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Japan must say NO to nuclear power, says former Prime Minister

Koizumi says Japan must say ‘no’ to nuclear energy, THE ASAHI SHIMBUN, January 17, 2019, When he was prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi championed the use of atomic power to generate electricity.

Then the 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster struck, triggering a crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture.

Koizumi, in office from 2001 to 2006, and widely regarded as one of Japan’s most popular postwar leaders, started reading up on the nuclear issue, and had a change of heart.  Koizumi, 76, published his first book by his own hand titled “Genpatsu Zero Yareba Dekiru” (We can abolish all nuclear plants if we try) in December. It is available from Ohta Publishing Co.

In it, he lambasts consumers for lacking a sense of crisis and simply believing a serious accident like the Fukushima disaster will never happen again in Japan during their lifetime.

In a recent interview with The Asahi Shimbun, Koizumi said it was “a lie” to claim that nuclear power is “safe, low-cost and clean,” although that is precisely what he espoused when he held the reins of power.

Excerpts from the interview follow.

…….. Q: Is it really possible to replace all the nuclear reactors with other sorts of power plants?

A: No reactors were operated for two years after the Fukushima disaster. But no power shortages were reported during the period. That means Japan can do without nuclear plants. It is a fact……. http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201901170010.html

January 17, 2019 Posted by | Japan, politics | Leave a comment

The high costs of scrapping Japan’s nuclear reactors

Japan News 14th Jan 2019 The total cost for scrapping the nation’s nuclear power facilities —
excluding Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plants and other facilities under construction — is estimated to be about ¥6.72 trillion, according to a tally by The Yomiuri Shimbun.

The assessment only includes dismantlements of nuclear power facilities for which the cost can currently be estimated. Among these estimates, the cost for closing a spent nuclear fuel reprocessing plant now being built by Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd. (JNFL) in Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture, accounts for the largest amount at ¥1.6  trillion.

The cost for decommissioning 53 commercial nuclear reactors is estimated to total about ¥3.58 trillion, for an average at ¥57.7 billion per reactor. Of the 53 reactors, 19 reactors are scheduled or are likely to be scrapped.
http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0005476533

January 15, 2019 Posted by | decommission reactor, Japan | Leave a comment

USA-China co-operation in removing nuclear material from Nigeria

How the US and China collaborated to get nuclear material out of Nigeria — and away from terrorist groups, Defense News, By: Aaron Mehta, 14 Jan 19,    “……… Moving the nuclear material out of Nigeria has been a long-sought goal for the United States and nonproliferation advocates. But the goal has taken on increased importance in recent years with the rise of militant groups in the region, particularly Boko Haram, a group the Pentagon calls a major terrorist concern in the region.

Underscoring the importance of the operation: the key role China played in transporting and storing the plutonium, with the operation happening just hours after U.S. President Donald Trump made an explicit threat to China about growing America’s nuclear arsenal.
………….Material that is attractive to terrorists’

It was the mid-1990s when Nigeria, with technical support and backing from China, began work on what would become Nigerian Research Reactor 1, located at Ahmadu Bello University in Kaduna. The location opened in 2004, and is home to roughly 170 Nigerian workers.

NIRR-1 is classified as a miniature neutron source reactor, designed for “scientific research, neutron activation analysis, education and training,” per the International Atomic Energy Agency. Essentially, the reactor powers scientific experiments, not the local grid.

The design, however, used highly enriched uranium, or HEU, a type of nuclear substance often referred to by the general public as weapons-grade uranium. This kind of uranium forms the core of any nuclear weapons material, and the Nigerian material was more than 90 percent enriched, making it particularly attractive for anyone looking to use it.

Since NIRR-1 went online, however, improvements in technology meant that experiments involving highly enriched uranium could now be run with a lesser substance. Across the globe, the IAEA and its partners have worked to swap out weapons-grade material with lightly enriched uranium, or LEU, which is enriched at less than 20 percent, and hence unusable for weapons. In all, 33 countries have now become free of HEU, including 11 countries in Africa.

With just over 1 kilogram of HEU, the Nigerian material, if stolen, would not be nearly enough to create a full nuclear warhead. However, a terrorist group would be able to create a dirty bombwith the substance or add the material into a stockpile gathered elsewhere to get close to the amount needed for a large explosion.

In a statement released by the IAEA, Yusuf Aminu Ahmed, director of the Nigerian Centre for Energy Research and Training, was blunt about his concerns over keeping the weapons-grade material in his country. “We don’t want any material that is attractive to terrorists,” he said.
And the nature of these types of reactors, used primarily for research, means they are ideal targets for terrorist groups looking for nuclear material, said Jon Wolfsthal, a nuclear expert who served as senior director for arms control and nonproliferation at the U.S. National Security Council from 2014 to 2017.

They’re small reactors, they’re not power reactors where the fuel is so radioactive it kills you,” he said. “This is very attractive to a proliferation point of view, and they are research reactors, so they are often at universities without high security.”

All of which gave the governments involved incentive to get the material out of Nigeria sooner rather than later, and which led to the group of experts sitting in Ghana, waiting for a call………..

Replacing HEU with LEU in research reactors naturally requires caution, as anything nuclear-related comes with risks. But the Nigerian mission was particularly difficult because of security concerns, Hanlon said. He noted that Boko Haram, while not in the Kaduna region, has been operating in Nigeria for quite some time.

“We had concerns about the security on the ground, in the region. Working very closely with the U.S. embassy, there were additional security requirements put upon us and limitations for us on having people on the ground at the facility itself,” Hanlon said.
……………While the technicians were able to leave the country once their daylong mission was complete, security on site remained thick for the next five weeks as administrators worked the logistics and clearances needed to fly nuclear material over other nations’ airspace. Asked about the security level during this down period, Dov Schwartz, an NNSA spokesman, said that “extensive planning went into ensuring the removed highly enriched uranium was safe and secure prior to transport.”

“All of our partners understood that operational security was paramount,” Schwartz said. “The world is a safer place today as a result of the determined work to remove this weapons useable Uranium from Nigeria.”

Finally, on Dec. 4, the HEU was escorted by the Nigerian military toward the An-124, loaded onto the aircraft and sent on its way to its final destination.  The material was heading for China.

China’s role

The removal operation cost roughly $5.5 million, with the United States contributing $4.3 million. The United Kingdom ($900,000) and Norway ($290,000) also chipped in. But while it didn’t contribute money, China’s role in the operation was outsized — and occurred as the war of words from the Trump administration toward Beijing was reaching a fever pitch, one that did not die down in the weeks to come.

As the October operation was just hours from starting, U.S. President Donald Trump took to the press to discuss nuclear material and China.

“Until people come to their senses, we will build [the nuclear arsenal] up,” Trump told reporters just hours before the Nigeria operation was to begin. “It’s a threat to whoever you want. And it includes China, and it includes Russia, and it includes anybody else that wants to play that game. You can’t do that. You can’t play that game on me.”

By the time the Antonov plane — carrying the HEU, along with American inspectors and security — arrived at Shijiazhuang airport in China on Dec. 6, the arrest of a Chinese technology executive in Canada had inflamed fears of a trade conflict between the two countries.

Once the material landed in China, local officials took possession of the uranium, marking the end of the Nigerian mission — but not necessarily the end of the material……..
That the United States and China were able to ignore politics to get the HEU removal done shouldn’t be a surprise, Wolfsthal said. Traditionally, countries that supply uranium to partners around the world take that material back if needed.

“Even though the national level conversation is really poor because of trade and other issues, the technical collaboration between laboratories, between nuclear engineers, that’s generally gone pretty well,” he said. He added that China has invested heavily in LEU over the last decade, and therefore also has an interest in encouraging others to switch to that technology.

Whether that cooperation continues if relations between the two nations continue to deteriorate will be a true test going forward……… https://www.defensenews.com/news/pentagon-congress/2019/01/14/how-the-us-and-china-collaborated-to-get-nuclear-material-out-of-nigeria-and-away-from-terrorist-groups/

January 15, 2019 Posted by | China, Nigeria, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

India’s nuclear submarines

ANGLES AND DANGLES: ARIHANT AND THE DILEMMA OF INDIA’S UNDERSEA NUCLEAR WEAPONS, YOGESH JOSHI, War on the Rocks, 
JANUARY 14, 2019, SPECIAL SERIES – SOUTHERN (DIS)COMFORT Editor’s Note: This is the 24th installment of “Southern (Dis)Comfort,” a series from War on the Rocks and the Stimson Center. The series seeks to unpack the dynamics of intensifying competition — military, economic, diplomatic — in Southern Asia, principally between China, India, Pakistan, and the United States. Catch up on the rest of the series.

After INS Arihant, India’s first ballistic missile submarine (SSBN), finished its maiden deterrent patrol in November 2018, Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphatically declared India’s nuclear triad complete. Arihant’s operationalization has catapulted India into a select group of states with an underwater nuclear launch capability. It has also raised alarm over the safety and security of India’s nuclear arsenal because a sea-based deterrent may entail a ready-to-use arsenal and less restrictive command and control procedures, increasing probability of their accidental use. For Pakistan, India’s nuclear force modernization endangers the balance of strategic forces in the region and could intensify the nuclear arms race on the subcontinent……….

Arihant’s operationalization is an opportunity for New Delhi to reflect upon its nuclear trajectory. With China and Pakistan as nuclear adversaries, India confronts a unique challenge. It has to build up its nuclear capability enough to ensure that Chinese decision-makers fear it, without sending Islamabad into panic and undermining regional stability. This “Goldilocks dilemma” will be difficult to resolve, and India should not leave it to chance — especially as the United States, once South Asia’s chief crisis manager, loses both interest and influence in the region. India should reassure Pakistan by reaffirming its policy of no first use of nuclear weapons and a retaliation-only nuclear doctrine. More importantly, India should rethink its deterrence requirements vis-à-vis China.

Ultimately, the risk is that India will fail to achieve its aim of deterring China while unintentionally provoking its smaller rival……………..

To increase stability, India should publicly reaffirm its policy of no first use and adopt a retaliation-only nuclear posture, particularly since prominent voices in India’s strategic community have questioned these principles in the recent past. It should clarify that it has no intentions to use its nuclear forces in a preemptive mode. One Strategic Forces Command official told me that Arihant will only be used for countervalue strikes — that is, retaliatory strikes against Pakistani cities. Such declarations ought to be made at the highest levels of the Indian government. Arihant’s job — and, for that matter, the job of India’s entire nuclear arsenal — is to not create “fearlessness” in the Indian mind, as Modi’s office claimed. Rather, it is to ensure that India’s nuclear adversaries fear the consequences of their actions. A nuclear dialogue with Pakistan should therefore be reopened and shielded from the vagaries of domestic politics.

The nuclear competition between China, India, and Pakistan is a classic case of a triangular security dilemma. As India pursues deterrence stability vis-à-vis one adversary, it makes another adversary feel increasingly vulnerable……..

Yogesh Joshi is a Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University. He is the coauthor of India and Nuclear Asia: Forces, Doctrine and Dangers (Georgetown University Press, 2018).  https://warontherocks.com/2019/01/angles-and-dangles-arihant-and-the-dilemma-of-indias-undersea-nuclear-weapons/

January 15, 2019 Posted by | India, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Covert nuclear development in Taiwan was stopped, because a senior scientist feared danger

Colby Cosh: How Canada almost left the door to the nuclear club ajar … again, National Post, 14 Jan 19, 

Covert nuclear development in Taiwan was finally stopped cold because a senior scientist became convinced nukes were dangerous 

Maybe you have heard the story of how India got the Bomb with Canada’s inadvertent help. We sold India a nuclear reactor called CIRUS in 1954 on an explicit promise that the facility would only be used for peaceful purposes. When India astonished the world with its first nuke test in May 1974, having upgraded the fuel output from CIRUS, it duly announced that it had successfully created a Peaceful Nuclear Explosive. The permanent consequence was, for better or worse, a nuclear-armed Subcontinent.This is old news to enthusiasts of Cold War history. Here’s the new news: it almost happened twice. Canadian technology was almost used by another country to break into the nuclear club.

In November, historians David Albright and Andrea Stricker published a new book called Taiwan’s Former Nuclear Weapons Program: Nuclear Weapons On-Demand. The book pulls together the previously sketchy story of Nationalist China’s covert nuclear research, which had its roots in the postwar exodus of Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang party (KMT). Albright and Stricker describe decades of effort by the offshore Republic of China on Taiwan to play a double game with nuclear weapons. ………

The key to the story is the 40-megawatt uranium-fuelled Taiwan Research Reactor (TRR), supplied, like CIRUS, by Canada. TRR was very similar to CIRUS in design and capability. The pile went critical in January 1973, giving Taiwan an indigenous source of plutonium. Under the sales agreement, the reactor was to be “safeguarded” by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), answering to its inspectors and accounting for the whereabouts of its fuel. But Taiwanese nuclear agencies immediately began to behave suspiciously, talking to some of the slimier European industrial concerns about buying reprocessing equipment that would allow weapons manufacture

……….Covert nuclear development in Taiwan was finally stopped cold because one of the Republic’s senior scientists, Chang Hsien-yi, became convinced that nukes were dangerous to the existence of the Republic……….  Email: ccosh@postmedia.com | Twitter:       https://nationalpost.com/opinion/colby-cosh-how-canada-almost-left-the-door-to-the-nuclear-club-ajar-again

January 15, 2019 Posted by | politics, Taiwan | Leave a comment

USA govt could live with a Nuclear North Korea, but wouldn’t admit it

Can America Live with a Nuclear North Korea? National Interest, January 11, 2019 MilitaryTechnologyWorldICBM

Question: Can America live with an atomic North Korea, and could any presidential administration openly admit it can? The answer: Yes it can, and no it couldn’t.

by James Holmes friend asks: can America live with an atomic North Korea, and could any presidential administration openly admit it can? Yes it can, and no it couldn’t. The Trump administration and its successors can live with a North Korean doomsday arsenal because living with it represents the least bad option at hand. Military action is the other apparent alternative to the administration’s “ maximum pressure ” strategy of stifling the North into compliance through diplomacy and UN-approved economic sanctions . Yet the hazards, costs, and sheer uncertainty of war abound. Few presidents would embrace armed force barring an unambiguous and egregious provocation from Kim Jong-Un & Co.

Forcibly disarming Pyongyang could and probably would involve sacrificing thousands of American and Korean lives. Here’s a crude yardstick. The Korean War, a conventional conflict to preserve an independent South Korea, cost the United States some 37,000 military lives. Many more service folk suffered wounds. Thirty-seven thousand. That’s more than fivefold the combined American military death toll from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars since 9/11. And that leaves aside countless more Korean military and civilian lives expended fighting to the current standstill along the inter-Korean border.

It’s hard to see how war could be waged more cheaply than it was in 1950-1953 when the principal combatants, not to mention North Korea’s ally China and neighbor Russia, all boast nuclear weapons to accompany formidable conventional forces. And Washington must not delude itself into thinking air and sea power can do the job alone, any more than aviators and mariners repulsed the North Korean invasion in 1950. It took land forces back then—and today, in all likelihood, ground combat would be required to destroy the dug-in North Korean nuclear complex.

Any military strategy worth the name would demand that U.S. Army and Marine forces again seize and control ground—allowing them the leisure to ferret out underground facilities and armaments.

In short, a new Korean War would not be a come-and-go affair. Such a forecast is solidly grounded in the classics of strategy. For instance, Admiral J. C. Wylie points out that the proper goal of military strategy is to impose control on the foe. Aircraft and missiles flit by overhead while ships remain offshore. Though formidable, their presence is too intermittent to qualify as control. That being the case, he pronounces the soldier slogging through mud the “ultimate determinant” of who emerges the victor. The soldier goes and stays. “He is control,” proclaims Wylie. No control, no strategic success.

Or as the historian T. R. Fehrenbach puts it regarding the Korean War: “you may fly over a land forever; you may bomb it, atomize it, pulverize it and wipe it clean of life—but if you desire to defend it, protect it and keep it for civilization, you must do this on the ground, the way the Roman legions did, by putting your young men in the mud.” Wylie says much the same thing when he observes that— aviators’ and rocketeers’ assumptions notwithstanding—the ability to destroy something from aloft does not equate to controlling it.

Nor is it obvious that winning control is crucial in Northeast Asia………

Chances are, then, Washington will continue to insist on complete disarmament on the Korean Peninsula but will refrain from using force to bring about that happy end. …….https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/can-america-live-nuclear-north-korea-41387

January 14, 2019 Posted by | North Korea, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Schoolchildren co-opted to promote propaganda on Fukushima food safety

Students tasked to develop dishes with Fukushima produce to promote prefecture’s recovery, Japan Times, 13 Jan 19 

 A group of elementary, junior high and high school students in the city of Fukushima are taking part in an initiative to develop original recipes using local agricultural products as part of a broader project to highlight the city’s recovery from the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake.

The first phase of the campaign, known as the Fukko Project, whereby the students create new dishes, started Dec. 16. It is designed to help the children learn about local agriculture so they will be able to implement their own action plans to assist Fukushima’s recovery……https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/01/13/national/students-tasked-develop-dishes-fukushima-produce-promote-prefectures-recovery/#.XDudF9IzbGg

January 14, 2019 Posted by | Japan, spinbuster | Leave a comment

Russia’s Rosatom to manage accident plan at the Fukushima NPP

Russia’s Rosatom wins two bids for accident management at Fukushima NPP http://tass.com/world/1039631, January 12, 2019, MOSCOW, Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom has been engaged in the nuclear control plan at Japan’s stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant and has already won two bids in that project, Rosatom CEO Alexei Likhachev said in a televised interview with Rossiya’24 news channel on Saturday.

“We have been engaged by Japan to implement the nuclear accident management plan at the Fukushima NPP. We have won two tenders and are getting ahead,” he said.

In September 2017, Rosatom’s First Deputy CEO Kirill Komarov said that Rosatom offered help to Japanese counterparts in handling the crippled Fukushima NPP.

The nuclear disaster at the Fukushima-1 power plant in March 2011 was triggered by an earthquake-induced tsunami that knocked out vital reactor cooling systems. This resulted in three nuclear meltdowns, hydrogen explosions and a massive release of radioactive waste, which contaminated the surrounding area. Clean-up operations continue at the power plant and adjacent territories. According to the current action plan, full decommissioning of the station may take place only around 2040.

January 14, 2019 Posted by | Fukushima continuing, Russia, safety | Leave a comment

UK’s nuclear energy renaissance derailed, as Japanese companies step back from nuclear investment?

Japan’s nuclear rethink could derail UK energy plans, https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2019/01/09/japan-uk-nuclear-plans-go-awry/, Doug Parr, 11 Jan 19,   Reports in the Japanese press claim Hitachi is set to suspend all work on Wylfa, its nuclear power project in Wales.

Japan’s prime minister Shinzo Abe is in London this week, and it seems likely in his meeting with Theresa May that the Japanese-backed nuclear power plant in Wales will come up.

The Wylfa project, to be built by Hitachi and its subsidiary Horizon, is one of a clutch of planned nuclear power stations which the UK government has heavily prioritised for security of power supply, and meeting the country’s climate obligations.

Late last year another of the 6 major projects, the proposed Moorside plant in Cumbria, was effectively abandoned after Toshiba pulled out. And another has come under fire as questions are raised about security issues flowing from the Chinese builders.

These developments effectively illustrate that UK nuclear power policy is heavily dependent on overseas developers. What is less understood is that there are significant shifts underway in Japan which strongly suggest Hitachi’s projects may too be at risk.

‘Nuclear export superpower’   The most advanced of Horizon’s nuclear plans is a large power station to be built at Wylfa on Anglesey, North Wales.

In fact, with the collapse of Moorside, the Wylfa plant is the only nuclear project that could realistically be built before 2030, in addition to the plant already under construction at Hinkley Point in Somerset.

Japan, however, is reconsidering its nuclear export strategy. Because it keeps going wrong.

Until recently it had 3 companies interested in building nuclear power stations abroad: Toshiba, Mitsubishi and Hitachi.

These companies have experience building nuclear stations at home but since the Fukushima disaster in 2011, they have had to look elsewhere. Seeking to help these giants of Japanese industry to maintain their businesses, Prime Minister Abe reportedly wanted to turn Japan into a “nuclear export superpower”.

Misfires   Toshiba pulled out of Moorside last year because it had run up huge losses in building 2 nuclear plants in USA. One, the Summer project in South Carolina, was abandoned altogether despite it being nearly half-built. Toshiba has pulled out not just of Moorside, but of building new nuclear power stations altogether.

Meanwhile, another of Japan’s nuclear groups, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), has also been struggling to get its international project off-the-ground. It had one nuclear power station in the offing, at Sinop in Turkey, following an agreement years ago between the two countries’ prime ministers. However it seems clear that MHI is preparing to leave the project amid its “ballooning costs”. This is the only nuclear power station project MHI had an interest in.

The last of the companies involved in Japan’s nuclear export push is Hitachi. It has one active overseas nuclear project in UK at Wylfa, North Wales, and one more speculatively planned at Oldbury in Gloucestershire.

Hitachi, however, are reportedly be thinking of scrapping the project as its costs and risks become unmanageable. Hitachi could be looking at Toshiba’s near-bankruptcy and thinking ‘let’s not go there’.  According to their chairman the project was in “an extremely severe situation” as it struggled to attract investors, even though UK government may have promised as much as two thirds of the build cost.

Despite this already generous largesse (on behalf of UK taxpayers, not offered to any other energy projects) Hitachi are intending to come back to UK government and ask for more. It looks like no assessment of the risks by a private funder come back looking good, and the only way nuclear plants can be built is with government stepping into very risky projects that require taxpayers to shoulder the risk.

The aversion from private investors may not only be because of the rising costs, but also that the operating performance of the proposed reactor is pretty poor (albeit partly due to earthquakes). Notably Hitachi continues to be happy to spend many billions of pounds on power grid investments, but not its own nuclear reactor, which it wants UK taxpayers to fund.

Second thoughts  Unsurprisingly this tale is making many in Japan have second thoughts.

Major Japanese newspapers have opposed their own taxpayers lending supportto the Wylfa project, even though a home-grown company would be getting the benefits. And during the Xmas break, Japan’s third largest newspaper called for the nuclear export strategy to be abandoned. Another paper attacks the ‘bottomless swamp’ of nuclear funding in UK and remarks upon how few countries seem to be following the UK-style nuclear-focused policy.

Reportedly Japanese government has asked its development banks to fund the ‘nuclear export strategy’, and Wylfa in particular, but they don’t want to. It is quite difficult to see how Hitachi can manage the risks of this project without some home support, and support in Japan is ebbing away.

Few other countries will be stepping into the UK’s nuclear hole. The South Korean company KEPCO – that once might have taken over the Moorside project – is also finding exporting nuclear power tough to export, as ‘shoddy’ construction in a nuclear plant in United Arab Emirates, with attendant delays and extra costs, is showing.

For the UK, which has made a heavy bet on new nuclear to cover for retiring plants and make up a significant share of its decarbonisation targets, news from the other side of the world makes that bet look a dodgy one.

 

January 12, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, Japan, politics, UK | Leave a comment

Japan’s Prime Minister Abe in UK to beg for more money for Wylfa nuclear project?

Unearthed 9th Jan 2019 Doug Parr: Japan’s prime minister Shinzo Abe is in London this week, and it seems likely in his meeting with Theresa May that the Japanese-backed
nuclear power plant in Wales will come up. The Wylfa project, to be built
by Hitachi and its subsidiary Horizon, is one of a clutch of planned
nuclear power stations which the UK government has heavily prioritised for
security of power supply, and meeting the country’s climate obligations.

Late last year another of the 6 major projects, the proposed Moorside plant
in Cumbria, was effectively abandoned after Toshiba pulled out. And another
has come under fire as questions are raised about security issues flowing
from the Chinese builders.

These developments effectively illustrate that
UK nuclear power policy is heavily dependent on overseas developers.

What is less understood is that there are significant shifts underway in Japan
which strongly suggest Hitachi’s projects may too be at risk. The most
advanced of Horizon’s nuclear plans is a large power station to be built
at Wylfa on Anglesey, North Wales. In fact, with the collapse of Moorside,
the Wylfa plant is the only nuclear project that could realistically be
built before 2030, in addition to the plant already under construction at
Hinkley Point in Somerset.

Japan, however, is reconsidering its nuclear
export strategy. Because it keeps going wrong. Until recently it had 3
companies interested in building nuclear power stations abroad: Toshiba,
Mitsubishi and Hitachi. These companies have experience building nuclear
stations at home but since the Fukushima disaster in 2011, they have had to
look elsewhere.

Seeking to help these giants of Japanese industry to
maintain their businesses, Prime Minister Abe reportedly wanted to turn
Japan into a “nuclear export superpower”. Hitachi, however, are
reportedly be thinking of scrapping the project as its costs and risks
become unmanageable. Hitachi could be looking at Toshiba’s
near-bankruptcy and thinking ‘let’s not go there’. According to their
chairman the project was in “an extremely severe situation” as it
struggled to attract investors, even though UK government may have promised
as much as two thirds of the build cost.

Despite this already generouslargesse (on behalf of UK taxpayers, not offered to any other energy projects) Hitachi are intending to come back to UK government and ask for
more. It looks like no assessment of the risks by a private funder come
back looking good, and the only way nuclear plants can be built is with
government stepping into very risky projects that require taxpayers to
shoulder the risk.

The aversion from private investors may not only be
because of the rising costs, but also that the operating performance of the
proposed reactor is pretty poor (albeit partly due to earthquakes).

Notably Hitachi continues to be happy to spend many billions of pounds on power
grid investments, but not its own nuclear reactor, which it wants UK
taxpayers to fund. Major Japanese newspapers have opposed their own
taxpayers lending support to the Wylfa project, even though a home-grown
company would be getting the benefits.

 

And during the Xmas break, Japan’s
third largest newspaper called for the nuclear export strategy to be
abandoned. Another paper attacks the ‘bottomless swamp’ of nuclear
funding in UK and remarks upon how few countries seem to be following the
UK-style nuclear-focused policy. Reportedly Japanese government has asked
its development banks to fund the ‘nuclear export strategy’, and Wylfa
in particular, but they don’t want to. It is quite difficult to see how
Hitachi can manage the risks of this project without some home support, and
support in Japan is ebbing away.
https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2019/01/09/japan-uk-nuclear-plans-go-awry/

January 12, 2019 Posted by | Japan, politics international, UK | Leave a comment

Funding deadlock looks set to sink Japan’s last overseas nuclear project.

Nikkei Asian Review 11th Jan 2019 , Hitachi to suspend all work on UK nuclear plant. Funding deadlock looks set to sink Japan’s last overseas nuclear project. Hitachi plans to put a U.K.
nuclear power project on hold as negotiations with the British government over funding hit an impasse, all but closing the book on Tokyo’s vision for nuclear infrastructure exports.
The Japanese industrial conglomerate’s
board is expected to officially decide next week to suspend all work on the
plant, including design and preparations for construction. Hitachi will
freeze the roughly 300 billion yen ($2.77 billion) in assets held by its
British nuclear business and write down their value, likely booking a loss
of 200 billion yen to 300 billion yen for the fiscal year ending in March.
The move would bring to a halt Japan’s last active overseas nuclear project
after the news last month that a Japanese-led consortium including
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries was scrapping a project in Turkey. With the
aversion to nuclear power that took hold after the March 2011 Fukushima
Daiichi disaster showing little sign of abating, prospects look grim for a
sector that the Japanese government had positioned as a pillar of its
infrastructure export drive. Hitachi had taken on the planned construction
of two reactors on the Welsh island of Anglesey after acquiring U.K.-based
Horizon Nuclear Power in 2012. The company is leaving the door open to a
return. The project is “not being abandoned,” a source close to Hitachi
told Nikkei, suggesting the company would keep an eye on the situation and
resume the project if possible.
While negotiations with London are
apparently set to continue, reworking the project to the extent Hitachi
requires will be no easy task. As things stand now, it appears likely that
the company will ultimately be forced to bow out.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Business-Deals/Hitachi-to-suspend-all-work-on-UK-nuclear-plant

January 12, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, Japan, UK | Leave a comment

Kim Jong Un’s New Year’s Speech stressed energy development, and co-operation wit South Korea

Kim Jong Un’s New Year’s Speech: On the Domestic Front, 38 North, BY: GLYN FORD, JANUARY 9, 2019  “……

    • The speech was framed within the successes of last year. The 2013  Line of promoting two fronts—economy and a nuclear deterrent—simultaneously had finally been delivered. The country lives under the protective umbrella of its nuclear deterrent and can turn its focus to the “higher goal” of economic construction.

Kim acknowledged that challenges to this domestic agenda certainly exist, noting especially the misallocation of labor, lack of expertise and poor productivity. In his speech, he instructed a reallocation of labor and resources, both for the military and the Party, to start to address these barriers to success. He also indicated that contingency plans were being explored in case a second summit with Trump fails to set US-DPRK relations back on track.

………Focus on Energy Generation

The country’s principal economic bottleneck is the desperate need for a massive increase in electricity production. A first step is the renovation and modernization of the supply industry. By singling out the Pukchang Thermal Power Complex for praise all the others inevitably lie in its shadow. Yet the most aggravating problem is fuel shortages. Under the current sanctions regime, the short-term solution—and by no means good news for the climate-change lobby—to the electricity shortage is massive increases in productivity in the coal sector. ………..

While hydroelectric plants merit a passing mention, in reality, the North is close to maximizing the use of the water resources available with both floods and droughts sharply reducing output. In the longer term, Kim argued that the country needs to “create a capacity for generating tidal, wind and atomic power under a far-reaching plan.” The last underlines Pyongyang’s perception that denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula does not preclude ambitions to be a civil nuclear power. The ongoing construction of their indigenous Experimental Light Water Reactor (ELWR) at North Korea’s Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center suggests that light water reactors will form the backbone of the industry, harking back perhaps to the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) from the 1990s. ………..

There is no question the Party is now on top as well as on tap with constant references to its primacy. Kim emphasized in his speech that the KPA is to “defend the Party and revolution and the security of the country and the people and continuously perform miraculous feats at all sites of socialist construction.” Echoing that sentiment, the People’s Internal Security Forces are there to protect Party, system and people, in that order.

Delivering peace and prosperity to the Korean Peninsula is the stated goal for both Pyongyang and Seoul. Kim underscored this mandate with:

“When north and south join hands firmly and rely on the united strength of the fellow countrymen, no external sanctions and pressure, challenges and trials will be able to hinder us….We will never tolerate the interference and intervention of outside forces who stand in the way of national reconciliation, unity and reunification with the design to subordinate inter-Korean relations to their tastes and interests.”

The “dog that didn’t bark” is the “end-of-war” declaration. Last summer, Pyongyang complained long and hard that Washington had not delivered on its promise to sign a political declaration ending the Korean War. In Kim’s New Year’s speech, this declaration failed to get even a mention. Pyongyang seems to have moved on, from Washington at least. Kim stated, “it is also needed to actively promote multi-party negotiations for replacing the current ceasefire on the Korean peninsula with a peace mechanism in close contact with the signatories to the armistice agreement so as to lay a lasting and substantial peace-keeping foundation.” The concept of a bilateral US-DPRK declaration signed by Seoul and Beijing has now become a multilateral proposition and negotiation. Which parties would be involved is unclear, but this may have been one of many topics discussed between Kim and Chinese President Xi Jinping during Kim’s birthday visit to Beijing

……….Until now Pyongyang has rigidly adhered publicly to parallel bilateral negotiations, one with Washington looking for a peace settlement accompanied by sanctions relief and a second with Seoul on economic cooperation. Now with the potential for the first set of negotiations to go multilateral, the second set may follow suit, increasing pressure on Moon to put clear blue water between Seoul and Washington with respect to “maximum pressure.”https://www.38north.org/2019/01/gford010919/

January 12, 2019 Posted by | North Korea, politics, politics international | Leave a comment

JAPC denies granting local prior consent for Tokai reactor restart

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The Tokai No. 2 nuclear power plant in Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, which is operated by the Japan Atomic Power Co.
January 8, 2019
Although telling six municipalities they have the right to prior consent before restarting the Tokai No. 2 nuclear power plant, operator Japan Atomic Power Co. (JAPC) is apparently reneging on that promise.
JAPC reached a draft agreement with the local governments to obtain their consent before restarting the Tokai No. 2 plant reactor in Ibaraki Prefecture, according to documents from Naka in the prefecture.
The documents, obtained by The Asahi Shimbun through an information disclosure request, detail the six years of negotiations between JAPC and the six local governments and a new safety agreement reached in March 2018.
The six are Tokai village, which hosts the plant, and the five surrounding cities of Hitachi, Hitachinaka, Naka, Hitachiota and Mito.
However, when asked by The Asahi Shimbun if the agreement contained a clause that JAPC would obtain prior consent from the six municipal governments on the restart, the company replied “No.” The six municipalities said the right to prior consent had been agreed upon.
JAPC has apparently changed its stance.
The new safety agreement, concluded on March 29, 2018, stipulates that when JAPC seeks to restart the Tokai No. 2 nuclear plant or extend its operation, it will effectively obtain prior approval from Tokai village and five surrounding municipalities.
The apparent break from tradition to give surrounding local municipalities the right of prior consent drew widespread attention as the “Ibaraki method.”
The concept of working out an agreement started in February 2012 when the heads of the six municipalities met to discuss nuclear power and local vitalization.
Tatsuya Murakami, then Tokai village chief, talked about the wide-ranging effects from the March 2011 accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
He said that the issue of whether to allow a restart of the Tokai No. 2 nuclear plant couldn’t be decided by Tokai village alone and that it was necessary for surrounding municipalities to have the same right.
However, JAPC rejected the proposal, saying that it needed to maintain a consistent approach with another nuclear plant it operates.
The negotiations continued, and in March 2017 the circumstances changed. In a meeting held that month, JAPC President Mamoru Muramatsu proposed a new safety agreement to the six municipalities.
As for their prior consent, he said, “We’ve determined that we can’t restart the nuclear plant until we obtain consent from the municipalities.”
The municipalities asked Muramatsu if that effectively meant they had the right to “prior consent.”
The JAPC president replied, “That’s correct.”
On Nov. 22, 2017, JAPC presented a new safety agreement, which included “effective prior consent,” in a meeting of the heads of the municipalities.
The municipalities again asked whether they had the right to prior consent. A JAPC official replied, “Yes.”
On Nov. 24, 2017, JAPC applied to the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) for a 20-year extension of the operation of the nuclear plant. The deadline for the application was Nov. 28, 2017.
On Nov. 7, 2018, immediately after the NRA approved the 20-year extension, however, JAPC Vice President Nobutaka Wachi said, “The word ‘veto power’ can’t be found anywhere in the new agreement.”
The remark caused a backlash from the six municipalities, and Wachi apologized for his remark. However, relations between JAPC and the municipalities have deteriorated.
In the fall of 2018, The Asahi Shimbun conducted a survey of JAPC and the six municipalities. It asked them, “Is there anything in writing that states that JAPC must obtain prior consent from the six municipal governments in the new agreement?”
In response, JAPC said, “No.” A JAPC official explained, “The new agreement is a plan to effectively obtain prior consent from the six municipalities (by continuing to talk thoroughly with them until they grant their consent).”
The Asahi Shimbun told JAPC that official documents have a description that can be interpreted as granting the municipalities the right to prior consent.
The JAPC official said, “We will refrain from making a comment about the content of discussions from closed meetings.”
http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201901080045.html?fbclid=IwAR1Ct_TfYHBQlcMwGxVI4Bhi3aZ5IXA1S70e5RjopVsVyIjx1i9Wsp6k-ZA

January 9, 2019 Posted by | Japan | , | Leave a comment

Major financial group in Japan bans lending to those developing, making or possessing nuclear weapons 

Resona bans lending to those developing, making or possessing nuclear weapons https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20190107/p2a/00m/0bu/024000c, January 7, 2019 (Mainichi Japan) TOKYO — Resona Holdings Inc., a major financial group in Japan, has announced a policy of not extending loans to borrowers that are involved in the development, production or possession of nuclear weapons.

The statement, the first of its kind by a major Japanese banking institution, came amid similar moves by an increasing number of European banks and institutional investors following the adoption at the United Nations of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in 2017.

Whether other Japanese corporations will follow Resona’s action is a focus of attention for the future. There were other lenders banning loans for the production of nuclear weapons, but the Resona policy prohibits any loans to such companies even when such transactions are for non-nuclear related purposes.

The new posture was incorporated in a document titled “Efforts toward socially responsible investment and loans,” which was announced in November last year. According to the paper, Resona refuses to lend to those that are associated with the development, production or possession of weapons of mass destruction, such as nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, or inhuman weaponry including antipersonnel mines and cluster munitions.

Entities that can be subject to relevant restrictions or sanctions, or even those with the potential to be hit with such punitive measures, will be rejected as borrowers, the document says.

An official with Resona, which has never lent to companies making nuclear weapons, explained that the banking group decided to introduce the policy “because we thought it important for providers of funds to make such efforts toward a sustainable society.”

According to the Dutch nongovernmental organization PAX, 63 financial institutions had similar lending policies as of October 2017, an increase of nine from the previous year.

A Mainichi Shimbun poll of four Japanese mega banks — Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, Mizuho Financial Group and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings — as well as four major life insurance companies — Nippon, Dai-ichi, Meiji Yasuda and Sumitomo — found that all of the eight companies and groups have policies to refrain from lending and investment over inhuman weapons. Yet the entities did not specify the production of nuclear weapons as a condition to disengage from borrowers.

Officials at Sumitomo Mitsui and Mizuho replied that their companies ban loans to be used in the production of nuclear weapons, while a Mitsubishi UFJ official explained that the company is “making careful judgment in each transaction.”

(Japanese original by Satoko Takeshita, Business News Department)

January 8, 2019 Posted by | business and costs, Japan | Leave a comment

China reportedly tests powerful non-nuclear weapon

https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/world/china-reportedly-tests-powerful-nonnuclear-weapon/video/65a3ed7ab4203f574d820f7a2d8dac23  8 Jan 19

China has tested one of the most powerful non-nuclear weapons in existence, according to state media. Video released by the Xinhua news agency shows the testing of the massive bomb, dubbed the Chinese ‘Mother of All Bombs’.

January 8, 2019 Posted by | China, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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