Taiwan to abolish nuclear power in 2025
Nuclear power to be abolished in 2025 http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2019/02/01/2003709035
REFERENDUM No. 7:The government is to bar capacity expansions at coal-fired power plants and abide by local governments’ tightened environmental regulations
Although Taiwanese in November last year voted against the government’s 2025 deadline to abolish nuclear power, the energy source would still be completely removed from the nation’s energy mix after that year due to inevitable constraints, Minister of Economic Affairs Shen Jong-chin (沈榮津) told a news conference in Taipei.
Resistance from local governments, difficulty in procuring replacement parts for aging reactors, finding storage space for spent fuel rods and the inability to complete the stay-of-decommissioning application process have all but ruled out the use of nuclear power beyond 2025, Shen said.
Other remedies, such as reactivating decommissioned nuclear plants, are also unlikely due to the lengthy budget approval process at the legislature, Shen said, adding that General Electric Co is no longer able to provide technical support for reactors that were installed decades ago.
As for referendum No. 7, which called for the reduction of thermal power by at least 1 percent per year on average, Shen said that the goal is achievable this year and next year.
Achieving the goal would not increase the risk of energy shortages and 15 percent reserved power generation capacity could be maintained, he said.
However, energy shortages could happen in 2021 due to an anticipated rise in consumption, Shen said.
Resistance from local governments, difficulty in procuring replacement parts for aging reactors, finding storage space for spent fuel rods and the inability to complete the stay-of-decommissioning application process have all but ruled out the use of nuclear power beyond 2025, Shen said.
Other remedies, such as reactivating decommissioned nuclear plants, are also unlikely due to the lengthy budget approval process at the legislature, Shen said, adding that General Electric Co is no longer able to provide technical support for reactors that were installed decades ago.
As for referendum No. 7, which called for the reduction of thermal power by at least 1 percent per year on average, Shen said that the goal is achievable this year and next year.
Achieving the goal would not increase the risk of energy shortages and 15 percent reserved power generation capacity could be maintained, he said.
However, energy shortages could happen in 2021 due to an anticipated rise in consumption, Shen said.
Climate change brings water shortage to India and Pakistan
Water wars: Are India and Pakistan heading for climate change-induced conflict? DW , 30 Jan 19,
Across the world, climate change is sparking conflict as people struggle over dwindling resources. The fight over water could quickly escalate between India and Pakistan — and both have nuclear arms.
Yemen, Somalia and Syria are just some of the places where climate change is increasingly regarded as a root cause of violent conflict. But while much of the focus on climate change-attributed conflict has predominantly been on Africa and the Middle East, a potentially even deadlier clash over resources may be looming on the horizon in Asia.
That’s because India and Pakistan — bitter rivals over water — both have nuclear weapons in their arsenal.
The two countries have a long but strained agreement over sharing water from the Indus River and its tributaries. Waters from the Indus, which flow from India and the disputed Kashmir region into Pakistan, were carved up between India and Pakistan under the 1960 Indus Water Treaty (IWT).
Read more: Water scarcity in Pakistan – A bigger threat than terrorism
The IWT divides the six major rivers of the Indus basin between Pakistan and India. Pakistan was granted rights to most of the water in the region’s western rivers — the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab — which flow through Indian-administered Kashmir.
The dispute over the Kashmir region — a flashpoint between India and Pakistan for more than six decades — is hugely intertwined with water security. Both countries claim the whole region, but each only controls a part of it.
While the IWT has managed to survive the wars and other hostilities, it is increasingly being strained to its limit. Pakistan has accused India of throttling its water supply and violating the IWT by constructing dams over the rivers flowing into Pakistan from Kashmir.
“Any country with nuclear weapons, if they’re backed into a corner because they have no water — that’s really dangerous,” said Jeff Nesbit, author and executive director of non-profit climate communication organization Climate Nexus.
‘A matter of survival’
For Sherry Rehman, Parliamentary Leader of the left-wing opposition Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) in the Senate, water security, especially in South Asia, “has become a regional security threat.”
“We are now facing challenges brought about by climate change which were not a primary focus during the negotiations for the Indus Water Treaty,” she told DW.
“It has become a matter of survival,” she continued. “Aside from the lack of formal dialogue, the rhetoric floating around suggesting a possible water war is particularly alarming.”
A treaty under threat
For Pakistan, the Indus waters are a lifeline: most of the country depends on it as the primary source of freshwater and it supports 90 percent of the country’s agricultural industry.
And while Pakistan was considered relatively plentiful with water, a mixture of mismanaged irrigation, water-intensive agriculture and climate change has reduced the Indus to a trickle in parts.
A 2018 report from the International Monetary Fund ranked Pakistan third among countries facing severe water shortages.
When the rapidly-melting glaciers in the Himalayas, which feed the Indus waters, eventually disappear as predicted, the dwindling rivers will be slashed even further…………
Elsewhere in Asia, other conflicts have also been linked to climate change. For instance the unprecedented flooding in Thailand in 2011 which sparked major protests over unfair emergency supplies distribution and ultimately led to a military coup that overthrew the democratically-elected government in 2014. The military junta is still in power to this day.
On a global level, Janani Vivekananda, climate security expert at consultancy Adelphi, is somewhat more hopeful about how the struggle over water will play out.
“The trend is people cooperate rather than fight over water because it’s just too important and I think this is what will happen just out of necessity,” she told DW. “Because there’s too much to lose.” https://www.dw.com/en/water-wars-are-india-and-pakistan-heading-for-climate-change-induced-conflict/a-47203933
Russia secretly offered North Korea a nuclear power plant: officials
SMH, By John Hudson and Ellen Nakashima, 30 January 2019 Washington: Russian officials made a secret proposal to North Korea last northern fall aimed at resolving deadlocked negotiations with the Trump administration over its nuclear weapons program, said US officials familiar with the discussions.
In exchange for dismantling its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, Moscow offered the country a nuclear power plant.
The Russian offer, which intelligence officials became aware of in late 2018, marks a new attempt by Moscow to intervene in the high-stakes nuclear talks as it reasserts itself into a string of geopolitical flash points from the Middle East to South Asia to Latin America. Its latest bid is expected to unsettle Chinese and US officials wary of granting Moscow an economic foothold on the Korean Peninsula.
As a part of the deal, the Russian government would operate the plant and transfer all byproducts and waste back to Russia, reducing the risk that North Korea uses the power plant to build nuclear weapons while providing the impoverished country a new energy source……. https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/russia-secretly-offered-north-korea-a-nuclear-power-plant-officials-20190130-p50ufz.html
Security dangers in South Asia increase as India and Pakistan develop nuclear weapons programmes
Nuclear programmes of India, Pakistan increase risk of security incident in South Asia: US spymaster, Economic Times, Jan 30, 2019 WASHINGTON: There is an increased risk of a nuclear security incident in South Asia due to continued growth and development of Pakistan and India’s nuclear weapons programmes, America’s top spymaster told lawmakers on Tuesday.
The remarks of National Intelligence Director Daniel Coats is part of US intelligence community’s assessment of worldwide threats in the year 2019.
While Pakistan continues to develop new types of nuclear weapons, including short-range tactical weapons, sea-based cruise missiles, air-launched cruise missiles, and longer range ballistic missiles, India this year has conducted its first deployment of a nuclear-powered submarine armed with nuclear missiles, he said.
“The continued growth and development of Pakistan and India’s nuclear weapons programmes increase the risk of a nuclear security incident in South Asia, and the new types .. ……..
A new type of robot to probe inside damaged Fukushima nuclear reactor
Toshiba unveils robot to probe melted Fukushima nuclear fuel, WP, By Mari Yamaguchi | AP, January 28 YOKOHAMA, Japan — Toshiba Corp. unveiled a remote-controlled robot with tongs on Monday that it hopes will be able to probe the inside of one of the three damaged reactors at Japan’s tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear plant and grip chunks of highly radioactive melted fuel.
The device is designed to slide down an extendable 11-meter (36-foot) long pipe and touch melted fuel inside the Unit 2 reactor’s primary containment vessel. The reactor was built by Toshiba and GE.
An earlier probe carrying a camera captured images of pieces of melted fuel in the reactor last year, and robotic probes in the two other reactors have detected traces of damaged fuel, but the exact location, contents and other details remain largely unknown.
Toshiba’s energy systems unit said experiments with the new probe planned in February are key to determining the proper equipment and technologies needed to remove the fuel debris, the most challenging part of the decommissioning process expected to take decades.
…….. The probe will mainly examine the fuel debris’ physical condition rather than its radioactive components or other details which require actual sampling and safe storage……. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/toshiba-unveils-robot-to-probe-melted-fukushima-nuclear-fuel/2019/01/28/4214f596-2314-11e9-b5b4-1d18dfb7b084_story.html?utm_term=.3bfe336cb31c
A bit of good news – Radioactive Cesium-137 diminishing in 2 Fukushima rivers, after close to 8 years
 Survey finds concentration of radioactive cesium-137 rapidly decreasing in 2 Fukushima rivers,
http://www.the-japan-news.com/news/article/0005504609 January 26, 2019
The Yomiuri ShimbunThe concentration of radioactive cesium-137, which was spread about following the accident at Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, has been rapidly decreasing in river waters in municipalities near the facility in Fukushima Prefecture, according to a survey by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency. Compared to the speed at which the radiation of cesium-137 naturally decreases, the concentration in the rivers is decreasing at a speed tantamount to 10 times that, said the JAEA, a national agency for research and development. The JAEA assesses that cesium on top of the ground is carried into rivers by rain but as the radioactive substance seeps underground, among other possible factors, the volume flowing into rivers might have decreased. Following the March 2011 nuclear accident, radioactive materials were dispersed and fell onto the earth. Among these materials was cesium-137, which has a relatively long half-life of about 30 years and is releasing radiation even now. From April 2015 to March 2018, the agency examined two rivers in the prefecture — the Ukedogawa river in Namie and the Otagawa river in Minamisoma. It sampled the waters in a 20-kilometer area around the nuclear power plant and precisely measured the concentration of cesium-137 in them. Results showed the concentration in the Ukedogawa river was around 0.2 becquerels per liter at the start of the study, but had dropped to around 0.1 becquerels in March 2018, indicating the concentration was decreasing 10 times faster than normal. The Otagawa river also showed a similar trend, according to the agency. Takahiro Nakanishi, a senior researcher at the JAEA, said, “If the concentration in river waters relied on for agricultural purpose decreases, the result could help local people resume their agricultural activities.” |
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North Korea’s Nukes and the ‘Forgotten War’
Hampton Sides, author of a new book about a turning point in the Korea war, explores the state of the Koreas and Trump’s forthcoming visit. Interview, Bloomberg, By Tobin Harshaw, January 28, 2019,
“……It is a cliche that the so-called police action in Korea from 1950 to 1952 is America’s “forgotten war.” But, like most cliches, there is a lot of truth to it. American ignorance about the Korean War is a shame, and not only because it devalues the sacrifices of those who fought in it. With North Korea’s nuclear arsenal now threatening the U.S. mainland (not to mention Hawaii, Japan and the folks on the southern end of the peninsula), and President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un set to meet again next month, a little historical perspective might be helpful.
………. HS: Be mindful of the fact that North Korea’s fear and loathing of the U.S., however warped it seems, does have legitimate historical roots. During the Korean War, the U.S. bombed that country back to the Stone Age: Every building, every bridge, every village. The stated goal was to not leave a single brick standing upon another brick. That air campaign was gratuitous and cruel. We killed hundreds of thousands of civilians. We’re a country that has a habit of bombing people and then wondering why those people hate us. As we parse the madness that is the Kim regime, we should always keep in mind that this underlying history of “terror from above” figures into that madness.
Kim strikes many as a lunatic, but his nuclear strategy has actually been quite rational and effective in achieving his goals. So coaxing him to give up his nukes will take some extremely creative and forceful negotiating. The Hermit Kingdom desperately needs many, many things from the outside world — food, medicines, capital, technology, expertise and so on, and Kim knows this. A big question is whether he would really allow his own people to benefit in any meaningful way from the flow of goods and amenities that a removal of sanctions would usher in. Another question is whether he’d actually allow outside experts to come in and closely monitor his regime’s nuclear compliance. Caveats aside, we can only hope the talks continue. I’m highly skeptical of Trump’s much-avowed skills as a deal-maker, but a deal is certainly in the interest of the whole wide world.
……….. HS: It was repeatedly said during the 2016 campaign that Douglas MacArthur is Trump’s “favorite general.” I don’t get the sense that Trump reads history — or anything else, for that matter — but it’s a telling detail. Because with Douglas MacArthur you had a grandiose and vainglorious autocrat who had surrounded himself with sycophants and yes-men. He was a colorful and interesting character — in narrative terms, a gift that keeps on giving. But he was a thoroughgoing narcissist. It was said that he didn’t have a staff; he had a court. He didn’t want to hear inconvenient information. He didn’t like experts — he was the expert. He was in love with the vertical pronoun. It was all about him.This sounds extremely familiar to me.
………. Of course, Korea should never have been divided in the first place — drawing that line created one of the great geopolitical tragedies of modern times. Many thousands of families were torn apart and never allowed to see each other again. Historically speaking, there’s no difference between northern and southern Korea. It’s one country, one language, one culture, one people.
Or at least it was. After more than 70 years of living apart, a reunification, if by some miracle it ever happened, would be a wrenching and doubtless violent process. It’s not clear how a brainwashed and traumatized people from an impoverished police state integrates into the dynamic capitalist society that is modern South Korea. Still, I believe it’s destined to happen one day.https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-27/korean-war-in-current-events-from-the-1950s-to-a-nuclear-north
South Korea looks for nuclear dismantling pledge by Kim at second summit with Trump
Japan Times, 26 Jan 19, DAVOS, SWITZERLAND – North Korea must make concrete pledges toward curbing its nuclear weapons program, such as dismantling its main nuclear complex and allowing international inspections to confirm the process, when leader Kim Jong Un meets U.S. President Donald Trump as soon as next month, South Korea’s foreign minister said.
Kang Kyung-wha said in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos that she is optimistic North Korea will agree to concrete steps toward abandoning its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs, developed in violation of United Nations resolutions.
“The (North Korean) leader has promised to his people many times that ‘I’m going to take this country toward economic development.’ He has to deliver that, and he’s not going to get the kind of significant assistance unless he takes concrete steps toward denuclearization and somehow eases the sanctions regime,” she said on Thursday.
“Given the strong political will on the part of the top leaders of the two sides. … I think we will see concrete results.”
Trump and Kim held a historic first summit in Singapore in June. The White House said last week a second summit would be held in late February but did not say where………https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/01/25/asia-pacific/south-koreas-looks-nuclear-dismantling-pledge-kim-summit-trump/#.XEttNNIzbGg
Japan’s plans to sell nuclear plants overseas derailed
Greenpeace study slams Japan’s plan to dump radioactive Fukushima water into the ocean
An estimated 1.09 million tonnes of water are presently stored in more than 900 tanks at the plant, which was destroyed by an earthquake and tsunami in March 2011, with up to 4,000 tonnes added every week.
The decision by the government and the plant’s operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), to avoid developing the relevant technology “was motivated by short-term cost-cutting, not protection of the Pacific Ocean environment and of the health and livelihoods of communities along the Fukushima coast”, said Kazue Suzuki, campaigner on energy issues for Greenpeace Japan.
“We have raised the water crisis with the UN International Maritime Organisation and firmly stand with local communities, especially fisheries, who are strongly opposed to any plans to discharge contaminated water into their fishing grounds.”
The backlash against the plan jointly put forward by the government and Tepco began late last year after the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) held public hearings in Tokyo and Fukushima designed to convince local people that releasing the water into the ocean would have no impact on marine or human life.
Anti-nuclear and environmental groups had obtained data leaked from government sources, however, that showed that the water was still contaminated, triggering public anger. Tepco was forced to admit late last year that its efforts to reduce radioactive material – known as radionuclides – in the water had failed.
The company had previously claimed that advanced processes had reduced cancer-causing contaminants such as strontium-90, iodine-129 and ruthenium-106 in the water to non-detectible levels.
Despite the much-vaunted Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) plant at Fukushima, Tepco has confirmed that levels of strontium-90, for example, are more than 100 times above legally permitted levels in 65,000 tonnes of water that have already been through the ALPS system.
In one of the hearings, Tatsuhiko Sato, a resident of Naraha who only returned to his home last spring because of contamination from the nuclear accident, accused Tepco of “not gathering all the data” and failing to adequately investigate reports that dangerous levels of radionuclides were still in the water after it was treated.
Local fishermen used the public hearing to express their “strong opposition” to plans to release the water, with one, Tetsu Nozaki, pointing out that while levels of radiation in locally caught fish and shellfish have been at or below normal levels for the past three years, releasing contaminated water would “deal a fatal blow” to the local fishing industry.
There has also been anger in some nearby countries, with environmental groups demonstrating in Seoul in November and Korea Radioactive Watch declaring that releasing the water “will threaten the waters of South Korea and other neighbouring nations”.
………..The Greenpeace report concludes that the water crisis at the plant will remain unresolved for the foreseeable future – and that the only viable option to safeguard local communities and the environment is to continue to store the water.
“The Japanese government and Tepco set an objective of ‘solving’ the radioactive water crisis by 2020 – that was never credible,” said Shaun Burnie, a nuclear specialist with Greenpeace Germany.
“The reality is that there is no end to the water crisis at Fukushima, a crisis compounded by poor decision-making by both Tepco and the government. Discharging into the Pacific is the worst option and must be ruled out.”https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/2183175/greenpeace-slams-japans-plan-dump-radioactive-fukushima-water
Kim Jong Un continuing to play to the vanity of Donald Trump?
While Kim plays to Trump’s ego, he builds his nuclear arsenal, CNN, By Samantha Vinograd, January 20, 2019 “……..When President Donald Trump met Kim Jong Un in June 2018, they came to a vague agreement that North Korea would work toward the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. But, as Vice President Mike Pence stated last week, North Korea has failed to take concrete steps toward giving up its nuclear weapons, and it still represents a serious nuclear threat.
The threat to millions of people, as glaciers in Central Asia melt
Melting glaciers spell trouble for millions in Asia, SMH, By Henry Fountain,19 January 2019 On a summer day in the mountains high above Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city, the Tuyuksu glacier is melting like mad. Rivulets of water stream down the glacier’s thin leading edge.
In Central Asia, a warming climate is shrinking many glaciers. The Tuyuksu is losing ice every year. Around the world, vanishing glaciers will mean less water for people and crops in the future. Here, the people need to prepare sooner.
As she has for nearly two decades, Maria Shahgedanova, a glaciologist at the University of Reading in England, has come here to check on the Tuyuksu. As one of the longest-studied glaciers anywhere, the Tuyuksu helps gauge the effect of climate change on the world’s ice.
Glaciers represent the snows of centuries, compressed over time into slowly flowing rivers of ice, up to about 300 metres thick here in the Tien Shan range of Central Asia and even thicker elsewhere. They are never static, accumulating snow in winter and losing ice to melting in summer.
But in a warming climate melting outstrips accumulation, resulting in a net loss of ice. That is what is happening in Kazakhstan and all over the globe.
The world’s roughly 150,000 glaciers, not including the large ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica, cover about 500,000 square kilometres of the Earth’s surface. During the last four decades they have lost the equivalent of a layer of ice 20 metres thick.
Most are getting shorter, too. Small ones in places like the Rockies and Andes have disappeared. And researchers say that even if greenhouse gas emissions were sharply curtailed immediately, there has already been enough warming to continue shrinking glaciers around the world.
This great global melting contributes to sea level rise. It affects production of hydroelectricity. It leads to disasters like rapid, catastrophic floods and debris flows. It alters rivers and ecosystems, affecting the organisms that inhabit them.
But here in the Tien Shan, the biggest effect may be on the supply of water for people and agriculture. ……..The researchers analyse samples from streams to determine the mix of water sources, which is important for forecasting how the rivers will fare over time. A melting glacier can at first increase stream flow, but eventually the glacier reaches a tipping point, called peak flow, and meltwater begins to taper.
“At some point they cannot produce the water they are providing right now,” said Matthias Huss, a researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. “It’s really important for water managers to know when this tipping point is reached.”
Across the Tibetan Plateau and in the Himalayan and Karakoram ranges, the glaciers number in the thousands and the people who rely on them in the hundreds of millions, along rivers like the Indus in Pakistan, the Ganges and Brahmaputra in India, the Yellow and Yangtze in China and the Mekong in south-east Asia……… https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/melting-glaciers-spell-trouble-for-millions-in-asia-20190118-p50sb6.html
The pitfalls of Direct Democracy- Taiwan’s referendum and the vote on nuclear power
How Direct Democracy Went Nuclear in Taiwan, A contentious vote on Taiwan’s nuclear future showed how the country’s public referendums went haywire. The Diplomat , By Nick Aspinwall, January 18, 2019 It only took one month for Huang Shih-hsiu, a 31-year-old nuclear energy advocate, to upend a core energy policy of Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen. The policy, prior to its downfall, stated that Taiwan would decommission its three active nuclear power plants by 2025.
Japan’s plans to sell nuclear plants overseas have been derailed
Plans to sell nuclear plants overseas derailed, Japan Times, 20 Jan 19, With the decision by Hitachi Ltd. to “freeze” its plan to build two nuclear power reactors in the United Kingdom, all of the overseas nuclear power plant projects pursued by Japanese firms — with the backing of the government seeking to promote export of nuclear power technology as a key pillar of its efforts to boost infrastructure sales in overseas markets — have now effectively been derailed.
……… Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has long taken the initiative to promote the overseas sale of Japanese nuclear power plants through top-level diplomacy. However, the nuclear power plant business cannot be a part of the nation’s growth strategy if its business feasibility is in doubt. The government and related industries need to face up to the situation surrounding the nuclear power business — which continues to face difficulties domestically as well — and reassess the way forward.
The Fukushima nuclear disaster, triggered by the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, has radically changed the global nuclear power market landscape. The cost of nuclear power, which had been promoted as a relatively inexpensive and “clean” source of energy that does not emit carbon dioxide, spiked as additional safety investments inflated plant expenses.
The cost of Hitachi’s project to build the two reactors in Anglesey, Wales, which began in 2012, has ballooned from the initial estimate of ¥2 trillion to ¥3 trillion. Another project pursued by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. to build four reactors in Turkey has also been hampered by the swelling cost — which reportedly shot up from an initially estimated ¥2.1 trillion to ¥5 trillion. Toshiba Corp. has pulled out from the overseas nuclear power business after the huge losses incurred by its subsidiary Westinghouse Electric Co. in its nuclear power plant projects in the United States.
Even with a spike in plant construction costs, the nuclear power business would make economic sense if the expected earnings surpass the investments. But Hitachi reportedly decided to halt the U.K. project after it became clear that even with public support from the British government it could not possibly realize profits………
Behind the government’s drive to promote the sale of nuclear power plants overseas has been the domestic market’s bleak business prospects. While the government and the power industry have pushed for restarting the nation’s nuclear power plants idled in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, once they have cleared the tightened plant safety standards, only nine reactors at five plants have been put back online. The additional costs of safety investments required under the new Nuclear Regulation Authority standards to make the plants more resilient to natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunami — estimated to range from ¥100 billion to ¥200 billion for each reactor — have prompted power companies to decide to decommission 23 aging reactors so far (including the six at Tepco’s Fukushima No. 1 plant).
As popular opposition in Japan remains strong against reactivating the idled plants, there is no prospect that the construction of new plants will be approved in the foreseeable future. The drive to promote the export of nuclear power plants may have been intended to make up for the loss of demand in the domestic market. But earlier plans for Japanese makers to build plants in Lithuania and Vietnam were canceled, while a civil nuclear cooperation pact signed with India in 2016 — which was aimed at paving the way for Japanese nuclear plant exports to the country — has not resulted in any deal. Along with Hitachi’s decision to halt the U.K. project, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is reportedly set to abandon its plan in Turkey.
Even without construction of new plants, there will be demand for maintaining Japan’s existing nuclear power plants, and for decommissioning its aging plants. What to do with the spent nuclear fuel and the high-level radioactive wastes from the plants will also be among the challenges that confront Japan’s nuclear power business. There will be plenty of work for the industry, and it will be crucial to develop and maintain the technology and manpower to deal with the tasks. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2019/01/20/editorials/plans-sell-nuclear-plants-overseas-derailed/#.XETUVtIzbGg
Trump plans North Korea nuclear summit with Kim Jong Un for February
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump plans to meet face-to-face with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un next month for a second nuclear summit, the White House announced Friday. …..https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-meets-top-north-korean-official-second-kim-summit-possibility-n960301
1 This Month
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