By Sept 15, Japan will have no operating nuclear reactors
Japan’s online nuclear reactors to be halted http://www.sott.net/article/265773-Japans-online-nuclear-reactors-to-be-halted NHK World, 02 Sep 2013 The only 2 nuclear reactors online in Japan will soon be shut down for regular inspections. That means all nuclear power generators in the country will be offline for the first time in about 14 months.
On Monday afternoon, Kansai Electric began lowering the power output of the Number 3 reactor for regular inspections. The reactor will come to a halt on Tuesday morning. The plant operator also plans to halt the Number 4 reactor for a regular check on September 15th.
To gain approval for the restart of their offline reactors, Ohi and 5 other nuclear plants are undergoing assessments by the Nuclear Regulation Authority.
Cape Downwinders demand shutdown of Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant
AUDIO: Protesters Use Cape Traffic To Protest Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant http://boston.cbslocal.com/2013/09/02/protesters-use-cape-traffic-to-protest-pilgrim-nuclear-power-plant/ September 2, 2013 SAGAMORE (CBS/AP) – An anti-nuclear group took advantage of the Labor Day traffic jam leaving the Cape to spread their message.
Dozens of protesters who call themselves the Cape Downwinders waved to visitors at the base of the Sagamore Bridge Monday and demanded the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant in Plymouth be shut down.
The group says Cape residents and tourists could be trapped if a serious accident ever occurred at Pilgrim because there is no evacuation plan. They also claim the nuclear plant is not safe. “Basically, it’s anotherFukushima waiting to happen,” one protester told WBZ NewsRadio 1030, …. Gov. Deval Patrick said recently that it wasn’t clear to him whether the state needed Pilgrim.
The recent announcement that the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant would close at the end of 2014 has focused renewed attention on Pilgrim.
Both are owned by Entergy Corp.
Some anxiety over Japan’s Olympic Games bid, as Fukushima crisis contnues
Tokyo hopes concerns over nuclear leaks won’t hurt image as safe choice to host 2020 Olympics National Post, Jim Armstrong, Associated Press | 13/09/02 TOKYO — Heading into the final days of the contest to host the 2020 Olympics, Tokyo is hoping concern over leaks of highly radioactive water at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant won’t damage its image as the safest choice among the bids.
With anti-government demonstrations plaguing Istanbul’s bid and a recession and high unemployment hanging over Madrid’s candidacy, Tokyo is pushing its bid as the safe choice in uncertain times.
The IOC will select the 2020 host on Sept. 7 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. A 300-ton leak of radioactive water was discovered at the Fukushima plant on Aug. 19, the fifth and worst leak since the plant had triple meltdowns after the massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011.
Fukushima is 250 kilometres (155 miles) north of Tokyo and bid officials say the leak won’t affect the city’s plans to host the Olympics, but the incident is an untimely reminder of Tokyo’s vulnerability to natural disasters…..
Tokyo has an existing $4.5 billion fund for Olympic construction and enjoys the support of the national government…… http://sports.nationalpost.com/2013/09/02/tokyo-hopes-concerns-over-nuclear-leaks-wont-hurt-image-as-safe-choice-to-host-2020-olympics/
Nuclear Energy in USA has a bleak future
Nuclear power industry starts to sputter out, WT 2 Sept 13, The closing of Vermont’s only nuclear power plant is the latest challenge to an industry struggling to retain its niche in America’s long-term energy future.
The Vermont Yankee facility, owned and operated by Louisiana-based energy firm Entergy Corp., is one of at least five reactors to be slated for closure in the past 12 months.
Several factors have combined to create what some see as a bleak future for the sector.
“This is not an isolated incident,” said Frank Felder, director of the Center for Energy, Economic and Environmental Policy at Rutgers University. “Electricity prices are low. The costs of running the plants are high.”
Much like coal, nuclear power — once heralded as the future of U.S. energy and still touted by President Obama as part of his “all of the above” strategy to reduce dependence on foreign fuel — now is fighting to compete with natural gas prices near record lows………
Meanwhile, events such as the disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi facility have renewed questions about the overall safety of nuclear power and led some nations, such as Germany, to begin transitioning away from nuclear energy…….
In fact, many of those advocating a transition to a low- or no-carbon future see a diminished — or nonexistent — role for nuclear power generation.
“This is the right decision for Vermont as we move to a greener energy future. Entergy’s announcement today confirms what we have known for some time. Operating and maintaining this aging nuclear facility is too expensive in today’s world,” Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin, a Democrat, said after Entergy announced the Vermont Yankee closure last week. “Vermont has made clear its desire to move toward more sustainable, renewable sources of electricity, and many of our surrounding states are doing likewise.”
Renewable energy – the power of the 21st Century
Renewable energy, Le Monde Diplomatique 3 Sept 13 “Coal was the energy of the 19th century, nuclear of the 20th century. Now the most advanced countries in Europe are proving that renewables are the energy of the 21st century. What is the Polish government doing? Nothing to get rid of our dependence on coal, and it’s developing a nuclear programme. That doesn’t make sense.” Dariusz Szwed, co-founder of Poland’s Green 2004 Party, is outraged by the “environmental unconsciousness” of Donald Tusk’s government and of the V4 heads of state. All are (…) by Hélène Bienvenu and Sébastien Gobert (subscribers only) http://mondediplo.com/2013/09/09nuclear
Rally to close Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant September 2
PLYMOUTH, Mass. (WWLP) http://www.wwlp.com/news/massachusetts/rally-planned-against-pilgrim-nuclear-power-plant 1 Sept 13 – There’s a renewed push to force the closure of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant in Plymouth.
This is after the recent announcement that the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Plant will be shutting down.
Both plants are owned by the same company.
Protesters are planning a rally near the Sagamore Bridge on Cape Cod tomorrow.
They say vacationers and Cape Cod resident could be trapped if there was ever a serious nuclear accident at the plant.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted last year to relicense Pilgrim through 2032.
The plant’s operators say the facility produces 10 percent of the state’s electrical needs.
Nuclear power’s dangers are the cause of its excessive costs
The Cost of Nuclear Power Joseph Mangano, Executive Director Radiation and Public Health Project
Ocean City, N.J August 28, 2013 “…..Wall Street ended loans for new reactors in the late 1970s because of high costs. After a decade in which a nuclear revival has been promoted, only two new plants are under construction, and they are slowed by costly delays. After 15 years of no shutdowns, four American reactors have closed this year, with more shutdowns predicted. Executives claim that nuclear power cannot compete in the marketplace with sources like natural gas and wind.
The underlying reason for high nuclear costs is that reactors are dangerous, requiring many highly trained staff members, a complexity of expensive parts, compliance with extensive regulations, and anti terrorist measures to minimize public exposure to hazardous radioactivity.
The 1954 promise by the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, Lewis Strauss, that nuclear power would be “too cheap to meter” remains unfulfilled.
Nuclear power radioactive dangers Thorium, Polonium, Radon, Radium, Plutonium, Uranium
Fukushima: Alpha Radiation Dangers — Thorium, Polonium, Radon, Radium, Plutonium, Uranium…UKIAH BLOG http://ukiahcommunityblog.wordpress.com/2013/08/29/fukushima-alpha-radiation-dangers-thorium-polonium-radon-radium-plutonium-uranium/ In Around the web on August 29, 2013 From A Green Road Magazine
A few people today have the power to create millions of ways to kill billions of people, using invisible poisons that are very difficult to detect. Poisons are the natural way to kill people without leaving a trace or a trail back to the killer.
For example, radioactive Polonium is 250 billion times more toxic than cyanide. All nuclear reactors produce 1,200 toxic, deadly and radioactive substances, even when they are operating normally. This is where radioactive Polonium comes from for example. When these nuclear reactors have accidents, which they often do, they release huge quantities of 1,200 invisible death and suffering creating substances, which then hang round for hundreds of thousands or millions of years. Is this something that we want around our children and families?
Let’s dive into just alpha radiation and find out more about it, shall we?
Alpha Particle Toxicity
RADON……
RADIUM……
POLONIUM……
Polonium 210. Kremlin assassin poison.
URANIUM……
URANIUM MINING…….
URANIUM ENRICHMENT
Paducah Kentucky Nuclear Enrichment Plant Dirty Global Warming Secrets; via A Green Road Blog
http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2012/04/paducah-kentucky-nuclear-enrichment.html
Nuclear Plants And Radioactive Water Contamination; via A Green Road Blog
http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2012/04/nuclear-plants-and-radioactive-water.html
Depleted Uranium Effects In The Human Body; via A Green Road Blog http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2012/03/depleted-uranium-effects-in-human-body.html
Bottom line, there are over 100 ALPHA radiation emitting radioactive substances created, and most of these deadly substances are man made, created inside nuclear reactors. We have only discussed a few of them here. To discuss all of them, would take a very thick book. To discuss the dangers of all 1,200 deadly, toxic and radioactive substances would take a lifetime.
Is this what our communities want to spend taxpayer money on? Do we really want to make the choice to spend time producing more death and suffering instead of more life and living? Do we really want more death and suffering producing agents in our air, our food, our water, and our children and seven future generations of our children’s children? http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2012/04/alpha-radiation-dangers-polonium-radon.html
Nuclear power makes no economic sense
The absurdity of nuclear waste http://www.latimes.com/opinion/letters/la-le-0829-thursday-nuclear-waste-20130829,0,7761950.story Ann Hou, CamarilloThree Mile Island. Chernobyl. Fukushima. Had none of these disasters occurred, the idea that our government could find a secure, cost-effective way to store nuclear waste for tens of thousands of years would still be absurd.
The huge piles of nuclear waste already on the planet will remain dangerous for far more than 10 times as long as all of recorded history. And we are adding to them at an alarming rate.
Tricky determination of whether the fuel was for peaceful or bellicose use, making monitoring straightforward.
If the safe storage of nuclear waste for 1,000 centuries is factored into the cost of nuclear power, it becomes clear that atomic power generation makes no economic sense.
Republican Congressman Steven Palazzo – “NO nuclear waste for Mississippi”
SUN HERALD | Editorial: Nuclear waste? ‘Not now, not ever’ https://news.google.com/news?ncl=dzfDFrajpSorqvMnAObOMHmyMoOlM&q=nuclear&lr=English&hl=en August 27, 2013 When Congressman Steven Palazzo heard of possible plans for bringing the nation’s nuclear waste to Mississippi, he declared: “Not now, not ever.”
While Palazzo represents only one of four congressional districts in the state, those four words should be the rallying cry of all Mississippians.
As the two-term Republican explained on Tuesday, “Whatever plans are brewing for a possible nuclear waste facility, I think now is the time to send a clear message: no nuclear waste in Mississippi. Not now, not ever. “Nuclear storage wouldn’t even be an issue had the Obama Administration not shuttered plans to complete the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository in Nevada. We’ve already spent $12 billion in taxpayer dollars and nearly two decades of work on the Yucca site, and that should be our focus going forward.”
Indian Point nuclear power plant could be next on the list for closure
N.Y. nuclear plant won’t close, owner says, USA Today, 28 Aug 13 “………Anti-nuclear activists in Vermont applauded Entergy’s decision. The environmental group Riverkeeper, a longtime Indian Point foe, said the New York plant’s own financial pressures likely will lead to its closure.
Those include costs to strengthen its aging infrastructure and meet various state and federal requirements. Indian Point’s 40-year operating licenses expire this month and in 2015, and Entergy has applied for 20-year extensions.
“The economics of this plant are not going to end up any better than Vermont Yankee,” Riverkeeper President Paul Gallay said.
Entergy dismissed Riverkeeper’s assessment.
Indian Point also is facing a $1.52 billion lawsuit filed by another former plant security official, Clifton “Skip” Travis, who alleged that the plant had a lax security culture. Travis’ suit is pending in New York State Supreme Court…….
US West Coast to get Fukushima radioactive plume over next 3 years
Fukushima radioactive plume being tracked toward U.S. West Coast iStock Analyst CANBERRA, Australia, Aug. 28 (UPI) — The radioactive plume from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster will reach U.S. shores within 3 years of the date of the incident, Australian researchers say.
Atmospheric radiation was detected on the U.S. West Coast within days of the incident, but radioactive particles in the ocean plume take considerably longer to travel the same distance…….
Other currents in the open ocean will contribute to this dilution process and direct the radioactive particles to different areas along the U.S. West Coast, they said.
“Although some uncertainties remain around the total amount released and the likely concentrations that would be observed, we have shown unambiguously that the contact with the north-west American coasts will not be identical everywhere,” researcher Vincent Rossi said.
Nuclear industry’s future has never looked worse
2013 Is Shaping Up To Be A Horrible Year For Nuclear Power http://www.businessinsider.com.au/vermont-yankee-nuclear-plant-shutting-down-2013-8 ROB WILE, 27 Aug 13,
The Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, which just two years ago had its licence renewed, will be decommissioned,
plant owner Entergy announced.
This is the fourth nuclear plant in the U.S. to go down this year.
In June, California utility Southern California Edison permanently shuttered the massive San Onofre nuclear plant outside Los Angeles.
A few weeks later, the Obama administration announced it was seeking to cut off construction funding for a plant near Aiken, S.C. designed to make fuel out of retired nuclear bombs.
And last month, Duke Energy said it would not go forward with plans to build a plant in central Florida.
The common thread for each: it has become prohibitively expensive to operate a nuke plant, especially when the cost of natural gas is so cheap.
Here’s the key part from Entergy’s statement on Vermont Yankee:
The decision to close Vermont Yankee in 2014 was based on a number of financial factors, including:
– A natural gas market that has undergone a transformational shift in supply due to the impacts of shale gas, resulting in sustained low natural gas prices and wholesale energy prices.
– A high cost structure for this single unit plant. Since 2002, the company has invested more than $US400 million in the safe and reliable operation of the facility. In addition, the financial impact of cumulative regulation is especially challenging to a small plant in these market conditions.
The company also cited the lack of subsidies going to nuclear compared with other sources in the area.
Also of note is that regulatory uncertainty in the wake of Fukushima is now a permanent of Entergy’s material risk statement (“nuclear plant re licensing, operating and regulatory risks, including any changes resulting from the nuclear crisis in Japan following its catastrophic earthquake and tsunami” it says).
The future of nuclear in the U.S. has never looked more uncertain.
If efficient, capable Japan can’t manage nuclear power, no-one else can, either
I think most of us respect the efficiency and capabilities of the Japanese people. Coming out of WWII, they became a major power again very rapidly. And simply put, they cannot handle nuclear power. This calls into question whether anyone else can either.
Glowing Green with Outrage By Adam Smith OpEdNews Op Eds 8/27/2013 “For 50 years, nuclear power stations have produced three products which only a lunatic could want: bomb-explosive plutonium, lethal radioactive waste and electricity so dear it has to be heavily subsidized. They leave to future generations the task, and most of the cost, of making safe sites that have been polluted half-way to eternity.”
-James Buchan
I suspect I might take some flak for this one but I support the above quote. Now don’t get me wrong. I like electricity. I like that this computer I’m typing on is not simply an inert piece of plastic and metals and whatever else makes up a computer. I like that my lights work and that my stove turns on and my fridge keeps the food from spoiling. I realize that there will necessarily be consequences and side-effects and pollution created in the pursuit of these conveniences. We gotta make power somehow and most people will agree with that sentiment.
But I’m still gonna say that we need to shut down these nuclear plants. Continue reading
Half of China’s new power plants will be renewable energy powered
China to double power capacity by 2030 as renewables rise http://www.watoday.com.au/business/carbon-economy/china-to-double-power-capacity-by-2030-as-renewables-rise-20130828-2sp1k.html August 28, 2013
China’s generation capacity will more than double to 2030, with half of all new plants powered by renewable energy and coal remaining the most important fuel, analysts said.
China may add 1,583 gigawatts of capacity and attract $US1.4 trillion ($1.56 billion) in renewables investment by that year, according to a Bloomberg New Energy Finance report. Coal will still account for more than 50 per cent of power generation, the London-based researcher said.
China, the world’s largest carbon-dioxide emitter, is seeking to meet demand that will probably grow 5 per cent a year while forging a cleaner future after smog in Beijing in June surpassed hazardous levels. The government has boosted solar- power targets as it seeks to curb pollution that spurred unrest about dirty air and water resources.
“It is hard to underestimate the significance of China’s energy consumption growth and its evolving generation mix,” said Michael Liebreich, BNEF’s London-based chief executive officer. “The impacts will reach far beyond China and have major implications for the rest of the world, ranging from coal and gas prices to the cost and market size for renewable energy technologies.”
China will add 88 gigawatts of new power plants — the equivalent of the U.K.’s entire installed capacity — each year to 2030, BNEF said. Renewable plants such as large hydropower stations will account for half of the new capacity, it said.
Declining emissions
Carbon emissions from power generation could start to decline by 2027 as renewables are added, according to the researcher, which analysed China’s power industry based on four scenarios. Outcomes will hinge on factors such as the cost at which China extracts shale gas reserves, water constraints on drilling and power generation and the speed with which environmental policies such as a carbon price are enforced, BNEF said.
While coal-fired capacity will drop as renewables and gas generation rise, the fuel’s share in the power mix will remain highest at 58 per cent in 2030, down from 72 per cent last year, according to BNEF. China consumes half the world’s coal.
“Despite significant progress in renewable energy deployment, coal looks set to remain dominant to 2030,” said Jun Ying, Beijing-based country manager and head of research for China at BNEF. “More support for renewable energy, natural gas and energy efficiency will be needed if China wants to reduce its reliance on coal more quickly.”
1 This Month
petition to oppose the rapid increase of space-military industry threatening Jeju Island and the region.
[Petition by April 19th (KST)] Stop the joint military-Hanwha Systems-Jeju Provincial Government Sea Launch!
World Nuclear Power. Reactors 1951-2026, 75 Years of Nuclear Power.
Interactive Map– https://dv.worldnuclearreport.org/
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/2352741955560
of the week–London Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Tell the Ukrainian Government to Drop Prosecution of Peace Activist Yurii Sheliazhenko
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
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