Containment Repair Research for Fukushima Unit 2 Ongoing
IRID announced the details of the ongoing research for repairing the unit 2 suppression chamber.
Based on their previous investigations IRID has determined that there could be a hole or series of holes of around 50mm in the unit 2 suppression chamber.
The research work is to determine if filling with concrete that structure could work. The proposed plan would use a concrete pump truck with a 5 inch diameter flexible hose to inject concrete into the suppression chamber.
Initial work took place at the Ando Hazama Technical Research Institute (Tsukuba City, Ibaraki Prefecture) on October 15th.
It seems they succeeded in layering the concrete mixture, sinking properly in the bottom of the suppression chamber tube. A 28 day pressure test will be conducted to assure the concrete properly plugs the leak.
Future work may be conducted at the new decommissioning research center at Naraha.
Source IRID :
＜添付資料1：1/1スケールS/C試験に関する現場状況・概要図＞
http://irid.or.jp/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/20161018_001.pdf
＜添付資料2：コンクリート打設進捗に伴う時経列事象・解説図＞
http://irid.or.jp/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/20161018_002.pdf
Residents Who Fled Fukushima Meltdown Fear Return to Ghost Town
Japan seeks to lure evacuees back to town near nuclear plant
Abe looks to win support for restarting mothballed reactors
Weed-engulfed buildings and shuttered businesses paint an eerie picture of a coastal Japanese town abandoned after a monstrous earthquake and tsunami triggered meltdowns in the Fukushima nuclear plant.
Namie, one of the communities hardest hit by the 2011 disaster, had 21,000 residents before they fled radiation spewing from the reactors eight kilometers (five miles) away. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is now looking to repopulate the town as early as next year, a symbolic step toward recovery that might also help soften opposition to his government’s plan to restart Japan’s mostly mothballed nuclear industry.
“The national and local governments are trying to send us back,” said Yasuo Fujita, 64, a sushi chef who lives alongside hundreds of other Fukushima evacuees in a modern high rise in Tokyo more than 200 kilometers away. “We do want to return — we were born and raised there. But can we make a living? Can we live next to the radioactive waste?”
The main street in Namie, Fukushima
So far few evacuees are making plans to go back even as clean-up costs top $30 billion and Abe’s government restores infrastructure. That reluctance mirrors a national skepticism toward nuclear power that threatens to erode the prime minister’s positive approval ratings, particularly in areas with atomic reactors.
Mothballed Reactors
Officials in his government are calling for nuclear power to account for as much as 22 percent of Japan’s electricity supply by 2030, nearly the same percentage as before the Fukushima meltdown, in part to help meet climate goals. Only two of the nation’s 42 operable nuclear plants are currently running, leaving the country even more heavily reliant on imports of oil and gas.
A poll published by the Asahi newspaper this week found 57 percent of respondents were opposed to restarting nuclear reactors, compared with 29 percent in favor. One of Abe’s ministers lost his seat in Fukushima in an upper house election in July, and the government suffered another setback when an anti-nuclear candidate won Sunday’s election for governor of Niigata prefecture, home to the world’s largest nuclear plant.
Some 726 square kilometers — roughly the size of New York City — of Fukushima prefecture remain under evacuation orders, divided by level of radioactivity. While the government is looking to reopen part of Namie next year, most of the town is designated as “difficult to return to” and won’t be ready for people to move back until at least 2022.
“We must make the area attractive, so that people want to return there,” Reconstruction Minister Masahiro Imamura said this week. “I want to do everything I can to make it easy to go back.”
Workers are cleaning by scraping up soil, moss and leaves from contaminated surfaces and sealing them in containers. Still, the operation has skipped most of the prefecture’s hilly areas, leading to fears that rain will simply wash more contamination down into residential zones. Decommissioning of the stricken plant itself is set to take as many as 40 years.
The bill for cleaning up the environment is ballooning, with the government estimating the cost through March 2018 at $3.3 trillion yen ($32 billion). That’s weighing on Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings Inc., which is already struggling to avoid default over decommissioning costs.
“They are spending money in the name of returning things to how they were” without having had a proper debate on whether this is actually possible, said Yutaka Okada, senior researcher at Mizuho Research Institute in Tokyo. “Was it really right to spend this enormous amount of money?”
Namie officials, operating from temporary premises 100 kilometers away in the city of Nihonmatsu, are plowing ahead with preparations. A middle school in the town is scheduled for remodeling to add facilities for elementary pupils — even though they expect only about 20 children to attend. Similar efforts in nearby communities have had limited success.
Only 18 percent of former Namie residents surveyed by the government last year said they wanted to return, compared with 48 percent who did not. The remainder were undecided.
Staying Put
Fujita, the sushi chef, has joined the ranks of those starting afresh elsewhere. He opened a seafood restaurant near his temporary home last year, and is buying an apartment in the area. In a sign the move will be permanent, he even plans to squeeze the Buddhist altar commemorating his Fukushima ancestors into his Tokyo home.
For those that do return, finding work will be a headache in a town that was heavily dependent on the plant for jobs and money.
Haruka Hoshi, 27, was working inside the nuclear facility when the earthquake struck, and she fled with just her handbag. Months later she married another former employee at the plant, and they built a house down the coast in the city of Iwaki, where they live with their three-year-old son. They have no plans to return.
“It would be difficult to recreate the life we had before,” she said. “The government wants to show it’s achieved something, to say: ‘Fukushima’s all right, there was a terrible incident, but people are able to return after five years.’ That goal doesn’t correspond with the reality.”
LDP may lose next election if nuclear exit becomes main issue: ex-PM
Former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said the pro-nuclear ruling party of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe could lose the next Lower House election if nuclear power becomes the main election issue.
Citing recent gubernatorial election wins for candidates concerned about restarting nuclear power plants in Niigata and Kagoshima prefectures, Koizumi said during a recent interview with Kyodo News, “(Anti-nuclear) opinions are beginning to grow . . . that could influence the (next) House of Representatives election.”
If opposition parties unite in fielding anti-nuclear candidates and make complete phase-out of the country’s nuclear plants one of the top election issues, they can defeat the ruling Liberal Democratic Party by tapping into voter fears following the 20111 Fukushima meltdowns, Koizumi said.
The current term of Lower House lawmakers expires in December 2018, but some senior LDP officials have said Abe might dissolve the house for an election early next year.
Koizumi, who promoted nuclear power generation as prime minister between 2001 and 2006, has become an active anti-nuclear campaigner. He has repeatedly criticized Abe and the way his government is dealing with the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
“There is no way that a party which ignores the will of the public can maintain its hold on power,” said Koizumi, who retired from politics in 2009.
Koizumi also said that the main opposition Democratic Party “has not realized that the nuclear issue can be the biggest election issue.”
“The slogans by promoters of nuclear power that (nuclear power) is safe, low-cost and clean, are all lies,” Koizumi said.
He noted that the government would be forced to pour more funds into Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc., operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant crippled following the 2011 quake-tsunami disaster, to decontamination costs at the plant and compensation.
The government should give up its nuclear-fuel recycling policy, including the use of the Monju fast-breeder reactor, Koizumi said. The government has not decided on the fate of the trouble-prone reactor, which was intended to play a key role in the recycling policy.
On Abe’s drive to revise the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution, Koizumi said it will not be possible due to a lack of sufficient public support.
Koizumi said a breakthrough on the decades-old territorial dispute over a group of Russian-held islands off Hokkaido will also be difficult as Russia will not accept Japan’s ownership of the islands.
Abe hopes to make progress on the issue, which has prevented the two countries from signing a post-World War II peace treaty, when he meets Russian President Vladimir Putin on Dec. 15 in Japan.
Kansai Electric manager’s suicide result of excess overtime
A manager working on technology for the Takahama nuclear power plant killed himself after working excessive overtime hours, sources have revealed.
The man, in his 40s, was found dead in April in a hotel in Tokyo where he was staying on a business trip.
The suicide of the Kansai Electric Power Co. manager was recognized as a work-related death by the Tsuruga Labor Standards Inspection Office in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, sources said.
It had been a especially hectic time for the Osaka-based utility as two 40-plus-year-old reactors in Takahama, Fukui Prefecture, were at risk of being decommissioned if the safety screening process by the Nuclear Regulation Authority was not completed by July 7.
The company was pushing hard to have the No. 1 and No. 2 reactors at the nuclear power plant pass safety evaluations so that their operational lives could be extended by 20 years.
The dead man was the head of a department in charge of engineering regarding construction at the company, according to the sources.
He was tasked with responding to the NRA as he was responsible for having the construction plans on upgrading the two reactors approved by the nuclear watchdog.
Under the Labor Standards Law, work hours are not restricted for supervisors and managers such as the suicide victim. However, employers still have a responsibility to maintain the health of such employees by ensuring they avoid overwork.
Study: Possible water problem at storage sites in Fukushima
It might be difficult to measure radiation levels in water at this temporary storage site for contaminated soil in Fukushima Prefecture.
Bags of radiation-contaminated soil could be sinking into the ground at temporary storage sites in Fukushima Prefecture, allowing water to accumulate within instead of flowing to outside tanks for testing, the Board of Audit said.
No confirmation has been made that the ground at the sites is actually sinking or if contaminated water has pooled inside. But Board of Audit officials are asking the Environment Ministry to consider additional safety measures if signs indicate that this is actually occurring.
The board’s study focused on 34 of the 106 temporary storage sites that the Environment Ministry set up for soil removed through decontamination work after the disaster in March 2011 unfolded at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
Construction of the storage sites started in 2012, and the transfer of contaminated soil to these facilities was completed in 2015.
The temporary storage sites were designed to have a slight mound on the ground in the center to allow water from the bags to flow down into surrounding collection tanks for periodic measurements of radiation levels.
Internal Environment Ministry guidelines called for this setup at storage sites containing bags that are not waterproof.
The Board of Audit studied 34 temporary storage sites where the bags are not waterproof. These bags were piled five deep or higher at those sites.
The study showed that at 31 of the sites, the weight of the bags may have not only flattened the mound in the center, but it also could have created an indent in the ground where the leaking water could accumulate.
If the water does not flow to the tanks, it will be difficult to determine the radiation levels.
The study also noted that the foundations at the sites were soft to begin with and may be unable to support the bags of soil. The sinking phenomenon could worsen as time passes.
The Environment Ministry played down the risk of the water contaminating areas around the storage facilities.
“Even if the ground has sunk, the structure is designed so water does not leak outside the site,” a ministry official said. “Eventually, the water should collect in the tanks. We will make every effort to oversee the sites as well as use waterproof bags as much as possible.”
A total of 4.16 billion yen ($40 million) was spent to construct the 31 temporary storage sites.
The Environment Ministry designed the temporary storage sites under the precondition they would be used for only three years and then removed. For that reason, measures were not taken to strengthen the foundations to prevent the ground from sinking, even if soft farmland was chosen for a site.
The plan is to eventually return the land where the temporary storage sites have been built to its original state and return it to the landowners
However, the Board of Audit’s study adds another concern for residents, many of whom had opposed construction of the temporary storage sites in their neighborhoods.
Toshio Sato, 68, has evacuated to Fukushima city from his home in Iitate village, where four of the possible problem storage sites are located.
“There are some people who want to resume growing rice once they return home,” Sato said. “If water is accumulating, there is the possibility it could unexpectedly overflow into surrounding areas. The concerns just seem to emerge one after another.”
The government plans to lift the evacuation order for a large part of Iitate in March 2017.
Corporate climate risk is all about turning a profit, not fixing the problem #auspol #ClimateChange
Climate change poses a major threat to the future of humanity. Extreme weather, rising seas, ocean acidification and biodiversity collapse will undermine many of the systems on which we depend.
We’ve even seen a recent example of this, with South Australia’s storm and blackout illustrating the vulnerability of our society to extreme weather.
Risk has become a central construct for how businesses should respond to climate change. As Hank Paulson, former Secretary of the US Treasury has argued, “climate change is not only a risk to the environment but it is the single biggest risk that exists to the economy today”.
The G20 is currently investigating how companies are exposed to climate risk, and how they disclose that risk to consumers.
However, instead of dealing with the larger problem of rapid and systemic decarbonisation, most businesses construct climate risk solely through the lens of profitability and market opportunity.
As part…
View original post 819 more words
October 21 Energy News
Opinion:
¶ “A renewable fiction: Myths mainstream media refuses to let go” • For years now, many in mainstream media have been propagating myths about renewable energy in general, and wind and solar in particular. It’s unclear why this is so. Perhaps it is fear of new technologies and new ideas. But it remains an issue. [RenewEconomy]
Wind farm
¶ “What would it mean for Los Angeles to go 100% renewable?” The Los Angeles City Council recently passed a unanimous resolution requiring Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the largest municipally-owned utility in the country, to study how the city can achieve a 100% clean energy future. [Environmental Defense Fund]
¶ “‘Last Gasp of Dying Industry’: Nuclear Experts Decry First New US Reactor in 20 Years” • Watts Bar’s launch is “a symbolic gesture. It’s very sad that this is the last gasp of the…
View original post 745 more words
6.6 Magnitude Earthquake in Western Japan
Since the strong earthquake today at 2:07 p.m. in Tottori, of 6.6 magnitude and 6 intensity that shook half of Japan, the earth continues to shake with an impressive number of aftershocks. Officials at the Meteorological Agency say seismic activity continues in Tottori and are asking people to be prepared and take precautions against another possible earthquake.
On this coast of West Japan lies the largest concentration of nuclear power plants in the world. Though stopped, they are full of potentially very dangerous spent nuclear fuel. The epicenter of this earthquake was at 76km from the Shimane nuclear power plant. Of course, no damages say the Authorities, as usual…
Strong quake in western Japan
An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.6 struck Tottori Prefecture in western Japan on Friday afternoon. The Japan Meteorological Agency says there is no tsunami theat.
The jolt registered 6 minus on the Japanese seismic scale of 0 to 7 in central Tottori. The focus was 10 kilometers deep in the prefecture.
There are some reports of injuries and houses collapsing.
About 30,000 households in the prefecture are without power.
The tremors have disrupted transportation.
Local airports have cancelled flights.
Some bullet train services in central Japan are suspended. Parts of highways have been closed to check for damage.
Officials at the nearby Shimane nuclear power plant say there are no irregularities. The plant was off-line at the time of the quake.
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20161021_27/
M6.6 quake strikes western Japan, no tsunami warning issued
A powerful earthquake struck Tottori Prefecture and surrounding areas shortly after 2 p.m. on Oct. 21, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. No tsunami warning was issued.
The 2:07 p.m. quake, which had an estimated magnitude of 6.6, measured a lower 6 on the 7-point Japanese seismic intensity scale in some parts of the Tottori Prefecture city of Kurayoshi, the town of Yurihama and the town of Hokuei, the agency said. It measured an upper 5 in parts of the city of Tottori, as well as in parts of neighboring Okayama Prefecture.
Reports said that several homes in Yurihama had collapsed. The Tottori Prefectural Government is in the process of confirming the information. The quake caused a blackout affecting nearly 32,000 households in Tottori Prefecture, Chugoku Electric Power Co. reported.
Firefighters in Tottori said that a female employee at a supermarket restaurant was taken to hospital with burns to her legs after an accident with hot oil when the quake struck. Elevators also stopped in the quake and there were reports that at least one person had been trapped.
Broken windows were reported over a wide area of Kurayoshi. A 53-year-old architect in the city, Katsunori Choda, said he was about to get in a vehicle when the ground started shaking, and pedestrians crouched on the ground to balance themselves. Soon afterward there was a blackout. Ambulance sirens could be heard and tiles fell from the roofs of old homes.
“I’d never felt an earthquake this big before,” the architect said. “There is a lot of old town scenery in the area and I’m worried about damage.”
Earthquake sounds could still be heard 30 minutes after the quake and aftershocks were reportedly continuing. The earthquake struck at an estimated depth of 10 kilometers, the meteorological agency said.
Services on the Sanyo Shinkansen bullet train were suspended between Shin-Osaka and Hakata stations following the quake, but resumed at 2:27 p.m., West Japan Railway Co. announced.
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20161021/p2g/00m/0dm/062000c
This aerial photo shows broken grave markers and collapsed walls at a cemetery in Kurayoshi, Tottori Prefecture, following a strong earthquake that shook the area Friday.
Homes damaged, power cut after strong quake rattles parts of western Honshu
A powerful earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.6 shook parts of western Honshu early Friday afternoon, damaging homes and roads and cutting power to almost 40,000 households.
The Meteorological Agency said the earthquake occurred at 2:07 p.m. in central Tottori Prefecture, about 700 km west of Tokyo, at a depth of 10 km. It was followed by a weaker aftershock about 30 minutes later.
The agency said there was no danger of a tsunami from the inland temblor.
Two houses collapsed in the town of Hokuei, Tottori Prefecture, according to the local fire department. Roads were cracked and roof tiles laid strewn in the town.
In Kurayoshi in the prefecture, ATMs at some local banks temporarily went offline due to a power outage.
All up, the blackout affected nearly 40,000 households in Tottori Prefecture, according to Chugoku Electric Power Co.
Okayama City Fire Department said a woman in her 70s was taken to hospital after she fell and broke her right leg. Five people are reported to have been injured in Tottori Prefecture.
West Japan Railway Co. temporarily suspended all services on the Sanyo Shinkansen Line between Shin-Osaka and Hakata stations.
The quake registered lower 6 on the Japanese seismic scale of 7 in parts of Tottori Prefecture, and upper 5 in a wide area in Tottori and Okayama prefectures, according to the agency.
No abnormalities were detected at the Shimane nuclear plant, which is currently off-line, in nearby Shimane Prefecture, according to the utility.
Okayama airport closed its runway to check its safety, airport officials said.
According to local officials a house in the town of Yurihama, in central Tottori Prefecture, was destroyed, and a number of dwellings in other parts of the prefecture suffered damage
UPDATE: Quake rattles buildings in Tottori; 6 injured
Tottori Prefecture in western Japan was struck by a series of major earthquakes on Oct. 21, causing structural damage to some buildings and homes and at least six injuries.
A quake measuring lower 6 on the Japanese intensity scale of 7 was recorded at 2:07 p.m.
The focus was about 10 kilometers underground, and the temblor had an estimated magnitude of 6.6.
Shaking was felt in a wide area of western Japan and as far as the Kanto and Kyushu regions.
Japan Meteorological Agency officials urged caution because there was a possibility of another quake measuring lower 6 in intensity striking over the next week in areas where the shaking was particularly strong.
Among the buildings damaged was the Kurayoshi city government building. Government workers evacuated as the building has been declared off-limits.
Homes in Yurihama were also heavily damaged, according to Tottori prefectural officials.
One individual suffered burns at a shopping center in Tottori city while a woman in her 70s in Okayama city, south of Tottori, fell and broke her leg.
Meanwhile, officials of Chugoku Electric Power Co. said about 31,900 households in the prefecture suffered a blackout after the quake struck, centered mainly on Kurayoshi.
However, the quake did not affect the two reactors at the Shimane nuclear power plant in the neighboring prefecture. Both reactors were not operating when the temblor struck.
Various stretches of expressways were closed to traffic.
Bullet train services between Shin-Osaka and Hakata stations operated by West Japan Railway Co. were stopped for about 20 minutes immediately after the quake. Service on the Tokaido Shinkansen line was also temporarily suspended between Shin-Osaka and Toyohashi in Aichi Prefecture.
http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201610210040.html
Final presidential debate reveals sobering facts on how fast nuclear war could happen
Clues to the end of the world shared during final 2016 presidential debate, Mondoweiss, Wilson Dizard on October 20, 2016 “……Four minutes is what it takes between the president’s decision to fire nuclear missiles, Clinton claimed during the debate, and their launch………..Here is the most illuminating exchange on nuclear weapons, according to a transcript published by the Washington Post. Clinton gave a clinical description of how fast nuclear weapons can be fired away at a president’s command. That information was perhaps a subtle way of warning Russian president Vladimir Putin that we remain the fastest guns in the West.CLINTON: “I — I find it ironic that he’s raising nuclear weapons. This is a person who has been very cavalier, even casual about the use of nuclear weapons. He’s advocated more countries getting them, Japan, Korea, even Saudi Arabia. He said, well, if we have them, why don’t we use them, which I think is terrifying.
But here’s the deal. The bottom line on nuclear weapons is that when the president gives the order, it must be followed. There’s about four minutes between the order being given and the people responsible for launching nuclear weapons to do so. And that’s why 10 people who have had that awesome responsibility have come out and, in an unprecedented way, said they would not trust Donald Trump with the nuclear codes or to have his finger on the nuclear button……..
What Trump doesn’t seem to understand that defending Saudi Arabia, Germany, Japan and South Korea means defending major trading partners and, in the case of Saudi Arabia, a sand seared ocean of oil. But if the American nuclear umbrella suddenly closed, all of those countries could have nuclear weapons ready within weeks or months. The details are unimportant. What’s nauseatingly disturbing is that we are discussing the possibility of nuclear war at all. After all, this is 2016, right? If the arc of history bends towards justice, a nuclear holocaust is the thing that would blow that arc to smithereens. The real end of history
Clinton, for her part, recommitted herself to a no-fly zone in Syria, a provocation to Russian air forces the U.S. blames for bombing civilians and Western-friendly rebels. She also said that the occupation of Iraq would “not be in our interest,” while not mentioning that the Iraqis also have their objections to American military occupation. Classic Clinton.
This is all happening while thousands of nuclear weapons in the United States and Russia stand waiting to incinerate you and your family, if necessary………http://mondoweiss.net/2016/10/clues-presidential-debate/
Fact checking Donald Trump – got his facts wrong on USA-Russia nuclear START Treaty
AP FACT CHECK: Trump gets facts wrong on START Treaty http://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2016-10-19/ap-fact-check-trump-gets-facts-wrong-on-start-treaty
AP FACT CHECK: Donald Trump is wrong to say that only Russia can still create warheads under the New START treaty limiting nuclear weapons A claim from the final presidential debate and how it stacks up with the facts:
East Africa’s water resources drying up as a result of climate change
Climate change killing East Africa’s water resources, UN warns, Daily Nation OCTOBER 20 2016 BY KEVIN J. KELLEY
One of East Africa’s (EA) most important sources of water is drying up due to the impact of climate change on Mt Kilimanjaro, the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) warned on Wednesday.
Five more nuclear reactors need shutdown and safety inspection – says France’s nuclear regulator
France’s nuclear watchdog wants to shut down 5 reactors over failure risk https://www.rt.com/news/363484-france-nuclear-shut-down/ 20 Oct, 2016 10: The French nuclear watchdog has called for the shutdown and inspection of five more nuclear reactors for safety checks. The reactors have a high level of carbon which could lead to various failures.
The Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) has asked nuclear power utility EDF to carry out additional inspections at Fessenheim 1,Tricastin 2 and 4, Gravelines 4 and Civaux 1 reactors, according to a press release. All these reactors are located across the whole France, close to towns and communes.
“The performance of these inspections will require shutdown of the reactors concerned,” ASN added. The watchdog wants to check “certain channel heads of the steam generators on five of its reactors, in which the steel is affected by a high carbon concentration.”
According to ASN’s analysis, “certain channel heads of the steam generators … contain a significant carbon concentration zone which could lead to lower than expected mechanical properties.”
The watchdog said that it doesn’t want to wait “for the scheduled refueling outage of these reactors” and thus demands safety checks “within three months.”
According to the Local, this abnormality could lead to failures in mechanical properties and even to leaks or explosions.
The five reactors under scrutiny are among 18 at which ASN found abnormalities in June. Of the 18 reactors ASN says that six could be restarted after inspection. Seven others (Bugey 4, Civaux 2, Dampierre 3, Gravelines 2, Saint-Laurent-des-Eaux B1 and Tricastin 1 and 3) are being inspected and awaiting reboot.
CEO of ASN Olivier Gupta downplayed the concerns in comments to Le Monde newspaper, saying “the safety margins are very large and the carbon content does not undermine integrity or security, even in the case of an accident.”
France has 58 nuclear reactors with total capacity of 63.2 GWe. The country gets two thirds of its electricity from nuclear generation. READ MORE: Risk of nuclear theft, sabotage, cyberattacks by terrorists may be increasing – report
In April, President Francois Hollande promised to formally initiate the shutdown of the France’s oldest nuclear reactors on the grounds of environmental and safety concerns surrounding the Fessenheim power plant near the German and Swiss borders.
READ MORE: Hollande vows to shut down France’s oldest nuclear power plant Fessenheim houses two 920 megawatt reactors and has been running since 1978, making it France’s oldest operating plant. Due to its age, the German government and activists alike have long been calling for it to be permanently closed.
READ MORE: France shuts down Flamanville nuclear reactor over transformer failure
The German government has repeatedly called on France to terminate the Fessenheim plant as soon as possible, after an April 2014 accident when one of the reactors had to be shut down as water was found leaking from several places.
Costing more than $6 billion and 40 years later – America’s Watts Bar nuclear reactor turned on
The reactor has been more than 40 years in the making and cost approximately $6 billion to complete, not adjusting for inflation.
Watts Bar Unit 2 is one of five reactors in the U.S. expected to open in the next five years. However, cost overruns and delays are leading critics to question whether new nuclear plants will be built in the future.
Construction on Watts Bar Units 1 and 2 began in 1973. Work stopped on Unit 2 in 1985 due to deficiencies at the plant. Unit 1 began operation in 1996. In 2007, the TVA began efforts again to complete Unit 2, submitting an updated license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2009 and received its operating license in October 2015. Unit 2 is the first new reactor in the U.S. since its sister plant started operations.
The Unit 2 startup comes at a time when nuclear operators have shut down—or announced plans to shut down—10 reactors in five states due to difficulty competing against low natural gas prices, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, which represents the nuclear industry. The group predicts that an additional 15 to 20 nuclear reactors are at risk of premature closure in the coming years.
Marvin Fertel’s, NEI’s president and CEO, praised TVA’s completion of the plant……..
Mark Cooper, a senior research fellow for economic analysis at the Vermont Law School, said it is no longer financially viable to build new reactors in the U.S. Watts Bar Unit 2 “is not a monument to the future nuclear power, it’s a mausoleum for the future of nuclear power,” he told Bloomberg BNA Oct. 19.
Watchdogs Say Building Nuclear Too Costly
The TVA estimates that it spent $1.3 billion originally on the project. Work resumed after the board of directors approved $4 billion to $4.5 billion to complete the reactor in 2012, and then later approved an additional $200 million in 2016, bringing total estimated costs to $6 billion.
Critics say that the $6 billion price tag to complete Watts Bar Unit 2 is a reminder of the expense of building nuclear reactors today.
Tim Judson, executive director of the Nuclear Information and Research Service, a information center for environmentalists concerned about nuclear power and radioactive waste, said he would estimate Watts Bar Unit 2 cost between $7 billion and $8 billion when adjusted for inflation.
“As an economic enterprise, they are doomed,” Cooper said of nuclear reactors in the U.S………
To contact the reporter on this story: Rebecca Kern in Washington atrKern@bna.com
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Larry Pearl atlpearl@bna.com https://news.google.com/news/story?ncl=dD89j-wHhzuijvMA6PD5gUuZYagbM&q=nuclear&lr=English&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiI5uq6k-rPAhWrqlQKHfGrApMQqgIIIjAB
Energy utilities sue New York Public Service Commission’s (PSC) over subsidies to nuclear industry
Energy industry coalition sues NY PSC over nuclear subsidies Reuters 19 Oct 16 An energy industry coalition including competitive non-nuclear electricity producers sued on Wednesday to oppose a plan to subsidize nuclear power plants in New York State.
The lawsuit in federal court said the New York Public Service Commission’s (PSC) plan to raise electric rates across the state by requiring consumers to pay for zero emission credits (ZECs), infringes illegally into federal regulators’ territory.
The coalition said in a statement that the litigation was “solely to save several New York nuclear plants that, allegedly, can no longer compete successfully in the federally-regulated wholesale electric power market.”…..Coalition members opposed to the nuclear subsidies include units of Dynegy Inc and NRG Energy Inc. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-new-york-nuclear-idUSKCN12J2N2
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