nuclear-news

latest news on the uranium/nuclear industry

Nuclear power plans on the back burner in Southeast Asia

In Malaysia, the government has quietly put a proposal to build two 1,000 MW nuclear power plants “on the back burner,” said a senior government source.
The decision came after environmentalists targeted a plan by Australian rare earths miner Lynas Corp to commission a processing plant in central Malaysia that would have to dispose of radioactive waste….

Analysis: Southeast Asia goes slow on nuclear, Reuters,  By John Ruwitch HANOI  Feb 2, 2012  ”…..Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore are among some 35 countries considering going down the nuclear path, likely doubling the number of operational reactors in the next few decades, according to Lloyds Register.

But even the most ambitious plans will run up against barriers and constraints. In most Southeast Asian countries where there is interest in nuclear power, politics are holding it back. Indonesia’s National Atomic Energy Agency has been researching reactors for more than four decades and preparing the human resources, but the political will is lacking. Read more »

February 3, 2012 Posted by | ASIA, Malaysia, politics | Leave a Comment

Birds and radiation fallout

not sure of the reliability of this one

Bird life badly hit by nuclear fallout in Japan The Irish Times –  February 3, 2012, DAVID McNEILL in Tokyo RESEARCHERS WORKING in the irradiated zone around the disabled Fukushima nuclear plant say bird populations there have begun to dwindle, in what may be a chilling harbinger of the impact of radioactive fallout on local life. Read more »

February 3, 2012 Posted by | environment, Japan | Leave a Comment

A rather murderous nuclear weapons cult – Aum Shinrikyo

Aum Shinrikyo In Pursuit Of Nuclear Weapons – Analysis, Eurasia Review  by:  February 2, 2012  Aum Shinrikyo has an apocalyptic belief structure where the world is divided into two opposing forces, good and evil. Shoko Asahara, who is leader of the cult, firmly believes that they will prevail after the apocalypse and are motivated to trigger the apocalypse because their own salvation depends upon fighting the final fight and eliminating the enemy. The prospect of nuclear war shaped Shoko Asahara’s concerns to preach that Aum followers would be the only survivors of a coming Armageddon.

It has been reported that Asahara’s obsession with nuclear weapons formed the foundation for all of his actions related to these weapons. He published several ‘symposia’ during his time as leader in which he made statements about surviving a nuclear holocaust….. Asahara began viewing Japanese and Western society as the enemy and advocated pursuing violent means to bring about Armageddon…. Read more »

February 3, 2012 Posted by | Japan, Religion and ethics, weapons and war | Leave a Comment

Problem of nuclear regulator in bed with nuclear industry

Nuclear regulatory reform must weed out entrenched interests, Mainichi Daily News, 2 Feb 12,  Bills relating to a shift in the nation’s nuclear power policy were approved by the Cabinet on Jan. 31. In addition to the establishment of a new nuclear regulatory agency under the Environment Ministry, the government is aiming to legislate the lifespan of nuclear reactors, and require plant operators to outline specific measures against severe nuclear accidents.

Significant harm has been done by allowing the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA), an administrative body tasked to regulate nuclear power safety, to exist under the umbrella of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), a major promoter of nuclear power.

Divorcing nuclear regulation from nuclear promotion and centralizing regulatory duties into one agency stands to reason.Changing the agency’s name from the originally proposed “nuclear power safety agency” to “nuclear power regulatory agency” is likewise pertinent, considering the new agency’s nature. Read more »

February 2, 2012 Posted by | Japan, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a Comment

End of the line for Japan’s dangerous, super expensive fast breeder nuclear reactor

Japanese parliamentarian and a critic of nuclear power Taro Kono said: ”We spend billions of yen every year just to maintain Monju. It’s crazy. We spend so much money just to keep things not running.”…
critics and nuclear watchdog groups call Monju Japan’s most dangerous reactor, because it uses plutonium fuel and cools its reactor with sodium, which can explode if it comes into contact with water.

Fast-breeder reactor faces closure, The Age, February 2, 2012 TSURUGA: Japan’s long and expensive pursuit of a super-efficient nuclear reactor is on the brink of failure amid new government concerns about its runaway costs.

The four-decade project to develop a so-called fast-breeder reactor has consumed more than $13 billion in funding, so far producing onlyaccidents, controversies and a single hour of electricity. Read more »

February 2, 2012 Posted by | - plutonium, Japan, reprocessing | Leave a Comment

Radioactivity poses risk in Japan’s tsunami debris

 citizens say they are worried about radioactivity or even say that we should refuse to import this debris. ”They worry about their children, they are afraid that radiation levels are too high.”

Radiation experts agree that children are at greatest risk from cancers and genetic defects because they are still growing, are more prone to thyroid cancers, and because they will have more time to develop health defects…..

Radiation fears slow tsunami clear-up, News 24, 1 Feb 12,    Tokyo – Giant piles of debris from Japan’s earthquake and tsunami scar the country’s once picturesque northeast coast – and the clear-up is hamstrung by fears the rubbish may be contaminated by radiation. Read more »

February 1, 2012 Posted by | environment, Japan | Leave a Comment

Japan’s government put use by date on nuclear reactors

Japan Cabinet OKs bill to cap nuke reactor life, Macon.com By MARI YAMAGUCHI – Associated PressTOKYO, 1 Feb -12 -- Japan’s Cabinet approved bills Tuesday aimed at bolstering nuclear safety regulations following last year’s Fukushima disaster, including one that would put a 40-year cap on the operational life of nuclear reactors.
The approval came as International Atomic Energy Agency experts generally endorsed “stress test” results at two idled reactors in western Japan, bolstering the Tokyo government’s efforts to restart the facility, though the IAEA team said some safety measures needed clarification.

Japan currently has no legal limit on the operational lifespan of its 54 reactors, many of which will reach the 40-year mark in coming years. One reactor at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant had been in use 40 years when the tsunami struck last March.
The legislation, which still needs parliamentary approval to take effect, does allow for an extension of up to 20 years.

Critics have blasted that exception as a loophole,……   Critics,  ….. say the tests are meaningless because they have no clear criteria, and view the IAEA as biased toward the nuclear industry.

February 1, 2012 Posted by | Japan, politics | Leave a Comment

BRICs – Brazil, Russia, China, India, all nuclear prospects looking dodgy

China is looking much less committed to nuclear power than it was a year ago.

The reality is that China needs nuclear power much less than the nuclear industry needs China. 

Prospects for Nuclear Power in 2012  Source: Platts - a leading global provider of energy, metals and petrochemicals information. London, 30 January 2012 “….BRICs   [Brazil, Russia, India and China] + South Korea China has dominated new nuclear plant orders in the past few years, accounting for 25 out of the 38 reactors on which construction started worldwide between 2008-2010. Six of these units were for Gen III+ designs, four AP1000s and two EPRs. Almost all the others used a design imported from France in the 1980s, which in turn had been licensed from Westinghouse in the early 1970s. This design, the CPR1000, is showing its age and there was an expectation, even before Fukushima, that the AP1000 would replace it. This would have been a huge boost to the AP1000, giving it the volume of orders that might have allowed costs to come down and for teething problems to be solved. The EPR, by contrast, appears to have no prospect of further orders in China.

However, there were signs that the strain of the rapid pace of construction was beginning to show. In 2011, no new starts were made, compared with ten in 2010. Fukusima explains this to a degree, but some might have been expected in the first three months of 2011 before disaster struck. The reason behind the slowdown is the high cost of the AP1000. The large Chinese utilities appear to be looking at other options.

There is now talk of pursuing indigenous advanced designs developed from the CPR1000 as well as Small Modular Reactors. China has always been adept at convincing nuclear suppliers that there was a great future for their particular technology in China.
It is unclear whether talk of SMRs and new advanced designs will go any further. Read more »

February 1, 2012 Posted by | China, India, Reference, Russia, South Korea, technology | Leave a Comment

Plebicites – the beginning of the end for nuclear power

To date only three [ plebicites on nuclear power] have been held, [in Japan] in the villages of Maki and Kariwa in Niigata Prefecture, and in Miyama, Mie Prefecture. In all three polls, voters said no to nuclear power.

NUCLEAR POWER PLEBISCITES Plebicites first step in pulling nuclear plug Japan Times, By ERIC JOHNSTON, 31 Jan 12. Last June more than 90 percent of Italian voters said no to nuclear power in a referendum, while Germany and Switzerland voted to phase out atomic energy in the coming years.

 In France, which faces a presidential election this spring, the Socialists and Greens pledged to close 24 reactors by 2025 as public opinion in what was once Europe’s strongest supporter of nuclear plants begins to falter.

In Japan, efforts to collect signatures in support of a national vote on the future of nuclear power began just after the Fukushima disaster struck. But there are also separate attempts to introduce specific plebiscites in Tokyo and in the city of Osaka. Read more »

February 1, 2012 Posted by | Japan, opposition to nuclear | Leave a Comment

“Decommissioning” Fukushima nukes to take a very long time

Freezing Fukushima Nuclear Plant Leaks Water TOKYO, Japan, January 30, 2012 (ENS)“…..Decommissioning is expected to take 40 years and require the use of robots and new technologies to remove the melted nuclear fuel, the Japanese government said in December. Read more »

February 1, 2012 Posted by | decommission reactor, Japan | Leave a Comment

Climate change policy manipulated by the nuclear lobby

The threat of climate change gained traction in the global imagination after the end of the Cold War. And as warming worries grew, nuclear power became an anti-emissions trump card in the eyes of many, fueling a reactor building spree. 

“Government policy came to incorporate promotion of nuclear power. It was taboo for us to even make an issue of it.”

Nuclear power boosters used climate change to ride to energy supremacy, Mainichi DailyNews, 30 Jan 12  In 1997, in the midst of the international negotiations that would eventually result in the Kyoto Protocol, the Japanese delegation was pondering whether it could realistically accept the protocol’s main point: a commitment to a 6 percent decrease in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels. They were also grappling with what such a commitment would mean for Japan’s energy supplies.

Strangely enough, though the Japanese delegation was grappling with issues of carbon emissions and energy needs, there was not a single representative of the then Environment Agency on hand. Osamu Watanabe, vice minister at the former Ministry of International Trade and Industry at the time of the talks and now president of Japan Petroleum Exploration Co., sums up Japan’s thinking like this:

“Taking nuclear power into account was a prerequisite for accepting the 6 percent reduction. Speaking for the industry ministry, we thought that the more nuclear power we had, the more we could reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

Meanwhile, at the Environment Agency — which became the Environment Ministry in 2001 — there were many staff who took a more cautious attitude to the promotion of nuclear power. Their skepticism did not, however, often find effective expression.

“The industry ministry put up a lot of resistance to the Environment Agency getting involved in energy policy,” a senior agency official from the time says. “We just couldn’t get a word in.” Read more »

January 29, 2012 Posted by | climate change, Japan, marketing of nuclear | Leave a Comment

Records not kept by 5 Japanese nuclear disaster committees

Five Japan committees keep no disaster records Terra Daily Tokyo (AFP) Jan 27, 2012 Five government teams dealing with Japan’s tsunami and nuclear catastrophes kept no detailed records, an official said Friday, adding to a growing picture of chaos in Tokyo’s disaster response…

Now the government has admitted having no minutes from a further four emergency committees, Read more »

January 29, 2012 Posted by | Japan, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a Comment

Problems in assessing radiation in Fukushima school lunches

Radiation testing on school lunches differs, The Yomiuri Shimbun, 30 Jan 12, FUKUSHIMA--Municipalities are carrying out tests for radioactive substances on ingredients used in school lunches, but parents are worried whether their children are adequately protected as the testsare conducted in various ways. Read more »

January 29, 2012 Posted by | Japan, safety and incidents | Leave a Comment

Growth of anti-nuclear movement in Asia

Anti-nuclear movement growing in Asia Though nuclear power still has a strong foothold in Asia, anti-nuclear sentiment and protest are growing from Mongolia to South Korea to Taiwan and even – in modest ways – in China. Christian Science Monitor, By Winifred Bird,  January 27, 2012 YOKOHAMA, JAPAN
Heonseok Lee has a simple way of describing how public sentiment toward nuclear power has changed in South Korea since the disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant last March 11. “Before 3/11, I’d post an article criticizing the nuclear power industry, and right away there’d be hundreds of really nasty comments. After 3/11, there’ll still be a few dozen. But not hundreds,” says Lee, a full-time anti-nuclear activist in one of the world’s most pro-nuclear countries.
Though nuclear power still has a strong foothold throughout the region, and public opinion is mixed, activists across Asia have anecdotes like this to show that anti-nuclear sentiment and protest are slowly growing from Mongolia, to South Korea to Taiwan and even – in modest ways – to China.
This month, activists from Japan and South Korea announced plans for a new East Asian civil society network to promote renewable energy and oppose nuclear power. Read more »

January 28, 2012 Posted by | ASIA, opposition to nuclear, South Korea | Leave a Comment

Japan’s nuclear plant stress tests – “flimsy” and unreliable

“I don’t view their evaluation as something that is trustworthy or carries any weight,”  ”The last time the IAEA inspectors came to Japan, they simply inspected sites and documents and left saying everything was fine. They submitted a flimsy report, and I fear the same will be the case this time.”

Experts cast doubt on Japan nuclear plant tests,  in Tokyo, guardian.co.uk,   27 January 2012 Japanese government ordered tests on all reactors after Fukushima meltdown, but advisers say they do not prove a plant is safe Advisers to Japan‘s nuclear safety agency have said power plant stress tests do not prove that a nuclear plant is safe, as the country faces the prospect of a summer without a single nuclear reactor in operation. Read more »

January 28, 2012 Posted by | Japan, safety and incidents | Leave a Comment

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 44 other followers