the tsunami, was so great that it overwhelmed their diesels and it overwhelmed something called “service water 2” But in any event, they couldn’t get any power to the big pumps.
Now, was it foreseeable? They were prepared for a seven-meter tsunami, about twenty-two feet. The tsunami that hit was something in excess of ten and quite likely fifteen meters, so somewhere between thirty-five and forty-five feet. They were warned that the tsunami that they were designed against was too low. They were warned for at least ten years and I am sure that there were people back before that. So would they have been prepared for one this big? I don’t know, but certainly, they were unprepared for even a tsunami of lesser magnitude.
Chris Martenson: So the tsunami came along and just swamped the systems and I heard that there were some other design elements there too, such as potentially the generators were in an unsafe spot or that some of their electrical substations all happened to be in the basement, so they kind of got taken out all at once. Now, here’s what I heard – the initial reports when they came out said, “Oh, nothing to fear, we all went into SCRAM,” which is some kind of emergency shutdown and they said everything is SCRAMed and I knew that we were in trouble in less than twenty-four hours, they talked about how they were pumping seawater in. Which I assume, by the time you are pumping seawater you have a pretty clear indication from the outside that there is something really quite wrong with this story, is that true?
Arnie Gundersen: Yes. Seawater and as anybody who has ever had a boat on the ocean would know, saltwater and stainless steel do not get along very well. Saltwater and stainless steel at five hundred degrees don’t get along very well at all. You are right, they had some single points of vulnerability – the hole in the armor and the diesels were one of them. But even if the diesels were up high, they would have been in trouble because of those service water pumps I talked about. And they got wiped out and those pumps are the pumps that cool the diesels. So even if the diesels were runnable, cooling water that runs through the diesels would have been taken out by the tsunami anyway. So it's kind of a false argument to blame the diesels.
CONTINUED.....
.ChrisMartenson.com...
PART ONE.....
Exclusive Arnie Gundersen... more
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3 nuclear reactors melted down after quake, Japan confirms
By the CNN Wire Staff
June 6, 2011 11:30 a.m. EDT
Photo: An aerial view of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Japan's nuclear emergency agency goes further in describing the extent of damage
The Fukushima Daiichi plant was badly affected by an earthquake and tsunami in March
Tokyo Electric Power Co. has avoided calling the event a meltdown
Tokyo (CNN) -- Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant experienced full meltdowns at three reactors in the wake of an earthquake and tsunami in March, the country's Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters said Monday.
The nuclear group's new evaluation, released Monday, goes further than previous statements in describing the extent of the damage caused by an earthquake and tsunami on March 11.
The announcement will not change plans for how to stabilize the Fukushima Daiichi plant, the agency said.
Reactors 1, 2 and 3 experienced a full meltdown, it said.
The plant's owner, Tokyo Electric Power Co., admitted last month that nuclear fuel rods in reactors 2 and 3 probably melted during the first week of the nuclear crisis.
It had already said fuel rods at the heart of reactor No. 1 melted almost completely in the first 16 hours after the disaster struck. The remnants of that core are now sitting in the bottom of the reactor pressure vessel at the heart of the unit and that vessel is now believed to be leaking.
We 'came close' to losing northern Japan
TEPCO admits to more possible meltdowns
A "major part" of the fuel rods in reactor No. 2 may have melted and fallen to the bottom of the pressure vessel 101 hours after the earthquake and tsunami that crippled the plant, Tokyo Electric said May 24.
The same thing happened within the first 60 hours at reactor No. 3, the company said, in what it called its worst-case scenario analysis, saying the fuel would be sitting at the bottom of the pressure vessel in each reactor building.
But Tokyo Electric at the same time released a second possible scenario for reactors 2 and 3, one that estimated a full meltdown did not occur. In that scenario, the company estimated the fuel rods may have broken but may not have completely melted.
Temperature data showed the two reactors had cooled substantially in the more than two months since the incident, Tokyo Electric said in May.
The earthquake and tsunami knocked out cooling systems at Fukushima Daiichi, causing the three operating reactors to overheat. That compounded a natural disaster by spewing radioactive material into the atmosphere.
Tokyo Electric avoided using the term "meltdown," and says it was keeping the remnants of the core cool. But U.S. experts interviewed by CNN after the company's announcement in May said that while it may have been containing the situation, the damage had already been done.
"On the basis of what they showed, if there's not fuel left in the core, I don't know what it is other than a complete meltdown," said Gary Was, a University of Michigan nuclear engineering professor and CNN consultant. And given the damage reported at the other units, "It's hard to imagine the scenarios can differ that much for those reactors."
A massive hydrogen explosion -- a symptom of the reactor's overheating -- blew the roof off the No. 1 unit the day after the earthquake, and another hydrogen blast ripped apart the No. 3 reactor building two days later. A suspected hydrogen detonation within the No. 2 reactor is believed to have damaged that unit on March 15.
CNN's Yoko Wakatsuki and Kyung Lah contributed to this report.3 nuclear reactors melted down after quake, Japan confirms
By the CNN Wire Staff... more
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The New York Times...
May 30, 2011
In Japan, a Culture That Promotes Nuclear Dependency
By MARTIN FACKLER and NORIMITSU ONISHI
PART ONE...
KASHIMA, Japan — When the Shimane nuclear plant was first proposed here more than 40 years ago, this rural port town put up such fierce resistance that the plant’s would-be operator, Chugoku Electric, almost scrapped the project. Angry fishermen vowed to defend areas where they had fished and harvested seaweed for generations.
Two decades later, when Chugoku Electric was considering whether to expand the plant with a third reactor, Kashima once again swung into action: this time, to rally in favor. Prodded by the local fishing cooperative, the town assembly voted 15 to 2 to make a public appeal for construction of the $4 billion reactor.
Kashima’s reversal is a common story in Japan, and one that helps explain what is, so far, this nation’s unwavering pursuit of nuclear power: a lack of widespread grass-roots opposition in the communities around its 54 nuclear reactors. This has held true even after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami generated a nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi station that has raised serious questions about whether this quake-prone nation has adequately ensured the safety of its plants. So far, it has spurred only muted public questioning in towns like this.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan has, at least temporarily, shelved plans to expand Japan’s use of nuclear power — plans promoted by the country’s powerful nuclear establishment. Communities appear willing to fight fiercely for nuclear power, despite concerns about safety that many residents refrain from voicing publicly.
To understand Kashima’s about-face, one need look no further than the Fukada Sports Park, which serves the 7,500 mostly older residents here with a baseball diamond, lighted tennis courts, a soccer field and a $35 million gymnasium with indoor pool and Olympic-size volleyball arena. The gym is just one of several big public works projects paid for with the hundreds of millions of dollars this community is receiving for accepting the No. 3 reactor, which is still under construction.
As Kashima’s story suggests, Tokyo has been able to essentially buy the support, or at least the silent acquiescence, of communities by showering them with generous subsidies, payouts and jobs. In 2009 alone, Tokyo gave $1.15 billion for public works projects to communities that have electric plants, according to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Experts say the majority of that money goes to communities near nuclear plants.
And that is just the tip of the iceberg, experts say, as the communities also receive a host of subsidies, property and income tax revenues, compensation to individuals and even “anonymous” donations to local treasuries that are widely believed to come from plant operators.
Unquestionably, the aid has enriched rural communities that were rapidly losing jobs and people to the cities. With no substantial reserves of oil or coal, Japan relies on nuclear power for the energy needed to drive its economic machine. But critics contend that the largess has also made communities dependent on central government spending — and thus unwilling to rock the boat by pushing for robust safety measures.
In a process that critics have likened to drug addiction, the flow of easy money and higher-paying jobs quickly replaces the communities’ original economic basis, usually farming or fishing.
Nor did planners offer alternatives to public works projects like nuclear plants. Keeping the spending spigots open became the only way to maintain newly elevated living standards.
Experts and some residents say this dependency helps explain why, despite the legacy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the accidents at the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl nuclear plants, Japan never faced the levels of popular opposition to nuclear power seen in the United States and Europe — and is less likely than the United States to stop building new plants. Towns become enmeshed in the same circle — which includes politicians, bureaucrats, judges and nuclear industry executives — that has relentlessly promoted the expansion of nuclear power over safety concerns.
“This structure of dependency makes it impossible for communities to speak out against the plants or nuclear power,” said Shuji Shimizu, a professor of public finance at Fukushima University.
CONTINUED...
PHOTO:
Ko Sasaki for The New York Times
The Chugoku Electric nuclear power plant in Kashima. A third reactor is currently under construction.The New York Times...
May 30, 2011
In Japan, a Culture That Promotes Nuclear... more
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Holes feared in two Japan nuclear reactors
By Kyung Lah, CNN
May 25, 2011 5:16 a.m. EDT
Photo: An aerial view of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
The holes may be as big as 7 to 10 centimeters
A hole in the reactor's containment vessel means there is a high probability of leakage
The nuclear plant has suffered cooling problems and radiation leaks since March
Tokyo, Japan (CNN) -- Two of the damaged reactors at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan may be riddled with holes, according to the facility's owner.
The holes may be as big as 7 to 10 centimeters ( 2.8- 3.9 inches), Tokyo Electric Power Co. said in a 225-page document submitted to Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.
In the report, Tokyo Electric says the containment vessel of reactor No. 1 may have developed a hole as big as 3 centimeters in diameter 18 hours after the quake.
Fifty hours after the quake, the hole may have widened to 7 centimeters, the report said.
TEPCO admits to more possible meltdowns
In reactor No. 2, the containment vessel may have developed a hole as wide as 10 centimeters 21 hours after the quake.
The nuclear plant has suffered cooling problems and radiation leaks since a March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
The hydrogen explosion four days after the crisis began may have led to the formation of a second hole in reactor No. 2, as wide as 10 centimeters in diameter.
"This report is not conclusive. No one has entered these areas and we cannot confirm this as fact," TEPCO said, adding that the report is making preliminary assumptions about what happened inside the reactors.
A hole in the reactor's containment vessel means there is a high probability of the leakage of radioactive material into the reactor building.
The amount of radioactive material in all three of the reactor buildings has hampered TEPCO's ability to build an effective cooling system. TEPCO says a cooling system is a critical step to leading to a cold shutdown, still estimated to be five to eight months away.
Nuclear experts and scientists have long suspected this sort of damage to the containers of the reactors at the crippled plant, as well as a full meltdown of the fuel rods in reactors 1, 2 and 3.
http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/05/25/japan.nuclear.report/t1larg.nuclear.plant.air.photo.service.jpgHoles feared in two Japan nuclear reactors
By Kyung Lah, CNN
May 25, 2011 5:16 a.m.... more
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NuclearFreePlanet.org...
NEW video
Destroyed Spent Fuel Pool SFP3 of Reactor Unit 3 at Fukushima Daiichi
8 May 2011
The utter destruction of the unit 3 spent fuel pool makes it seem highly unlikely that a hydrogen explosion was the cause. This MOX (mixed oxide fuel containing plutonium) is now broken up and who knows where...
It's a mess - after seeing the relatively intact SFP4, 3 is destroyed! So, where are the fuel rods?
Status of the Spent Fuel Pool of Unit 3 of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station
(video on May 8th, 2011)
TEPCO 110510_1.mpgNuclearFreePlanet.org...
NEW video
Destroyed Spent Fuel Pool SFP3 of... more
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CNN...
Japanese nuclear plant to go off line after PM's warning
By the CNN Wire Staff
May 9, 2011 10:45 a.m. EDT
A worker measures radiation inside Unit 1 of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear power station on May 5.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Chubu Electric Company says it is shutting down reactors at the Hamaoka nuclear plant
Ventilating the reactor building at Fukushima Daiichi will allow employees to work there longer
An earthquake and tsunami hit the nuclear facility on March 11
Reactor workers and nuclear safety officials measure radiation at the plant
Tokyo (CNN) -- A Japanese nuclear plant will shut down its reactors after the country's prime minister warned it was vulnerable to natural disasters, its owner announced Monday.
The Chubu Electric Company said it will take two of its reactors at the Hamaoka nuclear plant off line and not bring a third back on line, effectively shutting down the plant.
In a statement, the company said, "At the May 9, 2011 meeting of the Board of Directors, Chubu Electric Power Company, Inc., has decided to suspend operations of Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant until further measures to prevent tsunami (damage) are completed, as requested by the prime minister."
Prime Minister Naoto Kan said last week that the plant -- located on the Pacific coast in Omaezaki, southwest of Tokyo -- could produce "grave damage to Japan" similar to the problems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, and wanted earthquake and tsunami protections put in place.
Akihisa Mizuno, president of Chubu Electric, said safety was the company's first priority.
Meanwhile, workers reentered the No. 1 reactor building at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant Monday as they try to restore its cooling system, the plant's operator said.
Nine Toyko Electric Power Co. employees and two representatives from Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency spent about 30 minutes in the building measuring radiation levels.
On Thursday, workers went into the damaged facility for the first time since a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and ensuing tsunami in March. They installed a ventilation system that is filtering radioactive substances from the air.
The purpose of Monday's visit was to see how successful the system has been.
Once the radioactive contamination in the air is lowered enough, workers will be able stay in the building longer to install a cooling system that Tokyo Electric wants to use to perform a cold shut down of the reactor.
Cooling systems at Fukushima Daiichi, about 240 kilometers (150 miles) north of Tokyo, were knocked out by the devastating tsunami that struck Japan's Pacific coast after a massive earthquake March 11.
The disaster triggered the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl as the cores of reactors 1-3 overheated and spewed huge amounts of radioactive contamination across the surrounding area.
The buildings that house reactors 1 and 3 were blown apart by hydrogen explosions in the first days of the crisis. Another hydrogen buildup is believed to have ruptured a water reservoir beneath the No. 2 reactor.
In April, Tokyo Electric laid out a six- to nine-month timetable for winding down the crisis and bringing the reactors to a complete shutdown.
The disaster has led to mandatory evacuations of about 78,000 people living within 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) of the plant. People living another 10 kilometers away -- or at least another 60,000 people -- have been ordered to remain sheltered.
Yoko Wakatsuki, Kyung Lah and Junko Ogura contributed to this reportCNN...
Japanese nuclear plant to go off line after PM's warning
By the CNN... more
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Reuters...
Tokyo Electric may face $25 billion in liabilities: report
By Taiga Uranaka
TOKYO | Wed May 4, 2011 5:06am EDT
(Reuters) - Tokyo Electric Power may be asked to shoulder half of an estimated $49 billion in total compensation for damages stemming from its crippled nuclear power plant with other power firms to bear the rest, a Japanese newspaper reported on Tuesday.
Officials from the government, Tokyo Electric, and creditor banks have been scrambling to craft a scheme that would allow the utility to cope with the bill of compensating those displaced by the crisis at its Fukushima Daiichi plant, while continuing to operate as a private firm.
The draft government plan reported by the Asahi newspaper could mark a significant development in those efforts because it puts a ballpark figure on the total cost at 4 trillion yen ($49.2 billion) and suggests a cap on Tokyo Electric's burden.
Uncertainty over the likely cost of compensation as well as the prospect of unlimited liability for Tokyo Electric, commonly known as Tepco, has unnerved investors since the crisis, triggered a widening of corporate bond spreads.
The plan calls for Tepco to pay 2 trillion yen in compensation over 10 years. Of the 200 billion yen in annual payments, half would come from a roughly 16 percent increase in electricity prices, the newspaper reported.
"The 2 trillion yen figure would be positive in the sense that it helps erase some uncertainties hanging over Japan's utilities sector," said Ariel Hsiao, manager of HSBC Global Power & Resources Equity Fund in Taipei, which sold its entire holding of Tepco shares after the March 11 disaster.
The other half of the 400 billion yen annual bill would come from Kansai Electric Power and seven other nuclear plant operators, which will put money into the fund in proportion to their electricity output, the Asahi said.
To shore up Tepco's finances and prevent debilitating credit ratings cuts, the fund will buy 1.6 trillion yen worth of preferred shares in the utility, whose market value has shrunk by three-fourths since the crisis to about $8 billion.
A Tepco spokesman said the information in the Asahi report was not based on any disclosure from the company.
CAP ISSUE
Tepco has started making provisional compensation payments to residents and local governments after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami tore through the Fukushima Daiichi plant, causing it to leak radiation and prompting an evacuation of surrounding areas.
The question of whether to put a ceiling on Tepco's burden has been one of the most contentious issues in discussions on the compensation scheme, delaying its official announcement from an initial target of the last week of April.
While Tepco and its creditor banks have pushed for an upper limit, arguing it was essential to prevent a drop in its credit rating to junk status, many politicians have sought to take a hard line on the utility, characterizing it as the primary bearer of responsibility for the nuclear disaster.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said on Monday that there would be no ceiling set on Tepco's liabilities and that it should not qualify for an exemption from compensation under Japanese law.
The mention of specific liabilities figures in the draft government plan may be aimed at allowing Tepco to make the cost calculations it needs to close its books for the past business year ended in March, the Asahi said.
Tepco is now expected to report a net loss of about 800 billion yen for the past year and will aim to return to profit in four years and resume issuing bonds from the financial year starting in April 2015, the newspaper said.
The draft estimates the cost of scrapping the six reactors at Fukushima Daiichi plant at 1.5 trillion yen and the additional fuel costs to run thermal power generators at about 1 trillion a year, the paper said.
The plan also calls for annual cost cuts of 150 billion yen by the next financial year and a total of 300 billion yen to be generated by the sale of real estate, stocks and other assets, the Asahi said.
($1 = 81.225 Japanese Yen)
(Additional reporting by Hugh Lawson in TOKYO and Faith Hung in TAIPEI; Editing by Nathan Layne and Matt Driskill)Reuters...
Tokyo Electric may face $25 billion in liabilities: report
By Taiga... more
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Radiation fears at new Japan nuclear plant
2011-05-02 13:03
Tokyo - Local authorities said they suspected radiation leaks at a nuclear plant in central Japan, news reports said on Monday, after another plant in the north-east has been struggling with quake and tsunami damage for several weeks.
Officials in Fukui Prefecture reported radiation leaks from fuel rods at the Tsuruga plant, Jiji Press reported.
The March 11 earthquake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in northeastern Japan. Since then plant has leaked radioactive substances into the air and sea.
- SAPARadiation fears at new Japan nuclear plant
2011-05-02 13:03
Tokyo - Local... more
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Rolling Stone...
America’s Nuclear Nightmare
The U.S. has 31 reactors just like Japan’s — but regulators are ignoring the risks and boosting industry profits
The Davis-Besse nuclear generating station in Ohio, where a football-size hole overlooked by NRC inspectors nearly caused a catastrophe in 2002
Entergy Nuclear via the NRC
By Jeff Goodell
April 27, 2011 9:00 AM ET
Five days after a massive earthquake and tsunami struck Japan, triggering the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, America's leading nuclear regulator came before Congress bearing good news: Don't worry, it can't happen here. In the aftermath of the Japanese catastrophe, officials in Germany moved swiftly to shut down old plants for inspection, and China put licensing of new plants on hold. But Gregory Jaczko, the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, reassured lawmakers that nothing at the Fukushima Daiichi reactors warranted any immediate changes at U.S. nuclear plants. Indeed, 10 days after the earthquake in Japan, the NRC extended the license of the 40-year-old Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor — a virtual twin of Fukushima — for another two decades. The license renewal was granted even though the reactor's cooling tower had literally fallen down, and the plant had repeatedly leaked radioactive fluid.
Perhaps Jaczko was simply trying to prevent a full-scale panic about the dangers of U.S. nuclear plants. After all, there are now 104 reactors scattered across the country, generating 20 percent of America's power. All of them were designed in the 1960s and '70s, and are nearing the end of their planned life expectancy. But there was one problem with Jaczko's testimony, according to Dave Lochbaum, a senior adviser at the Union of Concerned Scientists: Key elements of what the NRC chief told Congress were "a baldfaced lie."
Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer, says that Jaczko knows full well that what the NRC calls "defense in depth" at U.S. reactors has been seriously compromised over the years. In some places, highly radioactive spent fuel is stockpiled in what amounts to swimming pools located beside reactors. In other places, changes in the cooling systems at reactors have made them more vulnerable to a core meltdown if something goes wrong. A few weeks before Fukushima, Lochbaum authored a widely circulated report that underscored the NRC's haphazard performance, describing 14 serious "near-miss" events at nuclear plants last year alone. At the Indian Point reactor just north of New York City, federal inspectors discovered a water-containment system that had been leaking for 16 years.
As head of the NRC, Jaczko is the top cop on the nuclear beat, the guy charged with keeping the nation's fleet of aging nukes running safely. A balding, 40-year-old Democrat with big ears and the air of a brilliant high school physics teacher, Jaczko oversees a 4,000-person agency with a budget of $1 billion. But the NRC has long served as little more than a lap dog to the nuclear industry, unwilling to crack down on unsafe reactors. "The agency is a wholly owned subsidiary of the nuclear power industry," says Victor Gilinsky, who served on the commission during the Three Mile Island meltdown in 1979. Even President Obama denounced the NRC during the 2008 campaign, calling it a "moribund agency that needs to be revamped and has become captive of the industries that it regulates."
In the years ahead, nuclear experts warn, the consequences of the agency's inaction could be dire. "The NRC has consistently put industry profits above public safety," says Arnie Gundersen, a former nuclear executive turned whistle-blower. "Consequently, we have a dozen Fukushimas waiting to happen in America."Rolling Stone...
America’s Nuclear Nightmare
The U.S. has 31 reactors... more
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N.M. Tech News Service
HOBBS – Nuclear energy, small-scale reactors and safety in the industry will take center stage next month at the 2011 national energy conference in Hobbs.
The Uranium Fuel Cycle Conference on Wednesday and Thursday, April 27 and 28, will focus on potential developments and implementation of small-scale reactors.
The conference features top leaders in nuclear technology, including Babcock & Wilcox, New Mexico Tech, URENCO USA, Washington TRU Solutions, Uranium Resources Inc., Energy Solutions and the U.S. Department of Energy.
The "uranium fuel cycle" begins with mining, continues with enrichment, followed by use in a reactor, and ends with processing and storage. Hobbs is in the center of the developing Eastern New Mexico Energy Corridor, which is involved in all aspects of the nuclear energy fuel cycle.
"Almost the entire cycle is contained in New Mexico, from mining to waste storage. This conference is an important step in bringing together key players in the area and continuing a dialogue about energy and our national policies," said Van Romero, Ph.D. and vice president of research at New Mexico Tech.
A new enrichment facility is now operational near Eunice, N.M. A deconversion plant is in the licensing stage in Lea County. Also located in the region are Waste Control Specialist LLC and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, near Carlsbad, which is a long-term storage facility funded by the Department of Energy. While not currently being mined, vast deposits of raw uranium ore exist in west-central New Mexico.
What's missing? The small-scale nuclear power plants.
"Communities in southeast New Mexico have expressed an interest in nuclear power," Romero said.
One area the conference will focus on is the commercial deployment of small nuclear reactors in eastern New Mexico. Representatives of Babcock & Wilcox will present their strategy to how to deploy a light-water reactor system to provide energy to communities in New Mexico.
Babcock & Wilcox is the leading international company in development and deployment of small-scale nuclear reactors. The company unveiled the B&W mPower reactor in 2009. The mPower reactor, with its scalable, modular design, has the capacity to provide 125 megawatts to 750 megawatts of electricity for a five-year operating cycle without refueling. The reactor is designed to produce clean, near-zero emission operations, according to the company website.
Following the Babcock & Wilcox presentation, Romero will lead a discussion on "Small Reactor Research and Readiness." Then, a representative from the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Nuclear Energy will talk on the status and outlook for nuclear energy development.
The two-day conference is hosted by the New Mexico Center for Energy Policy, a division of New Mexico Tech, the Economic Development Corp. of Lea County and New Mexico Junior College.
Online registration is under way at http://nmcep.nmt.edu/ or by calling 575-397-2039.
Read more: ABQJOURNAL BIZ: Hobbs conference focuses on nuclear energy issues http://www.abqjournal.com/biz/212143529029biz03-21-11.htm#ixzz1JmpeVufd
Subscribe Now Albuquerque JournalN.M. Tech News Service
HOBBS – Nuclear energy, small-scale reactors... more
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PART ONE...
The New York Times
Photo: India's Konkan coastline, near the site of a proposed nuclear power plant, has been hit by earthquakes in recent years
April 13, 2011
Resistance to Jaitapur Nuclear Plant Grows in India
By VIKAS BAJAJ
MADBAN, India — When a farmer named Praveen Gawankar and two neighbors began a protest four years ago against a proposed nuclear power plant here in this coastal town, they were against it mainly for not-in-my-backyard reasons.
They stood to lose mango orchards, cashew trees and rice fields, as the government forcibly acquired 2,300 acres to build six nuclear reactors — the biggest nuclear power plant ever proposed anywhere.
But now, as a nuclear disaster unfolds in distant Japan, the lonely group of farmers has seen support for their protest swell to include a growing number of Indian scientists, academics and former government officials. “We are getting ready for bigger protests,” Mr. Gawanker said.
While the government vows to push ahead — citing India’s energy needs — Indian newspapers recently reported that the environment minister wrote Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to question the wisdom of large nuclear installations. And a group of 50 Indian scientists, academics and activists has called for a moratorium on new projects. “The Japanese nuclear crisis is a wake-up call for India,” they wrote in an open letter.
Opponents note that the area was hit by 95 earthquakes from 1985 to 2005, although Indian officials counter that most were minor and that the plant’s location on a high cliff would offer protection against tsunamis.
The heated debate shows how the politics of nuclear energy may be changing, not only in the United States and Europe but in developing countries whose economies desperately need cheap power to continue growing rapidly.
For Indian officials intent on promoting nuclear energy, the partial meltdowns and radiation leaks at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan could not have come at a worse time. Currently, India gets about 3 percent of its electricity from the 20 relatively small nuclear reactors in the country. But it is building five new reactors and has proposed 39 more, including the ones here in Madban, to help meet the voracious energy needs of India’s fast-growing economy.
Only China, the other emerging-economy giant with a ravenous energy appetite, is planning a more rapid expansion of nuclear power. Beijing has indicated that it, too, plans to proceed cautiously with its nuclear rollout.
CONTINUED...PART ONE...
The New York Times
Photo: India's Konkan coastline, near the... more
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