USA REPUBLICAN group leading the push for clean renewable energy
Conservatives Form Group Favoring Renewable Energy http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2014/01/01/conservatives-form-group-favoring-renewable-energy/January 1, 2014 LANSING (AP) – Conservative leaders and activists in Michigan have formed a group to support basing energy policy on the use of renewable resources and energy-efficiency programs.
The recent launch of the Michigan Conservative Energy Forum comes as Gov. Rick Snyder and legislators consider updating Michigan’s electricity law in 2014 or 2015.
Group executive director Larry Ward says the organization supports an “all-of-the-above” energy policy. He says it’s time for Republicans to lead on energy policy.
Michigan law sets a 10 percent renewable power standard that must be met by the end of 2015. A recent report to Snyder says 15 percent renewable electricity in 2020 and 30 percent in 2035 are achievable.
The forum says Michigan gets more than half its electricity from other states’ coal.
Poor prospects for uranium mining in Black Hills, South Dakota
History shows uranium mine could face voter whims, Argus Leader, 28 Dec 13 Statewide initiated ballot measures previously defeated plans to develop former munitions depot near Edgemont The opponents of a uranium mining proposal in the southern Black Hills say they have an ace in the hole if efforts to block the project at the state and national levels are unsuccessful.
That ace in the hole? The people of South Dakota.
The opponents of Powertech Uranium Corp.’s application to mine about 15 miles northwest of Edgemont have vowed that they will take the issue directly to the people in the form of an initiated measure. That would happen if Powertech wins the appropriate permits to begin a process known as in-situ leach mining.
It’s not an idle threat.
Three times in the past 30 years, opponents of controversial projects near Edgemont have collected enough signatures to force statewide votes. The results in each case have favored project opponents…….
Powertech has applied for a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to recover uranium at the Dewey-Burdock site, which was the location for uranium pit mining in the 1950s until 1973. The company also has applied with the Environmental Protection Agency for a permit to inject water used in the mining process into deep underground wells.
The company also must get mining and water rights permits from the state. Hearings for those permits started earlier this fall, but both state boards decided to postpone any further hearings until after the EPA and NRC have made determinations about Powertech’s proposal.
In-situ leach mining is a process in which oxygenated water is injected into underground geologic formations that contain uranium. The water solution dissolves the uranium, and the uranium laden water is pumped back to the surface where the uranium is extracted and sent for processing to become nuclear fuel.
The water is re-injected into the geologic formation, and the cycle continues until there is no longer enough recoverable uranium in the well area.
Opponents fear that the in-situ leach well fields will contaminate drinking water with radioactive uranium and other chemicals freed by the mining process…..
India: political opposition to nuclear energy program
AAP to support nuclear plant stir, says Bhushanhttp://www.indianexpress.com/news/aap-to-support-nuclear-plant-stir-says-bhushan/1213139/ PTI : Tirunelveli, Mon Dec 30 2013 AAP leader Prashant Bhushan Sunday said the party always supported the cause of people’s movement against nuclear energy at Kudankulam and would always be with the people. Addressing members of People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy at Idinthakarai near the Kundankulam Nuclear Power Plant, Bhushan assured his party’s support to the ongoing agitation against KNPP. “We always opposed nuclear energy and also the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project. We supported the cause of PMANE in difficult times,” he said.
“The national political scenario was looking for a substitute to BJP and Congress. Both these national parties are tainted. So the people of our country installed AAP in power at Delhi,” he said.
Tepco’s plan to clean up Fukushima, -technology not invented yet, restart of idled reactors
The plan, which includes a cost-cutting round of early retirements, assumes the giant utility will be allowed to restart some of its idled nuclear reactors.
The government believes it may take 40 years completely to dismantle the plant and could require the use of technology that has not yet been invented.
Fukushima operator readies new restructuring plan http://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/fukushima-operator-readies-restructuring-plan-000222900.html 27 Dec 13, Tokyo Electric Power Wednesday submitted a fresh restructuring plan to a Japanese government-backed fund that envisages the creation of a special unit to dismantle the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant.
TEPCO president Naomi Hirose pledged thorough implementation of the plan, once approved by the government as expected next month. Continue reading
Nuclear power industry manipulates Japanese politicians
Nuclear power backers picking up steam on reactor restarts THE ASAHI SHIMBUN, by Senior Staff Writer Atsushi Komori and Kaname Kakuta. 23 Dec 13 Japan’s 2011 nuclear disaster triggered feverish calls among citizens and even politicians to abandon the nation’s reliance on nuclear power.
But almost three years later, pro-nuclear officials, business leaders and utilities wielding awesome economic and political clout are regaining strength and maneuvering to tighten the noose around local government leaders who have been demanding that Japan do away with nuclear power. Continue reading
Questioning independence of Polish Nuclear Energy Agency
The thin ice under nuclear regulatory independence Greenpeace, by Jan Haverkamp – December 19, 2013 In this space I have written before about the importance of nuclear regulatory agencies being fully independent. Fukushima showed that a lack of independence leads to complacency and that complacency adds to the complexity of nuclear accidents when they happen.
In 2009, the Euratom Treaty adopted a rule on regulatory independence: Section 5(2) of the Nuclear Safety Directive (2009/71/Euratom) says: “Member States shall ensure that the competent regulatory authority is functionally separate from any other body or organisation concerned with the promotion, or utilisation of nuclear energy, including electricity production, in order to ensure effective independence from undue influence in its regulatory decision making.” The nearest you can get to violating this rule is by promoting nuclear yourself.
Yet promoting nuclear seems to be what the president of the Polish Nuclear Energy Agency (PAA) Janusz Włodarski is doing. Currently, he faces a push from Polish politicians and the nuclear lobby to introduce nuclear power in what is now a nuclear-free country. Quotes attributed to Mr. Włodarski in the Japanese magazine “Rising” are more than sufficient reason for concern: “Nuclear energy is clean energy, environmentally friendly. Even if something like the Fukushima disaster were to happen [again], Poland wants to implement nuclear power.”….
Mr. Włodarski has used the arguments that Polish politicians use to try to massage the opinion of the majority of Poles who know that nuclear energy is not clean and not environmentally friendly, and that Fukushima is an ongoing catastrophe……
What we need at PAA is someone who can prevent the Polish nuclear industry from getting away with a nuclear power station that is built on propaganda rather than hard fact. Because such a nuclear power station could well become the next Fukushima.http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/nuclear-reaction/weak-nuclear-regulatory-independence/blog/47755/
Japan’s govt keeps TEPCO afloat with huge funding aid
TEPCO government aid to be increased to almost 10 trillion yen http://japandailypress.com/tepco-government-aid-to-be-increased-to-almost-10-trillion-yen-1941261/ Dec 19, 2013 Maan Pamintuan The Japanese government’s financial assistance to Tokyo Electric Power Co(TEPCO), the operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, is set to be raised from 5 trillion yen to around 9 to 10 trillion yen to help rebuild the troubled company. The additional funds will be used to guarantee payment to the victims of the 2011 nuclear crisis of Fukushima, most of whom are still displaced due to radiation and decontamination issues in the plant, the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.
In July 2012, after donating 1 trillion yen to increase TEPCO’s capital, the government acquired 50.1 % shares of the company, which essentially placed the operator under state control eligible for government-funded rehabilitation. Plans to sell all shares by the 2030s to pay for decontamination work on areas within the nuclear plant are to be decided on a meeting of the Nuclear Emergency Response Headquarters on Friday along with other factors of the company’s special business plan, which includes the Kashiwazaki-Kariwanuclear power plant in Niigata Prefecture that is targeted to go back online by July 2014. This assumes the company a 107 billion yen ordinary profit in 2014 and around 150 billion yen annually, thereafter.
While huge profits are expected to come in next year for TEPCO, the 50 billion yen a year to be paid to the Nuclear Damage Liability Facilitation Fund andcompensation for victims of the nuclear accident for a period of time, made the government decide to raise the upper limit of financial assistance to the company.
Profits left after paying the fund will be spent on refurbishing thermal power plants. Other parts of the new business reconstruction plan include joint procurement of fuel with gas companies and oil wholesalers and a construction of a new coal-powered thermal power plant.
Controversy over Entergy’s quest for approval to extend Indian Point nuclear license
Entergy Sees Nuclear License Renewal for New York’s Indian Point Bloomberg, By Mark Chediak Dec 19, 2013 Entergy Corp. (ETR), the second biggest U.S. nuclear operator, expects federal approval to extend the operating life of its Indian Point reactors, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Leo Denault said.“It is our belief that we can get through the process and be successful,” Denault said in an telephone interview today. “We also think it’s going to take a while and we really don’t see it getting it resolved before 2018.”
State officials and environmental groups are fighting Entergy’s application with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a 20-year license renewal for Indian Point, a two-unit nuclear plant located about 24 miles (39 kilometers) north of New York City.
The NRC has said Entergy may continue to operate Indian Point’s 1,028-megawatt Unit 2 while it reviews the renewal request. The reactor’s license expired in September and the license for the 1,041-megawatt Unit 3 reactor expires in December 2015.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has said Indian Point should be closed because it isn’t feasible to evacuate the metropolitan area’s 20 million residents in the event of an accident. Entergy, based in New Orleans, has said the reactors are safe……
The company’s 838-megawatt James A. FitzPatrick reactor on New York’s southern shore of Lake Ontario is in a “more challenged market” and has a design similar to Vermont Yankee, which the company decided to shut earlier this year due to lower prices……http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-19/entergy-sees-nuclear-license-renewal-for-new-york-s-indian-point.html
UK nuclear subsidies may be unnecessary, and could cost £17bn
Subsidies for UK nuclear plant could reach £17bn and ‘may be unnecessary’ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/10525538/Subsidies-for-UK-nuclear-plant-could-reach-17bn-and-may-be-unnecessary.html
European Commission probes whether subsidies are needed for EDF’s Hinkley Point plant in Somerset and warns they could cost £17bn – more than the plant itself By Emily Gosden, Energy Editor
18 Dec 2013 British consumers could pay £17bn in potentially unnecessary subsidies to fund construction of the country’s first new nuclear plant in a generation, the European Commission has said.
The EC said it was assessing whether the planned subsidies for Hinkley Point in Somerset – which could exceed the £16bn cost of the plant itself – were needed at all, or whether energy companies would build the plant anyway without a penny of public support.
Ministers in October signed a landmark deal with energy giant EDF to fund the construction of the plant, which would see consumers pay billions of pounds in subsidies to the French company for decades to come.
On Wednesday the Commission opened a formal investigation into “whether the construction of a nuclear power station could not be achieved by market forces alone, without state intervention”. The Commission said its investigation, which threatens to delay or derail the plant altogether, will assess whether UK plans “to subsidise the construction and operation” of the plant are in line with EU state aid rules.
Taxpayer money for UK nuclear from French, as well as British?
Areva may use French fund to help pay for UK nuclear plant –paper http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/12/16/uk-areva-hinkleypoint-funds-idUKBRE9BF0KS20131216 (Reuters) – Areva is in talks with the French 
government to release some funds set aside for dismantling its nuclear installations in France to help the company finance a new British nuclear reactor, a newspaper reported.
Britain signed a deal with France’s state-owned utility EDF in October to build a 16-billion pound nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point in southwest Britain, the first new plant in Europe since the Fukushima disaster.d to help pay for UK nuclear plant – paper
PARIS Mon Dec 16, 2013 State-owned Areva is taking a 10 percent stake in the consortium that will build the facility, which also includes EDF’s Chinese partners China General Nuclear Corporation (CGN) and China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC).
Japan on the way towards totalitarianism
Abe shows totalitarian bent The “old” Liberal Democratic Party that former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is supposed to have destroyed is making a strong resurgence as is the traditional “triangle” of the LDP, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and the Japan Business Federation (Keidanren).
When Prime Minister Shinzo Abe goes abroad, he is often accompanied by as many as 100 business leaders as he busies himself with exporting nuclear reactors and other infrastructural items through “top-level sales campaigns.” Furthermore, defying the traditional practice of determining wage levels through labor-management negotiations, Abe has asked Keidanren Chairman Hiromasa Yonekura to raise the wages of workers and this request has been handed down to Keidanren member corporations. His intervention in wage negotiations clearly indicates that Japan is a nation of highly controlled state capitalism, transcending a free market economy. Moreover, should a constitutional revision come to restrict freedom of speech, Japan would become a de facto totalitarian state http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2013/12/16/commentary/abe-shows-totalitarian-bent/#.UrBsOWRDtD5
Japanese government panel urges “embracing of nuclear power”
Japan should embrace nuclear power, government panel says Asahi Shimbun, 14 Dec 13 Japan should embrace nuclear power as an “important and fundamental” energy source, a government panel said on Dec. 13, in advice that looks almost certain to be accepted, despite widespread anti-nuclear feeling after the Fukushima disaster. Continue reading
India is sticking to its Nuclear Liability Law
No proposal to relax liability clause in nuclear act: Govt http://zeenews.india.com/news/nation/no-proposal-to-relax-liability-clause-in-nuclear-act-govt_896399.html 13 Dec 13 New Delhi: The government on Thursday said there was no proposal to relax the liability clause of the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damages Act 2010, as demanded by foreign collaborators assisting the country in its nuclear power generation pursuit. Responding to questions over the issue, V Narayanasamy, Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office, said there is no proposal to relax the provisions of the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010 to benefit American firm Westinghouse Corporation or any other company. The Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) is negotiating with Westinghouse Corporation to build nuclear plant reactors in Mithi Virdhi, Gujarat.
Many foreign collaborators, like France and Russia, have been pressing for relaxation of the liability clause of the act, which enables the operators (NPCIL) to sue the suppliers (the foreign collaborators) in case of any nuclear disaster.
US govt chooses small Oregan company for grant for small nuclear reactors
Small Oregon Nuclear Power Plant Company Gets Massive Federal Backing OPB | Dec. 12, 2013 Portland, Oregon NuScale Power, a spin-off business out of Oregon State University, will receive up to $226 million from the U.S. Department of Energy.
NuScale Power is designing a small nuclear reactor — about the size of a semi-trailer standing on its head.
Chief commercial officer Mike McGough says the money will be spent getting the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to certify the design — a task that’s expected to cost about $1 billion……
If NuScale secures certification, a reactor isn’t expected to be up and running until at least 2023.It would be built in Idaho.
Oregon has tight restrictions on the construction of nuclear power facilities. For example, it would have to be approved by voters and builders would need to be able to demonstrate the safe disposal of high level waste….http://www.opb.org/news/article/small-oregon-nuclear-power-plant-company-gets-massive-federal-backing/
US government not funding Westinghouse, Ameren , for little nukes
Westinghouse, Ameren lose out in nuclear reactor funding By Tim Bryant tbryant@post-dispatch.com 314-340-8206 Government funding of up to $226 million to develop small modular nuclear reactor technology will go to an Oregon firm instead of a group that included Ameren Missouri.
The Energy Department funding was awarded Thursday to NuScale Power of Portland, Ore.
NuScale and the government will move next to negotiate an agreement that lays out a five-year funding program………
Ameren Missouri and Westinghouse said in April they would pursue federal funding of a small-scale nuclear reactor that could be built in central Missouri. The companies sought a similar grant last year. But the Energy Department chose then to fund a consortium led by Babcock & Wilcox, known for making nuclear reactors for ships and submarines.
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Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
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