This is what was said about nuclear power at the Japan Foreign Correspondents' Club and reported in The Japan Times online:
Ex-top U.S. nuclear regulator counsels end to atomic power
by Kazuaki Nagata
Staff Writer
Sep 24, 2013
The ongoing crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 plant is a sign that the world needs to seriously rethink nuclear safety and consider possibly ending its dependence on atomic power, the former chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Tuesday in Tokyo.
“When you look at what happened around the Fukushima Daiichi (No. 1) area, it’s simply unacceptable,” as tens of thousands of people have been unable to return to their homes due to radioactive contamination, said Gregory Jaczko, who served as the top U.S. nuclear regulatory official for nearly three years until July 2012.
Given that Japan is extremely prone to earthquakes and tsunami, among other disasters, using nuclear power poses serious risks unless some kind of new technology is created to completely eliminate the possibility of severe accidents, Jaczko told reporters at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan.
However, Jaczko also said that creating such zero-risk technology is next to impossible.
Instead, Jaczko said, he hopes Japan pours its resources and energy into coming up with ways to function without atomic power.
“I think the Japanese people have the ability to do that,” he said.
ラベル nuclear electricity generation の投稿を表示しています。 すべての投稿を表示
ラベル nuclear electricity generation の投稿を表示しています。 すべての投稿を表示
2013年9月25日水曜日
2012年4月26日木曜日
Ask a Housewife
Would you build your home directly over an active fault, if you knew for certain that the fault was there and that is was active? I don't think so. What are these power plant makers thinking?!
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Tsuruga plant may sit atop active fault
Reactors' fate in limbo after NISA reverses safety assessment
By MIZUHO AOKI
Staff writer
Reversing an earlier assessment, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency admitted an active and dangerous fault may be lurking directly beneath one of the two reactors of the Tsuruga nuclear plant in Fukui Prefecture.
The surprising judgement by NISA, announced Tuesday night, would force Japan Atomic Power Co. to decommission the plant's reactor 2 if the fault is confirmed as active.
NISA would also find it difficult to restart reactor 1. Both reactors were shut down for regular checks, but have not been restarted in light of the meltdown crisis that hit the Fukushima No. 1 plant in March 2011. In light of the Fukushima crisis, all reactors are subject to stress tests to gauge their disaster survivability.
The government's quake safety standards do not allow any nuclear reactor to be built right above an active fault or one that could move when a nearby fault causes an earthquake.
(from The Japan Times Online edition)
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Tsuruga plant may sit atop active fault
Reactors' fate in limbo after NISA reverses safety assessment
By MIZUHO AOKI
Staff writer
Reversing an earlier assessment, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency admitted an active and dangerous fault may be lurking directly beneath one of the two reactors of the Tsuruga nuclear plant in Fukui Prefecture.
The surprising judgement by NISA, announced Tuesday night, would force Japan Atomic Power Co. to decommission the plant's reactor 2 if the fault is confirmed as active.
NISA would also find it difficult to restart reactor 1. Both reactors were shut down for regular checks, but have not been restarted in light of the meltdown crisis that hit the Fukushima No. 1 plant in March 2011. In light of the Fukushima crisis, all reactors are subject to stress tests to gauge their disaster survivability.
The government's quake safety standards do not allow any nuclear reactor to be built right above an active fault or one that could move when a nearby fault causes an earthquake.
(from The Japan Times Online edition)
2011年10月16日日曜日
Protest? Maybe a Little...
A few hundred people turned out on Saturday, mainly to protest nuclear power generation in the wake of the March tsunami and earthquake. Here's what a Japan Times editorial had to say about copying the "occupy Wall Street" protest:
So, why don't Japanese protest?
The answer is, they are, a little. Since the Fukushima nuclear crisis, the public has been holding small rallies and marches in front of the Diet building and the Kasumigaseki bureaucratic offices on an almost daily basis. An anti-nuclear rally in mid-September drew 30,000 to 60,000 people, depending on whose figures you believe. That scale of protest has not been seen in Japan since the student protests of the 1960s. The anti-nuclear sentiment may well spill over to other issues.
Yet, there is little sign of a larger movement to occupy anywhere in Japan. Part of the reason is CEO pay is not as outrageously high, nor as flaunted, as in America. Nor has the burden of housing loans devastated Japanese homeowners as the subprime housing loan crisis did American homeowners. And despite job-hunting pressures, college graduates in Japan are not strapped with an average of $22,900 in college loan debt like American graduates. Still, the current protests in New York have latched onto problems more entrenched and widespread than in the past — problems that provoke just as much resentment in Japan as elsewhere.
The belief that the financial system remains essentially sound but needs a touch-up here and there is still stronger in Japan than in other countries. Most workers, and most students looking for work, want stability and security. Instead, they have employment conditions rife with stress and competition, increasingly subject to the whims of economic pressures. It may take time to awaken to the understanding that gaman, toughing it out, may no longer be a constructive strategy.
So, why don't Japanese protest?
The answer is, they are, a little. Since the Fukushima nuclear crisis, the public has been holding small rallies and marches in front of the Diet building and the Kasumigaseki bureaucratic offices on an almost daily basis. An anti-nuclear rally in mid-September drew 30,000 to 60,000 people, depending on whose figures you believe. That scale of protest has not been seen in Japan since the student protests of the 1960s. The anti-nuclear sentiment may well spill over to other issues.
Yet, there is little sign of a larger movement to occupy anywhere in Japan. Part of the reason is CEO pay is not as outrageously high, nor as flaunted, as in America. Nor has the burden of housing loans devastated Japanese homeowners as the subprime housing loan crisis did American homeowners. And despite job-hunting pressures, college graduates in Japan are not strapped with an average of $22,900 in college loan debt like American graduates. Still, the current protests in New York have latched onto problems more entrenched and widespread than in the past — problems that provoke just as much resentment in Japan as elsewhere.
The belief that the financial system remains essentially sound but needs a touch-up here and there is still stronger in Japan than in other countries. Most workers, and most students looking for work, want stability and security. Instead, they have employment conditions rife with stress and competition, increasingly subject to the whims of economic pressures. It may take time to awaken to the understanding that gaman, toughing it out, may no longer be a constructive strategy.
2011年10月2日日曜日
"Wave" of the Future
Here's good news about renewable energy from Kyodo News. Imagine the power of 36 nuclear reactors, without any nuclear risk! What could be better for a country surrounded by the sea?
Wave power excites as next energy source
Kyodo
With fear over nuclear power running high and concerns mounting over global warming, ocean waves have been attracting attention as a source of natural energy.
Researchers have estimated that ocean waves could produce around the same amount of electricity for Japan as 36 nuclear reactors, but the development costs would be high and there are still many technological challenges before putting waves into practical use alongside solar power.
Wave power excites as next energy source
Kyodo
With fear over nuclear power running high and concerns mounting over global warming, ocean waves have been attracting attention as a source of natural energy.
Researchers have estimated that ocean waves could produce around the same amount of electricity for Japan as 36 nuclear reactors, but the development costs would be high and there are still many technological challenges before putting waves into practical use alongside solar power.
2011年7月31日日曜日
Thanks a Bunch, Ike! (2)
Here's what Kyodo news adds to the nuclear power story:
Monday, July 25, 2011
Declassified papers show U.S. promoted atomic power in Japan
Kyodo
The United States used atomic power cooperation with Japan in the 1950s to ease the Japanese public's aversion to nuclear weapons and remedy their "ignorance" about such energy, declassified U.S. papers showed Saturday.
The U.S. move, which eventually led the world's only country to have suffered atomic bombing to embrace nuclear power, was initially devised to counter the antinuclear sentiment among the Japanese public after a tuna boat, the Fukuryu Maru No. 5, was exposed to radioactivity from a 1954 U.S. hydrogen bomb test while operating at Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific.
The documents, collected by Kyodo News at the U.S. National Archives, show that President Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration, concerned about Japan's possible exit from the Western camp, accelerated cooperation with Japan in atomic energy technology to contain antinuclear and anti-U.S. sentiment among the Japanese.
In a memorandum to U.S. Secretary of State John Dulles, dated May 26, 1954, Eisenhower said he was "concerned about the Japanese situation," and asked Dulles to help "have a better idea of what it is now possible for us to do to further our interests in Japan."
Monday, July 25, 2011
Declassified papers show U.S. promoted atomic power in Japan
Kyodo
The United States used atomic power cooperation with Japan in the 1950s to ease the Japanese public's aversion to nuclear weapons and remedy their "ignorance" about such energy, declassified U.S. papers showed Saturday.
The U.S. move, which eventually led the world's only country to have suffered atomic bombing to embrace nuclear power, was initially devised to counter the antinuclear sentiment among the Japanese public after a tuna boat, the Fukuryu Maru No. 5, was exposed to radioactivity from a 1954 U.S. hydrogen bomb test while operating at Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific.
The documents, collected by Kyodo News at the U.S. National Archives, show that President Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration, concerned about Japan's possible exit from the Western camp, accelerated cooperation with Japan in atomic energy technology to contain antinuclear and anti-U.S. sentiment among the Japanese.
In a memorandum to U.S. Secretary of State John Dulles, dated May 26, 1954, Eisenhower said he was "concerned about the Japanese situation," and asked Dulles to help "have a better idea of what it is now possible for us to do to further our interests in Japan."
Thanks a Bunch, Ike!
Key players got nuclear ball rolling
Cash paved the way even amid safety doubts on high, ineptitude
By ERIC JOHNSTON
Staff writer (The Japan Times)
OSAKA — How did earthquake-prone Japan, where two atomic bombs were dropped at the end of World War II creating a strong antinuclear weapons culture, come to embrace nuclear power just a few decades later?
Therein lies a tale whose main characters include two former prime ministers, a suspected war criminal, CIA agent and postwar media baron, and "Japan's Charles Lindbergh," a flamboyant pilot who encouraged people to search for uranium in their backyards.
It also involves thousands of politicians, bureaucrats, engineers and the pronuclear media collectively known as Japan's "nuclear power village."
Cash paved the way even amid safety doubts on high, ineptitude
By ERIC JOHNSTON
Staff writer (The Japan Times)
OSAKA — How did earthquake-prone Japan, where two atomic bombs were dropped at the end of World War II creating a strong antinuclear weapons culture, come to embrace nuclear power just a few decades later?
Therein lies a tale whose main characters include two former prime ministers, a suspected war criminal, CIA agent and postwar media baron, and "Japan's Charles Lindbergh," a flamboyant pilot who encouraged people to search for uranium in their backyards.
It also involves thousands of politicians, bureaucrats, engineers and the pronuclear media collectively known as Japan's "nuclear power village."
2011年6月29日水曜日
Was it Worth It?
This is what Kyodo news reports about the profitability of nuclear electrical generation:
"Tokyo Electric Power Co. faces a potential damages bill exceeding its profits from nuclear power generation over a 38-year period beginning in 1970, the year it opened the crisis-hit Fukushima No. 1 plant, according to a recent study.
Kenichi Oshima, an environmental economist and professor at Kyoto-based Ritsumeikan University, estimates that Tepco in that time earned just less than ¥4 trillion, possibly equal to or less than the amount it must pay farmers, fishermen, evacuees and others affected by the nuclear crisis.
Oshima also found that the cost of nuclear power generation is higher in Japan than that of hydraulic and thermal power, contrary to a widely disseminated government estimate."
"Tokyo Electric Power Co. faces a potential damages bill exceeding its profits from nuclear power generation over a 38-year period beginning in 1970, the year it opened the crisis-hit Fukushima No. 1 plant, according to a recent study.
Kenichi Oshima, an environmental economist and professor at Kyoto-based Ritsumeikan University, estimates that Tepco in that time earned just less than ¥4 trillion, possibly equal to or less than the amount it must pay farmers, fishermen, evacuees and others affected by the nuclear crisis.
Oshima also found that the cost of nuclear power generation is higher in Japan than that of hydraulic and thermal power, contrary to a widely disseminated government estimate."
2011年6月21日火曜日
Can you say NIMBY?
The Ministry of Industry has one opinion about restarting nuclear reactors. This is what Mr. Kaieda said, as reported in The Japan Times online edition: Industry minister Banri Kaieda on Saturday called for restarting nuclear reactors currently suspended to meet summertime electricity demand, saying immediate countermeasures for severe accidents have been taken "appropriately" at the nation's power plants.
The people who live close to the nuclear reactors have a different opinion: not in my backyard.
According to safety agreements signed with power plant operators, utilities need the consent of local governments before reactors can be restarted.
The people who live close to the nuclear reactors have a different opinion: not in my backyard.
According to safety agreements signed with power plant operators, utilities need the consent of local governments before reactors can be restarted.
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