nuclear-news

Japan showing how it manages well WITHOUT nuclear power

With summer soon ending, fears that Japan couldn’t function without nuclear power during summer periods of heaviest electricity demand are being proven unfounded.

Dire predictions of what would happen to the Japanese economy without restarting reactors haven’t held up. 

 As More About Fukushima Contamination and Casualties Is Known, Japan Proceeding Without Nuclear Reactors,  Samuel S. Epstein Cancer prevention expert, Prof. emeritus at U. of IL School of Public Health, Chicago HUFFINGTON POST, 16 Aug 12,    “….the impact of Fukushima continues…..
………..Aside from the changes in health, Fukushima has also had a major impact on public policy. . Within days of the meltdowns, Germany shut some reactors, four of them permanently; the Merkel government then announced a plan to phase out all remaining reactors by 2022. Belgium and Switzerland soon followed with similar phase-out plans.
Italy, which has no operating reactors, placed a moratorium on plans to build new ones. Newly-elected French president Hollande campaigned on a pledge to drop the percent of French electricity from nuclear power from 75% to 50% by 2030.

But the biggest development has taken place in Japan,…..…. Polls show the large majority of Japanese are fed up with nuclear power. They have taken to the streets in massive
demonstrations, and have petitioned the government in Tokyo to close the country’s 54 reactors.

The power of popular will, on top of the carnage at Fukushima, prompted new policies. The government shelved plans to build new reactors and gradually closed existing reactors for safety inspections, tests, and upgrades. Three months after Fukushima, the number of operating reactors had fallen from 54 to 17; by the end of 2011 it dropped to six; and for two months this spring all reactors were closed (two have since re-started). Industry and government officials view these shutdowns as temporary, even though many citizens
continue to demand that they never restart.

Thus, in 2012, Japan has been operating with only a tiny fraction of
the nuclear power it generated before Fukushima. No other country has
ever made such a radical departure. Many would have thought it
impossible just 18 months ago.

To help cover the electricity gap, Japan increased its usage of oil, coal, and natural gas, much of it imported. The approach of summer, when consumption of electricity is greatest, led public officials to set goals for less consumption.

With summer soon ending, fears that Japan couldn’t function without nuclear power during summer periods of heaviest electricity demand are being proven unfounded. In Tokyo, and throughout densely populated southern Japan, July and August temperatures have been hotter than normal. But there have been no reports of massive blackouts — even
with only 0 or 2 reactors operating.
Oil, coal, and natural gas pose environmental health concerns, largely
from greenhouse gas emissions. However, a Japanese environment
ministry panel recognizes increased use of these sources is temporary.
It will take years to build up the country’s supply of safe, renewable
power from sources such as solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass.
Still, the panel reports that by 2030, greenhouse gas emissions can be
reduced to 25% below 1990 levels, with up to 35% of electricity
generated from non-polluting renewable sources. These projections
assume no nuclear power will be used.

Dire predictions of what would happen to the Japanese economy without
restarting reactors haven’t held up. Just before the New Year, the
Japanese Institute of Energy Economics released an analysis that
declared there would be virtually no growth in gross domestic product
(+0.1%) during 2012 if reactors stayed closed. But in the first and
second quarters of the year, the Japanese GDP grew +5.5% and +1.4%,
even with most reactors shuttered.

With the Japanese electric needs met and with its economy functioning
without nuclear power, health hazards play the major role in any
decision to restart Japanese reactors. It will probably take many
years for the true casualty numbers to emerge; for years, the party
line held that only 31 emergency workers died from Chernobyl. The idea
that casualties were small was shattered by a 2009 book by a team
headed by Russian researchers, published by the New York Academy of
Sciences and based on 5,000 reports and articles. It estimated that
985,000 persons had died from Chernobyl exposures by 2004, with more
to come. The eventual toll from Fukushima will likely be on the same
order of magnitude.

Many developed nations are functioning without reactors, including
Albania, Austria, Australia, Denmark, Greece, Ireland, Israel, Italy,
Norway, Poland, and Portugal. Nineteen U.S. states have no operating
power reactors. And now Japan is doing the same. Nuclear power does
not, as some contend, have to be part of the electricity future. The
extremely painful lesson of the Fukushima tragedy is that Japan can
emerge from it, without continuing to subject its people to the
terrible dangers of atomic power.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samuel-s-epstein/fukushima-nuclear-_b_1790423.html

August 17, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | business and costs, Japan