Irresponsible of Court rulings to permit restart of restart of Japan’s NPPs
Court rulings permitting restart of NPPs are irresponsible http://www.japan-press.co.jp/modules/news/index.php?id=10497 April 5, 2017 Akahata editorial
‘Safety myth’ may again run rampant
If deeming that as long as the NRA gives a green light to resuming operations of nuclear reactors, courts do not need to judge whether or not such operations are appropriate, they would no longer be judicial apparatuses independent from the government. The Abe Shinzo Cabinet in principle reactivates NPPs which meet the NRA regulatory standards. It is tantamount to reinforcing the “safety myth” about the NRA screening itself.
Both of the court rulings state that people have the right to seek to protect their lives and livelihoods from NPP-related risks as the Constitution guarantees “personal rights”. The two judgements point out that the investigation into the cause of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear meltdown is totally insufficient. Concerning the NRA quakeproofing and tsunami-proofing criteria that the state used in approving the restart of NPPs, the court decisions criticized the criteria as “too lax”, which is of grave significance. The Fukui and Otsu district courts refused to blindly follow the government’s pro-nuclear policy and made independent decisions, clearly highlighting the collapse of the “safety myth”.
However, the recent decisions by the Osaka High Court and the Hiroshima District Court were completely unlike the previous two courts’ decisions. Regarding the nuclear safety standards that the NRA employed in allowing the reactivation of the reactors, the rulings by the two courts acknowledged the safety standards as “not unreasonable”, claiming that they reflect lessons learned from past accidents as well as the latest scientific and technical knowledge”. The Hiroshima ruling not just followed the state policy but abandoned the principle of judicial independence. It asserted that inconsistencies among court judgements will lead to confusion and that the Hiroshima court made the decision in line with the April 2016 decision by the Fukuoka High Court Miyazaki Branch which allowed the operation of Nos 1 and 2 reactors at the Kyushu Electric Power Company Sendai NPP (Kagoshima Pref.). If the judiciary keeps taking such a stance, it will be unable to protect people’s lives and their human rights.
Safeguard people’s rights
In the first place, the Constitution guarantees people’s right to go to court. It is a matter of course that judges should make their own decisions without being influenced by the state.
Tepco’s latest plan for Kawashiwazaki-Kariwa plant envisions restart in 2019
Tokyo Electric is now aiming to restart the Kawashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata Prefecture in April 2019, sources say.
The company plans to include the goal in its financial outlook under a reconstruction program, the sources said Friday.
Restarting the giant plant is considered important to Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.’s ability to recover from the triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant in March 2011.
But the prospects for rebooting the plant are dim because it is opposed by Niigata Gov. Ryuichi Yoneyama.
The reconstruction plan is also expected to include Tepco’s commitment to pursuing integration with other companies in some areas.
Tepco is expected to draw up the new plan and file for government approval as early as this month.
Six years after Fukushima – women and children still suffer most
The Japanese government is trying to get back to normality after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, but the crisis is far from over for women and children, says Greenpeace. Thousands of mothers have sued the authorities.
Six years ago, the triple disaster – earthquake, tsunami and meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant – took the lives of almost 20,000 people and displaced more than 160,000 people from their homes. More than 80,000 people are still living in temporary accommodation.
The disaster had an enormous impact on all members of the affected communities, but to this day it is women and children who “have borne the brunt of human rights violations resulting from it,” according to a report by Greenpeace.
While some injustices faced by women and children were caused by policy failures in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, other women’s and children’s rights violations are a direct result of the current government’s plans to resettle residents to “heavily contaminated ares in Fukushima,” says Greenpeace.
In an effort to get back to normality as quickly as possible, the Japanese government is set to lift evacuation orders at the end of March and allow evacuated residents to return to areas close to the Fukushima power plant.
Employees clean an elementary school in Fukushima. It’s scheduled to re-open in April.
Greenpeace warned, however, that radiation levels are still dangerously high and called on the government not to “pressure” residents to return to their contaminated homes, under threat of losing financial support. A year after an area is declared safe, the government will stop paying compensation to evacuees.
In March, Japan will also cut housing support for people who decided to move out although they were not under a government evacuation order.
“Cutting off housing support for self-evacuees threatens more than 10,000 households, potentially forcing many people back to contaminated areas against their will,” says Kendra Ulrich, Global Energy Campaigner with Greenpeace Japan. Ending compensation payments “even though radiation levels far exceed the long-term targets in many areas […] amounts to economic coercion and is a deliberate violation of the law and survivors’ human rights.”
“Atomic divorce”
The resettlement plans create a dilemma for those who refuse to go back to their former homes but are dependent on financial support, especially single mums. After the disaster, a lot of women separated from or even divorced their husbands, who chose to stay in contaminated regions because of their work, and evacuated with their children.
There are no official numbers on how many families split as a result of the disaster. But the phenomenon is common enough to have a name, “genpatsu rikon” – literally meaning “atomic divorce”.
These mothers evacuated with their children from Fukushima prefecture.
Mothers are now faced with the choice between losing housing support or moving back to unsafe areas. In order to speed up the return of evacuees, the government decontaminated corridors and islands instead of entire areas, effectivley creating “an invisible, open-air prison for citizens to return to,” says Greenpeace.
Decontaminated zones often consist of 20 meter strips along roads, around houses and agricultural fields. This poses a health threat as the returnees would be surrounded by contamination.
Mothers are worried about their health and the development of their children. Noriko Kubota, a professor of clinical psychology at Iwaki Meisei University, believes that living in “safe zones” could have a long-lasting negative impact on kids.
“If children need to stay inside and cannot run around outside freely, that would impact their psychological development, more specifically their skills of interacting with each other and controlling their emotions among others,” Kubota told DW.
Mothers sue government
Women are, however, not only silent victims in this disaster. Thousands of mothers have together filed lawsuits against the Japanese government to fight for the continuation of housing support and fair compensation. They also demand accountability for the disaster from the government and Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), the company running the Fukushima Daiichi plant.
Ms Horie is sueing the government for fair compensation.
“I never imagined becoming a plaintiff myself. I’m going to court now for my children and for the next generation,” Ms Horie told Greenpeace. She moved with her children from Fukushima to Kyoto, where she filed a class action suit together with other mums. “Back then, they said on TV that the accident wouldn’t affect our health immediately, but it might affect my kids in the future. That’s why I decided to evacuate.”
Women who left contaminated areas have been “labeled as neurotic or irrational,” says Greenpeace. Their concerns were dismissed both by their partners and the government. The lawsuit is not only about financial compensation but also for moral satisfaction.
“I want to stand in court, knowing that I am right to evacuate my child,” says Ms Sonoda, who moved with her child from Fukushima to England. “We are right.”
http://www.dw.com/en/six-years-after-fukushima-women-and-children-still-suffer-most/a-37871135
Toshiba warns that it might not survive its nuclear financial crisis
Toshiba warns over its survival as it forecasts £7bn losses Crisis creates concern about future of UK’s Moorside nuclear plant, in which subsidiary Westinghouse is a key player, Guardian, Angela Monaghan, 12 Apr 17, Toshiba, one of the biggest names in consumer electronics, has warned it is facing annual losses of more than £7bn and the future of the company is in doubt as a result of financial turmoil at its nuclear power plant construction business.
The Japanese company finally released third quarter results, after twice delaying publication while auditors attempted to quantify the scale of the problems at Toshiba’s US nuclear engineering subsidiary Westinghouse, which filed for bankruptcy last month.
Toshiba took the unusual decision to publish them on Tuesday without the approval of auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers Aarata. The company said PwC Aarata had been too uncertain about the financial impact of Westinghouse’s takeover of nuclear construction company CB&I Stone and Webster in 2015.
Westinghouse’s plight stems from a $6.1bn (£4.9bn) writedown because costs have overrun on the two plants CB&I is building in Georgia and South Carolina, the first new US nuclear power stations for decades.
The unaudited results showed Toshiba’s total losses widened by 53bn yen to 532bn yen (£3.9bn) in the nine months ending December 2016, adding that losses for the full year ending March could amount to more than 1tn yen (£7.3bn). It would be one of the biggest losses in Japanese corporate history.
Failure to file audited results fuelled speculation that the company could be forced out of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Toshiba’s president, Satoshi Tsunakawa, called the auditor’s decision not to approve the figures “truly regrettable” and said he hoped the company would not be delisted.
The company’s escalating crisis also heightened fears about the future of Toshiba’s planned Moorside nuclear plant in Cumbria. Earlier this month it was forced to take full control of the venture behind the project, Nugen, after its previous partner, the French utility Engie, exercised the right to sell its 40% stakeunder an option triggered by Westinghouse’s bankruptcy filing.
Unite, Britain’s largest trade union, said it was fearful about what the latest developments at Toshiba would mean for the Moorside plant, and repeated its call on Greg Clark, the business and energy secretary, to intervene to safeguard the future of the project…….. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/apr/11/toshiba-losses-uk-moorside-nuclear-plant-westinghouse
Japan’s nuclear technology faces extinction
Evaporating demand and few new projects spell trouble for technical know-how
A semicylindrical structure has been built to cover a reactor containment vessel at J-Power’s Oma nuclear power plant in Aomori Prefecture, where construction work has been suspended since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.
TOKYO — Japan’s nuclear power industry is at the most critical juncture in its history. Demand for new reactors has dried up at home following the Fukushima nuclear disaster and dismal prospects for export are dual menaces threatening the fate of the country’s nuclear technology.
No domestic construction on a new reactor has begun for the past eight years. The catastrophic accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in 2011 blew a hole in the industry’s plans. The picture for exports of Japanese nuclear power technology looks just as gloomy.
Japanese reactor manufacturers and suppliers of key components are now facing the possible loss of their technological viability.
Shutdown
Warning signs for the nation’s nuclear power industry are visible in many parts of the country, including Oma, a fishing town in Aomori Prefecture on the northernmost tip of the main island of Honshu.
In that coastal town, Electric Power Development, a wholesale electric utility known as J-Power, has been building a new nuclear power plant.
At the construction site stands a huge semicylindrical-shaped structure bearing the Hitachi logo. It is actually a cover to protect what is inside: a reactor containment vessel, the core equipment of a nuclear plant, from the salty sea winds.
The humidity inside the structure is kept at 50% to prevent pipes and other parts of the vessel from rusting, according to an official in charge of the construction.
J-Power started construction of its first nuclear power plant in Oma in 2008. By the time the devastating earthquakes and tsunami in 2011 triggered reactor meltdowns at the Fukushima plant, 38% of the Oma project had been completed.
But the disaster brought construction to a halt as new, stricter safety standards have been introduced, forcing the company to make necessary adjustments to the plan and design of the plant. The plant was originally envisioned to start operation in 2014, but there is no prospect for quick resumption of full-scale construction.
http://asia.nikkei.com/Tech-Science/Tech/Japan-s-nuclear-technology-faces-extinction
Revised law enables surprise inspection of nuclear plants
The Diet passed on Friday a sweeping reform of nuclear inspections to allow regulators to conduct unannounced inspections of nuclear plants and give them unlimited access to needed data.
The enactment of the revised nuclear reactor regulation law comes after the International Atomic Energy Agency suggested Japan, which has been holding periodic inspections using checklists, needs a more flexible system.
The new inspection system, based on the U.S. system, will be implemented from fiscal 2020 after the Nuclear Regulation Authority sets specific rules.
Anti-Conspiracy Bill to Suppress Anti-Government Demonstrations
Rally participants protest the so-called “anti-conspiracy bill” at Hibiya Open-Air Concert Hall in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward on the evening of April 6, 2017.
Protesters say ‘anti-conspiracy’ bill aims to suppress anti-government demonstrations
Thousands of people gathered in Tokyo to protest the so-called “anti-conspiracy bill” hours after the government submitted the bill to the House of Representatives on April 6.
The group Kyobozai NO! Jikko Iinkai (Committee saying no to the anti-conspiracy bill) and multiple other civic organizations held a rally at Hibiya Open-Air Concert Hall, after which participants marched through the streets of Japan’s capital calling for the bill to be scrapped. According to event organizers, some 3,700 people took part.
“Suppression of protests against the government is the essence of this bill,” Yuichi Kaido, an attorney who has long been active in the movement against anti-conspiracy legislation, told the crowd. “Let us fight to kill this bill.”
Opposition lawmakers who participated in the event remarked, “The bill will turn the public into latent criminals,” “The bill is the modern-day version of the prewar Public Security Preservation Law” and “The prime minister said he would provide a careful explanation, but forcibly submitted the legislation.”
After the rally, participants marched in front of the Diet as they called out, “We don’t need anti-conspiracy legislation!” and “The bill has nothing to do with anti-terrorism,” while holding banners reading, “Simply having a discussion may become a crime!”
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20170407/p2a/00m/0na/002000c
An estimated 3,700 demonstrators rally against a bill that penalizes conspiracies to commit crimes in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward on April 6, saying it could lead to the extensive monitoring of citizens and the suppression of freedom of expression
Local councils, citizens raise red flag against new crime legislation
Almost 4,000 protesters marched in Tokyo on April 6 to voice their concern that a proposed law to enable punishment for planning crimes is one step toward an Orwellian society of surveillance.
“The purpose of the bill is to silence citizens opposing the government when these people haven’t actually posed any threat,” said protester Yuichi Kaito, a lawyer who serves as the deputy chief of the task force dealing with the anti-conspiracy legislation at the Japan Federation of Bar Associations.
A 44-year-old public servant from Kawasaki who attended the rally in Hibiya Park in central Tokyo chipped in with, “People who are involved in labor union activities are just ordinary people. If they were cracked down on, they would not be able to enjoy a normal life.”
The protesters marched to the Diet building to coincide with the bill being introduced for a debate at a Lower House plenary session in which the four major opposition parties have pledged to fight it.
A similar bill has been killed three times since it was first submitted to the Diet in 2003. It was criticized that it could be used to target ordinary citizens’ groups and labor unions as the law could be arbitrarily applied by the police and the government.
The government argues the legislation is required to fight terrorism by joining the U.N. Convention against Transnational Organized Crime.
It insists the new legislation is urgently needed as the capital prepares to host the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics.
But many citizens fear the legislation could lead to the suppression of freedom of thought.
The country has already experienced suppression in the years leading up to World War II. In 1925, the public security preservation law was enacted with the initial purpose of reining in communism. But its application was expanded to encompass attacks on critics, journalists and activists.
The prefectural assemblies of Mie and Miyazaki, as well as 34 other local assemblies across Japan, had issued statements as of April 6 opposing the legislation or calling for a cautious Diet debate, according to the Lower House.
Nagano Prefecture appears to be particularly opposed to the bill. Thirteen municipal assemblies in the prefecture, prodded by alarmed citizens, have made it clear they oppose the legislation, the largest of any prefecture in Japan.
The backdrop to this is what is known as the Feb. 4 incident of 1933, in which about 600 people in the prefecture–many of them teachers–were arrested on suspicion of violating the public security preservation law. Those arrested were suspected of harboring communist sympathies.
Local residents in Nagano Prefecture see many parallels between the current bill and the pre-war legislation.
“In my appeal, I ask, ‘Is it all right to repeat history?” said Yukio Nunome, head of the secretariat of a federation of civic groups advocating the protection of the pacifist Japanese Constitution.
In Fukushima Prefecture, four local assemblies adopted a statement opposing the bill.
“Since the Fukushima nuclear disaster, we have always protested against the central government,” said Kiyoshi Ishikawa, a Japanese Communist Party (JCP) member of the Kawamata town assembly. “It is only expected that opposition to the anti-conspiracy bill is spreading due to concerns that it could breach freedom of thought.”
In Tokyo, the Kunitachi municipal assembly condemned the legislation as potentially leading to a society where individuals are under constant surveillance and turned into informants for the authorities.
Miyako Owari, a JCP assemblywoman who drafted the protest statement, expressed concern that grass-roots activities could be targeted, such as weekly gatherings held in the city.
“The bill concerns each of us since if it is written into law, we may lose the atmosphere in which we can freely voice our opinions and express ourselves,” she said.
The government aims to pass the bill in the Lower House by early May so that officials can underscore Japan’s efforts to fight terrorism at the Group of Seven summit in Sicily, Italy, later the same month.
Toshiba asks for banks’ support
Executives at ailing conglomerate Toshiba have asked banks for additional support. Three main lenders say they are considering providing new lines of credit.
Toshiba executives met with representatives of about 80 financial institutions on Tuesday. They are believed to have discussed the temporary swell in the company’s losses following the bankruptcy of its US nuclear subsidiary Westinghouse.
The firm plans to spin off its mainstay flash memory chip operation. But it will be some time before it sees any gains from selling a majority stake in the new entity.
Toshiba said it needs to secure more than 6.3 billion dollars in fiscal 2017.
Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and 2 other main creditor banks proposed additional support on the condition that Toshiba offers shares in the spin-off company as collateral.
The electronics maker has postponed the release of its earnings report twice because it needed to investigate accounting practices at Westinghouse.
It is trying to release the report by Tuesday of next week.
Nuclear disaster of a different kind
JAPANESE corporate giant Toshiba has announced that its Westinghouse nuclear power unit has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the US, largely due to massive cost overruns for four reactor projects the company is building in South Carolina and Georgia. The financial loss to Toshiba is estimated to be about 1 trillion yen (about $9 billion) for the fiscal year that ended yesterday (March 31), which would be one of, if not the biggest, annual loss in Japanese corporate history.
Officials at both W estinghouse and parent company Toshiba are optimistic that the collapse is not total; the financial problems are rooted in Westinghouse’s construction division, while its nuclear fuel and plant operations/maintenance segments remain relatively profitable. On the other hand, the bankruptcy filing is glaring evidence that these same people have been very wrong before; every other objective indicator suggests that Westinghouse’s fall may be a fatal blow to what nuclear advocates were hoping would be a bit of a renaissance for nuclear power worldwide.
The Westinghouse Electric Company LLC is a remnant of the fabled US corporate giant Westinghouse, which was founded in 1886. Through the mid-1990s the original company was gradually broken up and sold off; the brand is still well known worldwide – mainly in household appliances and certain kinds of industrial equipment – but is owned and produced by a variety of unrelated parent companies. The nuclear power business has historically been one of Westinghouse’s strengths, and reached its zenith during the 1970s; a majority of the several dozen operating nuclear reactors in the US were built by Westinghouse, and it built reactors in several other countries. The mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) here in the Philippines is a Westinghouse product.
The company has over the years become embroiled in controversy at times – the BNPP being one example – but on the whole remained fairly sound, and was considered a good investment when it was purchased in 1999 by British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL). BNFL in turn sold Westinghouse to Toshiba in 2006 for $5.4 billion, just at a time when the prevailing view was that nuclear power was about to undergo a resurgence; China, the US and the UK were all then planning to invest heavily in new nuclear power facilities.
Toshiba thought they had a gold mine on their hands. Westinghouse had a new, marketable reactor design – the AP1000 – which had become the first Generation III+ design to receive final design approval from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in 2004. The Japanese parent company sold 10 percent of its stake to the Kazakh national uranium company (Kazatomprom) in 2007 to secure a fuel source and strengthen its supply line, and in the same year won a bid from the China National Nuclear Corporation for construction of four AP1000 reactors and transfer of the AP1000 technology. In 2008, Westinghouse won a contract from Georgia Power Company to build two AP1000 reactors in that state and a second contract to build two more in South Carolina; two years later, the US government announced it would provide $8.3 billion in loan guarantees to complete the Georgia plant.
The Fukushima nuclear disaster in March 2011 and the boom in natural gas production in the US had a chilling effect on the plans for new nuclear plants in the US. Even without Fukushima raising safety concerns, nuclear plants suddenly became unreasonably expensive compared with gas-fired plants, which put a bit of pressure on Westinghouse. What really sank the company, however, was the enormous cost and schedule overruns at its Georgia and South Carolina projects. Both were expected to cost about $14 billion each, and be operational by the end of last year; so far, they have cost $19 billion and $22 billion, respectively, and are two years or more behind schedule.
To make matters worse, the financial trouble at Westinghouse has raised old, but still not completely answered, questions from regulators – in the US, the UK, and China – about the safety of the AP1000 reactors. Up to now, most of those concerns have been deflected, but what is likely to happen now, even if Westinghouse can continue to satisfactorily convince governments and potential operators of the system’s safety, is that uncertainty over whether the company – or more likely, whoever buys the ailing unit from Toshiba – can be relied on to keep up standards is going to make big customers look elsewhere. And once they do, they are likely to prefer the more economical and less contentious path countries like the US are taking, turning to gas generation or expanding renewables.
http://www.manilatimes.net/nuclear-disaster-different-kind/320327/
Toshiba’s nuclear mess: shareholders hurl abuse at Toshiba managers
‘You’re trash’: Investors hurl abuse at Toshiba managers after nuclear debacle, SMH, Pavel Alpeyev and Takako Taniguchi, 31 Mar 17, Toshiba shareholders have lashed out at management and lamented the downfall of the Japanese icon before approving the sale of its memory chips division to cover the billion-dollar costs resulting from its disastrous foray into nuclear energy.
Incensed investors took turns to hurl abuse at executives during a Thursday meeting convened to take a vote on the intended disposal of its prized semiconductor business. Toshiba is looking to sell a majority stake in the unit to mend a balance sheet ravaged by billions of dollars in writedowns related to cost overruns at its nuclear subsidiary Westinghouse Electric.
Westinghouse, which Toshiba bought for $US5.4 billion in 2006, filed for bankruptcy protection on Wednesday. The Japanese company said it may now book a loss of as much as 1.01 trillion yen ($11.8 billion) in the year ending March, a record for a Japanese manufacturer.
“Toshiba is now a laughing-stock to the whole world,” one shareholder said during a question-and-answer section, raising his voice. “I think all of you are incompetent as managers. Do you even know what’s happening?”
Another shareholder addressed the executives as “trash.”……. http://www.smh.com.au/business/world-business/youre-trash-investors-hurl-abuse-at-toshiba-managers-after-nuclear-debacle-20170330-gvah2j.html
Japan’s ambitions to export nuclear technology have been dimmed by Toshiba’s U.S. unit bankruptcy
Toshiba’s U.S. unit bankruptcy dims Japan’s nuclear ambitions, Japan Times, BY AKIKO YASUHARA, KYODO , 31 Mar 17, The bankruptcy filing by Toshiba Corp.’s U.S. nuclear unit highlights the tough business climate in the sector and the scale of the challenge Japan faces in seeking to sell its nuclear technology abroad.
Westinghouse Electric Co. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Wednesday as its Japanese parent rushed to plug huge losses related to the nuclear business and pull out of the sector overseas.
Toshiba bought the U.S. nuclear energy company in 2006 for about ¥600 billion ($5.4 billion), aiming to expand its nuclear power business abroad as one of its core operations.
Such efforts by Japanese nuclear businesses to push exports have been taken up by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as part of a growth strategy to revitalize the deflation-hit domestic economy…..
However, the nuclear business environment has changed dramatically since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear crisis. Stricter safety regulations introduced after the disaster have raised costs to construct plants and some countries have become more cautious about new reactors……
“It’s a high-risk business. It always has been,” Tadahiro Katsuta, a professor specializing in atomic mechanics at Meiji University in Tokyo, said. “Even before the Fukushima crisis, the nuclear business had been struggling. It’s not something one company can do on its own or can easily export like cars in terms of safety concerns.”
Toshiba said Wednesday it could post a group net loss of ¥1.01 trillion ($9.13 billion) for the fiscal year ending March 31, with massive costs related to the Chapter 11 filing. Westinghouse has $9.8 billion in total liabilities, much of which must be shouldered by Toshiba under a debt guarantee for the U.S. unit.
With the do-or-die decision on the filing, Toshiba will make all-out efforts to move out of its financial woes, Toshiba President Satoshi Tsunakawa told a news conference in Tokyo Wednesday evening.
“We are almost risk-free as we are pulling out of overseas nuclear operations, the biggest problem,” he said…….
The nuclear climbdown is not a problem specific to Toshiba.
Hitachi Ltd., another major nuclear company, said last week it will book an estimated ¥65 billion write-down for fiscal 2016 related to a laser uranium enrichment joint venture with General Electric in the United States. The company said demand for nuclear fuel in the country was unlikely to grow as strongly as it had expected…….
The nuclear climbdown is not a problem specific to Toshiba.
Hitachi Ltd., another major nuclear company, said last week it will book an estimated ¥65 billion write-down for fiscal 2016 related to a laser uranium enrichment joint venture with General Electric in the United States. The company said demand for nuclear fuel in the country was unlikely to grow as strongly as it had expected……
Mitsubishi Heavy and Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd. said in February they will invest in Areva, which is a partner of Mitsubishi in a joint venture to develop nuclear plants.
Still, the dynamics in the energy sector have been changing drastically……..http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/03/31/business/corporate-business/toshibas-u-s-unit-bankruptcy-dims-japans-nuclear-ambitions/#.WN7B-kWGPGg
Great majority of Japanese back nuke ban treaty, Why won’t Japan speak out as an A-bombed country?
Why won’t Japan speak out as an A-bombed country?
The Japanese government has announced it will abstain from talks underway at the U.N. headquarters on establishing a convention to outlaw nuclear weapons. By abstaining from the talks, Japan is effectively abandoning its opportunity as the world’s only atomic-bombed country to serve as a bridge between nuclear and non-nuclear states.
On the reason for Japan’s abstention, Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida pointed out that the five nuclear powers of the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China are not taking part, and said that the talks “may have the opposite effect of deepening the divide between nuclear and non-nuclear states.”
In October last year, the Japanese government voted against a U.N. resolution on launching the talks. But at the time, Kishida expressed the view that Japan would actively take part in negotiations that were to begin in March.
The state of opposition between nuclear and non-nuclear states remains unchanged. It therefore makes no sense for Japan to first say it will participate and bridge the gap, only to make a turnabout and declare it will not participate, citing fears that opposition between the two camps would deepen.
The government’s decision, which overturned the foreign minister’s previous statement that Japan intended to participate, damages trust in Japanese diplomacy.
Changes in global affairs since last autumn appear to have influenced Japan’s decision not to participate. In November last year, Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election, and the Trump administration has taken an active stance toward bolstering his country’s nuclear capabilities. The United States and other nuclear powers argue that it is not realistic in terms of security to establish a convention outlawing nuclear weapons when facing the threat of North Korea’s missile and nuclear development.
The United States is said to have pressed Japan to abstain from the talks. Some Japanese government officials took the position that even if Japan took part in negotiations, it would be limited to stressing its opposition to the convention, creating the impression of a negative stance, which would be meaningless. But this is an overly defensive position.
For Japan to participate as a bridge-builder, it needed to prepare the proper environment, by expanding the ring of like-minded countries, for example. But there is no evidence that Japan made such efforts.
Another round of negotiations is due to be held between June and July, and it is possible that a draft of the nuclear weapons convention could be compiled at that time.
It is said that such a treaty would be weak without the participation of nuclear states, but it is nevertheless possible that it would play a major role in the long run in shaping international opinion on banning nuclear weapons. It is lamentable that Japan is not taking part in that process and speaking out as a country that has suffered as an atomic-bombed country.
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20170329/p2a/00m/0na/006000c
Great majority of Japanese back nuke ban treaty talks: JCP head
NEW YORK — The Japanese Communist Party (JCP) chief slammed the Japanese government for abstaining from a United Nations conference to negotiate a treaty outlawing nuclear weapons despite the vast majority of Japanese supporting the treaty talks.
“It is such a shame that the Japanese government is absent from this conference. However, the vast majority of the Japanese people strongly support the negotiations,” JCP head Kazuo Shii told a March 29 session of the first round of talks on the Nuclear Weapons Convention at the U.N. Headquarters.
Shii stated that through the conclusion of the nuclear arms ban treaty and efforts among civil societies across the globe, “We can press countries that are dependent on nuclear weapons to change their policies and join efforts to abolish nuclear weapons.”
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20170330/p2a/00m/0na/009000c
Toshiba’s record loss: shares plummet due to nuclear failures
Toshiba Projects Record Loss as Nuclear Unit Files for Bankruptcy, Bloomberg, by Dawn McCarty and Pavel Alpeyev March 29, 2017,
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Toshiba warns full year loss may widen to 1.01 trillion yen
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Japanese company trying to sell memory chips division
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Toshiba Corp. projected its annual loss could more than double to a record 1.01 trillion yen ($9.1 billion) as its U.S. nuclear unit Westinghouse Electricfiled for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
The collapse of Westinghouse, once the linchpin of Toshiba’s plans to diversify away from consumer electronics, caps a disastrous run for the Japanese conglomerate as project delays crippled earnings from the nuclear plant business. The company has now put its prized memory chip unit up for sale just as it was recovering from a profit-padding scandal that claimed the scalps of senior executives……
- Toshiba listed as much as $10 billion debt for Westinghouse and another entity. The nuclear unit filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York and proposed to appoint Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP as legal adviser, AlixPartners LLP as financial adviser, and PJT Partners Inc. as investment banker, subject to court approval.
Toshiba said last month it expected to write down 712.5 billion yen in its nuclear-power business, citing cost overruns and diminishing prospects for atomic-energy operations. The company has twice delayed its earnings report, with results for the December quarter now due on April 11.
- “There were warning signs when Toshiba delayed releasing financials earlier this year,” said Emmanuel Chua, senior associate at Herbert Smith Freehills in Singapore. “The big question mark is whether the restructuring plan and process presents real opportunities for a turnaround, or whether it is simply an exercise of ‘kicking the can down the road.”’
Shares of Toshiba have slumped 23 percent this year after advancing 13 percent in 2016. The loss forecast was announced after the close of trading on Wednesday.
Expectations that the company may be too big to fail for the Japanese government, and the likelihood that it will get state support is bolstering its bonds. Toshiba’s 20 billion yen of December 2020 bonds were little changed at 88 percent of face value, according to data compiled by Bloomberg……
Scana and Southern could end up facing billions of dollars in additional costs, according to Morgan Stanley. Scana faces as much as $5.2 billion in higher costs that could drag its shares down 5 percent, analysts at the bank including Stephen Byrd said in a March 22 research note, while cost overruns for utility owner Southern could reach $3.3 billion……https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-29/toshiba-s-u-s-nuclear-unit-westinghouse-files-for-bankruptcy
Bankruptcy doesn’t make liabilities vanish – Toshiba wan’t be saved by Westinghouse bankruptcy
Westinghouse Bankruptcy Won’t Save Toshiba, Bloomberg Gadfly, https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2017-03-29/a-westinghouse-bankruptcy-won-t-save-toshiba By David Fickling, 29 Mar 17, From the outside, Chapter 11 bankruptcy can look like an almost magical process. A company previously laden down with borrowings gets to discharge its liabilities and emerge seemingly unscathed.
U.S. miner Arch Coal Inc. had $4.5 billion in net debt and a market capitalization of just a few million dollars when it filed for Chapter 11 in January 2016. After emerging from a nine-month gestation in the courts, it’s now worth $1.73 billion and is debt free, with net cash of $31 million.
Toshiba Corp. shareholders appear to hope the same rule will hold true for Westinghouse Electric Co., the nuclear unit that’s dragged one of Japan’s oldest industrial conglomerates to the brink of insolvency. The stock has rallied 20 percent in a week, after Toshiba said Westinghouse’s board was considering bankruptcy. The unit has filed for Chapter 11 protection in New York, court documents showed Wednesday.
If the courts are about to give Westinghouse a get-out-of-jail-free card, someone ought to tell the credit markets.
Compare Toshiba’s own credit-default swaps to those on Southern Co. and Scana Corp., the two U.S. electric utilities for whom Westinghouse is under contract to build four reactors, and it’s clear that investors expect one of the three players to suffer most of the costs. Insuring $10 million of Toshiba’s debt against default for five years would set you back about $423,000, compared to $78,000 for Scana and $64,000 for Southern.
Toshiba faces a bewildering array of potential hits to its balance sheet from its nuclear foray, but most of them are either relatively small (such as its 34.6 billion yen ($311 million) in decommissioning and environmental liabilities), or already factored in (like the 713 billion yen goodwill writedown that will leave it with negative shareholders’ equity once it reports annual results).
The deal with Southern and Scana is different. Payment guarantees to subsidiaries of the two utilities constitute 90 percent of the 794 billion yen in parent-company guarantees for which Toshiba has promised to indemnify Westinghouse. Put into English: If Westinghouse fails to build the reactors on time and on budget, Toshiba is on the hook for a sum not much less than the 768 billion yen value of all its factories, machinery and land.
Aside from a bailout by the Japanese government, the sliver of hope for Toshiba shareholders is that the messy bankruptcy process will allow some of those liabilities to be taken on by other players. The U.S. government, for instance, has made an $8.3 billion loan guarantee to the owners of Southern’s reactors. That may complicate the process, the Nikkei reported earlier this month. Moody’s Investors Service and S&P Global Ratings in recent weeks have put shareholders in the plants, including Southern and Scana and associated units, on negative ratings outlooks on the possibility they will have to bear some costs.
Creditors of the two utilities seem unconcerned. It’s been more than a year since Scana’s 4.125 percent bonds due February 2022 last dipped below par, while the Southern unit that will be the main shareholder in its nuclear plant project, Georgia Power Co., managed to raise fresh debt just last month. Its $400 million of 3.25 percent notes due 2027, sold at a modest 0.113 cent discount to par, are trading at 98.56 cents on the dollar.
That should be worrying for Toshiba, because there’s no magic spell behind Chapter 11. Bankruptcy doesn’t make liabilities vanish outright. For the most part, it just reorganizes them, imposes haircuts on junior creditors, and converts a portion from the most stringent form — debt — to a milder alternative, equity. If bondholders at Westinghouse’s customers are feeling confident, Toshiba shareholders should prepare for a troublesome chain reaction.
Residents furious over high court decision to revoke Takahama nuclear plant injunction
Yoshinori Tsuji, right, speaks during a news conference in Osaka’s Kita Ward on March 28, 2017, after the Osaka High Court handed down a decision on the injunction for reactors at Takahama Nuclear Power Plant
OSAKA — A March 28 Osaka High Court ruling that revoked a lower court decision to halt two nuclear reactors in Fukui Prefecture has angered plaintiffs and local residents as the high court effectively rubberstamped the state’s policy of restarting nuclear reactors.
Some 100 people demanding a halt to the reactors at Takahama Nuclear Power Plant gathered before the Osaka High Court on March 28. When they were informed of the ruling shortly after 3 p.m. with attorneys holding up banners that said, “Unjust ruling” and “The court fails to fulfill residents’ wishes,” the plaintiffs let out a sigh of disappointment.
“What are they thinking about?” “This is absurd,” they said, and shouted, “Resist the high court ruling that disregards Fukushima!” as they raised their fists.
Kenichi Ido, the head attorney for the plaintiffs, criticized the ruling during a news conference, with the over-400-page written court decision in his hand, saying, “While it’s this thick, its contents are just a copy of the views of (Takahama nuclear plant operator) Kansai Electric Power Co. and the Nuclear Regulation Authority.”
He added, “After the March 11 disaster, the judiciary is the only actor that can stop the administration that is railroading the resumption of nuclear power. But I sense that it has no self-awareness of its role or responsibility.”
Yoshinori Tsuji, the representative of the residents in the class action lawsuit, expressed frustration over the latest ruling, saying, “The decision was unjust as the high court took the policies of the central government and the utility into consideration.”
Tsuji also said the Otsu District Court’s injunction order handed down a year ago was a groundbreaking decision which reflected on the Fukushima nuclear disaster. “It further legitimized the authority of the judiciary,” he recalled.
Tsuji then slammed the Osaka High Court, saying, “The high court took a decidedly different stance from the district court with regard to listening to the people’s voices. Shame on them.”
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20170329/p2a/00m/0na/013000c
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