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 »
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 »
A rather murderous nuclear weapons cult – Aum Shinrikyo
Aum Shinrikyo In Pursuit Of Nuclear Weapons – Analysis, Eurasia Review by: Muhammad Jawad Hashmi 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.
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 »
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 »
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 »
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.
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 »
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 »
“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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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, Justin McCurry 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 »
1 THIS MONTH
http://kcpw.org/blog/local-news/2012-01-27/victims-of-nuclear-testing-radiation-
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2012/s3413882.htm Is the world facing a groundwater crisis?
of the week http://climaterealityproject.org/thin-ice/
EVENT
February 18 Hindsdale, Chicago American Association of University Women - nuclear disaster preparedness H.OB.aauw.reservations@gmail.com.
March 2012 is “March Against Nuclear Madness” and Beyond Nuclear has created a new March Against Nuclear Madness Facebook page.
Nuclear power and water – theme for February 2012
Too much water. It is a laugh that nuclear power is touted as a solution to global warming More likely, global warming is the death knell for nuclear power.
Very many nuclear reactors are located along coastlines, where they are vulnerable to storms, hurricanes, and tsunamis. With climate change and rising sea levels, these events are becoming more frequent and more extreme.
So far, we have considered water only as it relates to only the normal operations of nuclear reactors. Even then, nuclear reactors have leaks, especially as they age, allowing radioactive substances to disperse into water systems.
Uranium mines are vulnerable to flooding. When this happens, the disaster is an economic one, as well as environmental. Canada’s Cameco company and Energy Resources of Australia have found this out to their cost. Both uranium companies are still in financial plight due to the Cigar Lake (Canada) floods of 2006, and 2008, and the Ranger mine (Australia) floods of 2011.
But Fukushima has shown the world how a natural climate event can disrupt nuclear power. In the event of a nuclear accident the effects of nuclear power on water are hugely damaging, catastrophic.
Some figures and facts on nuclear/uranium and water.
URANIUM MINING Water use in a typical uranium mine is approximately 200 to 300 gallons per minute, In water-short Australia, BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam uranium mine has been for years taking 35 million litres of water each day from the underground aquifer, at no cost whatever. When BHP digs its new biggest hole in the world, it will pay a small fixed price for removing even greater amounts, exceeding 42 million litres.
NUCLEAR REACTORS A typical 1000-megawatt pressurized-water reactor (with a cooling tower) takes in 20,000 gallons of river, lake or ocean water per minute for cooling, circulates it through a 50-mile maze of pipes, returns 5,000 gallons per minute to the same body of water, and releases the remainder to the atmosphere as vapor. A 1000-megawatt reactor without a cooling tower takes in even more water–as much as one-half million gallons per minute. The discharge water is contaminated with radioactive elements in amounts that are not precisely known or knowable, but are biologically active.
Some radioactive fission gases, stripped from the reactor cooling water, are contained in decay tanks for days before being released into the atmosphere through filtered rooftop vents. Some gases leak into the power plant buildings’ interiors and are released during periodic “purges” and “ventings.” These airborne gases contaminate not only the air, but also soil and water.
200 billion gallons of water withdrawn from America’s water supply each day for every terawatt of electricity produced by nuclear reactors,
At least 20 USA nuclear plants have admitted leakage of radioactive tritium into the groundwater.
Spills and leaks are common at In Situ Leach mines. The South Australian Department of Primary Industry and Resources lists 59 spills at Beverley mine from 1998 to 2007.
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