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In KING 5 TV's report Tuesday on high levels of radiation detected in Northwest rainwater, the United States government is accused of continuing to fail to tell the public about Fukushima dangerous radiation blanketing parts of the United States, a coverup that led grassroots projects and independent reporters to gather and present data for public well-being. University of California Nuclear Engineering Department Forum began asking on Tuesday for people in the Los Angles area to come forward with any dangerous radiation readings that may have been detected after local peaches were highly radioactive

UPDATE: July 13, 2011, 11:11pm: The peaches reported on July 12 were bought at "a local market," not Santa Monica Market, according to Environews on Wednesday. An investigation about the source of the peaches is underway.   Right to health denied when United States government hides high levels of Fukushima radiation  In KING 5 TV's report Tuesday on high levels of radiation detected in Northwest rainwater , the United States   government is accused of continuing to fail to tell the public about Fukushima dangerous radiation blanketing parts of the United States , a coverup that led grassroots projects and independent reporters to gather and present data for public well-being. University of California Nuclear Engineering Department Forum   began asking on Tuesday for people in the Los Angles area   to come forward with any dangerous radiation readings that may have been detected after local peaches were highly radioactive . "Our government said no health levels, no health levels were exceeded, when in fact, the rain water in the Northwest is reaching levels 130 times the drinking water standards," said Gerry Pollet from a non-government organization watchdog, Heart of America Northwest.

UPDATE: July 13, 2011, 11:11pm: The peaches reported on July 12 were bought at "a local market," not Santa Monica Market, according to Environews on Wednesday. An investigation about the source of the peaches is underway.   Right to health denied when United States government hides high levels of Fukushima radiation   In KING 5 TV's report Tuesday on high levels of radiation detected in Northwest rainwater , the United States   government is accused of continuing to fail to tell the public about Fukushima dangerous radiation blanketing parts of the United States , a coverup that led grassroots projects and independent reporters to gather and present data for public well-being. University of California Nuclear Engineering Department Forum   began asking on Tuesday for people in the Los Angles area   to come forward with any dangerous radiation readings that may have been detected after local peaches were highly radioactive . "Our government said no health levels, no health levels were exceeded, when in fact, the rain water in the Northwest is reaching levels 130 times the drinking water standards," said Gerry Pollet from a non-government organization watchdog, Heart of America Northwest. A call from the University of California Nuclear Engineering Department Forum for public radiation readings in Los Angeles came after a finding on Friday, July 8th, 2011 was reported that two peaches from the popular Santa Monica local market were confirmed to have sustained radiation levels of 81 CPMs, or greater

The United States secretly sought Japan's support in 1972 to enable it to dump decommissioned nuclear reactors into the world's oceans under the London Convention, an international treaty being drawn up at the time. Countries working on the wording of the pact wanted to specifically prohibit the dumping of radioactive waste at sea.

But Washington wanted to incorporate an exceptional clause in the case of decommissioned nuclear reactors. These facts came to light in diplomatic records held by the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo and released at the request of The Asahi Shimbun.

Japan did not offer a clear answer when it was approached by the United States on the issue. Eventually, however, Washington succeeded in incorporating the clause into the treaty. In 1972, the United States was already dismantling early-stage nuclear reactors that had been used for testing. However, the disposal method of large-scale nuclear reactors for commercial purposes had not been decided although it was an issue that could not be shelved indefinitely.

After 34 years, the United States is expected to resume construction of nuclear reactors by the end of the year, and Toshiba will export turbine equipment for the reactors to the U.S. early next month, it was learned Saturday. According to sources, construction will begin by year-end on the Nos. 3 and 4 reactors of the Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant in Georgia Georgia Country Georgia /ˈdʒɔrdʒə/ (Georgian: საქართველო, sak’art’velo IPA: [sɑkʰɑrtʰvɛlɔ] ( listen)) is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern E... View full Dossier Latest news and the Nos. 2 and 3 reactors of the Virgil C. Summer Nuclear Generating Station in South Carolina South Carolina U.S. state South Carolina /ˌsaʊθ kærəˈlaɪnə/ is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally pa... View full Dossier Latest news .

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Nuclear Regulatory Commission Government Agency (United States of America) The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is an independent agency of the United States government that was established by the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 from the United States Atomic Energy C... View full Dossier Latest news is expected to shortly approve the construction and operation of the reactors, which have been designed by Westinghouse, a subsidiary of Toshiba. The decision to resume construction of reactors is expected to pave the way for Japan Japan Country Japan /dʒəˈpæn/ (Japanese: 日本 Nihon or Nippon; formally 日本国  Nippon-koku or Nihon-koku, literally, the State of Japan) is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the... View full Dossier Latest news to export related equipment to the United States, observers said.

The reactors to be constructed are of the AP1000 type

the nuclear program became the main subject of the first European tourney of Foreign Minister Ali Akber Salehi.

As part of the tourney, Salehi visited the capital of Slovenia Ljubljana and also Vienna, where he talked to his Austrian counterpart Michael Spindelegger and general director of the International Atomic Energy Agency Yukiya Amano. At the press conference in Ljubljana and Vienna, the head of the Iranian delegation made it clear that Iran is committed to the Nuclear Weapon Nonproliferation Treaty but will never yield its legal rights for implementation of the peaceful nuclear program

It is not a secret that most economic problems and deprivations of the population of the country are caused by sanctions against our state over the development of nuclear industry. The paradox is that we have already got used to the sanctions, which had been place against us for already 21 years.

Collectively, Texas eats more energy than any other state, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. We’re fifth in the country when it comes to our per-capita energy intake — about 532 million British Thermal Units per year. A British Thermal Unit, or Btu, is like a little “bite” of energy. Imagine a wooden match burning and you’ve got a Btu on a stick. Of course, the consumption is with reason. Texas, home to a quarter of the U.S. domestic oil reserves, is also bulging with the second-highest population and a serious petrochemical industry. In recent years, we managed to turn ourselves into the country’s top producer of wind energy. Despite all the chest-thumping that goes on in these parts about those West Texas wind farms (hoist that foam finger!), we are still among the worst in how we use that energy. Though not technically “Southern,” Texans guzzle energy like true rednecks. Each of our homes use, on average, about 14,400 kilowatt hours per year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. It doesn’t all have to do with the A/C, either. Arizonans, generally agreed to be sharing the heat, typically use about 12,000 kWh a year; New Mexicans cruise in at an annual 7,200 kWh. Don’t even get me started on California’s mere 6,000 kWh/year figure.

Let’s break down that kilowatt-hour thing. A watt is the energy of one candle burning down. (You didn’t put those matches away, did you?) A kilowatt is a thousand burnin’ candles. And a kilowatt hour? I think you can take it from there. We’re wide about the middle in Bexar, too. The average CPS customer used 1,538 kilowatt hours this June when the state average was 1,149 kWh, according to ERCOT. Compare that with Austin residents’ 1,175 kWh and San Marcos residents’ 1,130 kWh, and you start to see something is wrong. So, we’re wasteful. So what? For one, we can’t afford to be. Maybe back when James Dean was lusting under a fountain of crude we had if not reason, an excuse. But in the 1990s Texas became a net importer of energy for the first time. It’s become a habit, putting us behind the curve when it comes to preparing for that tightening energy crush. We all know what happens when growing demand meets an increasingly scarce resource … costs go up. As the pressure drop hits San Anto, there are exactly two ways forward. One is to build another massively expensive power plant. The other is to transform the whole frickin’ city into a de-facto power plant, where energy is used as efficiently as possible and blackouts simply don’t occur.

Consider, South Texas Project Plants 1&2, which send us almost 40 percent of our power, were supposed to cost $974 million. The final cost on that pair ended up at $5.5 billion. If the planned STP expansion follows the same inflationary trajectory, the price tag would wind up over $30 billion. Applications for the Matagorda County plants were first filed with the Atomic Energy Commission in 1974. Building began two years later. However, in 1983 there was still no plant, and Austin, a minority partner in the project, sued Houston Power & Lighting for mismanagement in an attempt to get out of the deal. (Though they tried to sell their share several years ago, the city of Austin remains a 16-percent partner, though they have chosen not to commit to current expansion plans).

Dominion Virginia Power thinks it will be ready to restart its North Anna 1 nuclear reactor in two weeks and the North Anna 2 by mid-October, if federal regulators approve. But the Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff members indicated Thursday that making sure the reactors, which were shut down by the Aug. 23 earthquake nearby, are safe to begin operating again might take longer. The staff said at the meeting with utility officials that it had plenty of questions as the agency looks into the Louisa County power station's design to resist seismic damage.

Preliminary information from the U.S. Geological Survey indicates that the earthquake produced a shaking force in the region twice as strong as the North Anna plant was designed to handle, the NRC said. Dominion Virginia Power acknowledges that the force from the earthquake exceeded the plant's theoretical design strength. The 5.8-magnitude earthquake caused only minor damage that did not affect nuclear safety, the company said. The quake also caused 25 of the 115-ton steel casks storing highly radioactive used fuel rods to shift as much as 4½ inches out of position on their concrete storage pad.

No U.S. nuclear power plant has been tripped off-line by an earthquake before, the NRC said.

95% disagree with “Beyond Nuclear”. Let’s make it 99% by Rod Adams on October 14, 2011 in Antinuclear activist , Politics of Nuclear Energy , Unreliables , Wind energy Share0 One of the more powerful concepts that I studied in college was called “groupthink.” The curriculum developers in the history department at the US Naval Academy thought it was important for people in training to become leaders in the US Navy learn to seek counsel and advice from as broad a range of sources as possible. We were taught how to avoid the kind of bad decision making that can result by surrounding oneself with yes-men or fellow travelers. The case study I remember most was the ill fated Bay of Pigs invasion where virtually the entire Kennedy Administration cabinet thought that it would be a cakewalk . If Patricia Miller had bothered to do the fact-checking required by journalistic integrity she would have come across this video showing 30 feet of water above the fuel at Fukushima with all of the fuel bundles exactly where they’re supposed to be. Aside: Don’t we live in an amazing world? I just typed “Bay of Pigs groupthink” into my browser search box and instantly hit on exactly the link I needed to support the statement above. It even cites the book we used when I was a plebe in 1977, more than 33 years ago. End Aside. Not everyone, however, has the benefit of early leadership lessons about the danger of believing that a small group of likeminded people can provide actionable advice. Some of the people who are most likely to be victims of groupthink are those who adamantly oppose the continued safe operation of emission-free nuclear power plants. The writers who exclusively quote members of that tiny community have also fallen into the groupthink trap.   On October 8, 2011, the Berkeley Patch, a New Jersey based journal that regularly posts negative stories about Oyster Creek, featured an article titled Petitioners to NRC: Shut Down All Fukushima-Like Nuclear Plants . Here is a snapshot of the masthead, the headline and the lede. The article is a diatribe that quotes people on the short list of frequently quoted antinuclear activists including Paul Gunter, Michael Mariotte, Kevin Kamps, Deb Katz and Dale Bridenbaugh. The author faithfully reproduces some of their best attempts to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt using untruths about the actual events at Fukushima. For example, the article uses the following example of how antinuclear activists are still trying to spread the myth that the used fuel pools at Fukushima caught fire. Oyster Creek – the oldest nuclear plant in the United States – has generated over 700 tons of high-level radioactive waste, Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuc

95% disagree with “Beyond Nuclear”. Let’s make it 99% by Rod Adams on October 14, 2011 in Antinuclear activist, Politics of Nuclear Energy, Unreliables, Wind energy Share0 One of the more powerful concepts that I studied in college was called “groupthink.” The curriculum developers in the history department at the US Naval Academy thought it was important for people in training to become leaders in the US Navy learn to seek counsel and advice from as broad a range of sources as possible. We were taught how to avoid the kind of bad decision making that can result by surrounding oneself with yes-men or fellow travelers. The case study I remember most was the ill fated Bay of Pigs invasion where virtually the entire Kennedy Administration cabinet thought that it would be a cakewalk. If Patricia Miller had bothered to do the fact-checking required by journalistic integrity she would have come across this video showing 30 feet of water above the fuel at Fukushima with all of the fuel bundles exactly where they’re supposed to be.Aside: Don’t we live in an amazing world? I just typed “Bay of Pigs groupthink” into my browser search box and instantly hit on exactly the link I needed to support the statement above. It even cites the book we used when I was a plebe in 1977, more than 33 years ago. End Aside. Not everyone, however, has the benefit of early leadership lessons about the danger of believing that a small group of likeminded people can provide actionable advice. Some of the people who are most likely to be victims of groupthink are those who adamantly oppose the continued safe operation of emission-free nuclear power plants. The writers who exclusively quote members of that tiny community have also fallen into the groupthink trap.  On October 8, 2011, the Berkeley Patch, a New Jersey based journal that regularly posts negative stories about Oyster Creek, featured an article titled Petitioners to NRC: Shut Down All Fukushima-Like Nuclear Plants . Here is a snapshot of the masthead, the headline and the lede. The article is a diatribe that quotes people on the short list of frequently quoted antinuclear activists including Paul Gunter, Michael Mariotte, Kevin Kamps, Deb Katz and Dale Bridenbaugh. The author faithfully reproduces some of their best attempts to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt using untruths about the actual events at Fukushima. For example, the article uses the following example of how antinuclear activists are still trying to spread the myth that the used fuel pools at Fukushima caught fire. Oyster Creek – the oldest nuclear plant in the United States – has generated over 700 tons of high-level radioactive waste, Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear said. “Granted that some of that has been moved into dry cast storage, but the pool remains full to its capacity,” Kamps said. “And this was a re-rack capacity. Much later in terms of quantity of high level radioactive waste than it was originally designed for.” This represents 125 million curies of radioactive cesium-137 and the NRC has reported that up to 100 percent of the hazardous material could be released from a pool fire, Kamps said. “I would like to point out that Fukushima Daiichi units one, two, three and four combined in terms of the inventory of high level radioactive waste in their storage pools does not match some of these reactors I mentioned in terms of how much waste is in these pools,” Kamps said. “So the risks are greater here for boil downs and the consequences of a radioactive fire in these pools.” Fortunately, the people who are not a part of the antinuclear community are finally beginning to recognize their own strength and to realize that they do not have to remain silent while the lies are being spread. Here is how a knowledgable commenter responded to the above segment of the article: If Patricia Miller had bothered to do the fact-checking required by journalistic integrity she would have come across this video showing 30 feet of water above the fuel at Fukushima with all of the fuel bundles exactly where they’re supposed to be.

On October 8, 2011, the Berkeley Patch, a New Jersey based journal that regularly posts negative stories about Oyster Creek, featured an article titled Petitioners to NRC: Shut Down All Fukushima-Like Nuclear Plants. Here is a snapshot of the masthead, the headline and the lede. The article is a diatribe that quotes people on the short list of frequently quoted antinuclear activists including Paul Gunter, Michael Mariotte, Kevin Kamps, Deb Katz and Dale Bridenbaugh. The author faithfully reproduces some of their best attempts to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt using untruths about the actual events at Fukushima. For example, the article uses the following example of how antinuclear activists are still trying to spread the myth that the used fuel pools at Fukushima caught fire. Oyster Creek – the oldest nuclear plant in the United States – has generated over 700 tons of high-level radioactive waste, Kevin Kamps of Beyond Nuclear said. “Granted that some of that has been moved into dry cast storage, but the pool remains full to its capacity,” Kamps said. “And this was a re-rack capacity. Much later in terms of quantity of high level radioactive waste than it was originally designed for.” This represents 125 million curies of radioactive cesium-137 and the NRC has reported that up to 100 percent of the hazardous material could be released from a pool fire, Kamps said. “I would like to point out that Fukushima Daiichi units one, two, three and four combined in terms of the inventory of high level radioactive waste in their storage pools does not match some of these reactors I mentioned in terms of how much waste is in these pools,” Kamps said. “So the risks are greater here for boil downs and the consequences of a radioactive fire in these pools.”

Watts Bar 2, the US's newest nuclear power plant, is being built in Tennessee and is expected to go online next year. It has a history of safety concerns that goes back decades. Nevertheless, many local people support nuclear power and are welcoming the reactor with open arms.

Mansour Guity was the chief witness against the American nuclear industry. He crippled entire power plants almost single-handedly. But now the 30-year war he has been waging is coming to an end. They are now putting the finishing touches on the second reactor at the Watts Bar Nuclear Generating Station in the Tennessee River valley, less than 50 kilometers (31 miles) from Guity's house. After construction was stopped more than two decades ago and resumed in 2007, the reactor is now expected to go online next year. Mansour Guity isn't doing too well at the moment.

In the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, he gradually discovered that so many shortcuts were taken, and some of the work was so shoddy, during the construction of the nuclear plants along the Tennessee River that it made a mockery of any notion of nuclear safety. Guity was a nuclear engineer at the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), a large, long-established government-owned company that operates the Browns Ferry, Sequoyah, Bellefonte and Watts Bar nuclear power plants. When the plants were built, there was talk of thousands of clear violations of plans and building regulations, with the most serious infractions occurring at Watts Bar.

Without much going on recently that hasn’t been covered by other blog posts, I’d like to explore a topic not specifically tied to nuclear power or to activities currently going on in Washington, D.C. It involves an idea I have about a possible alternative means of having the electricity market account for the public health and environmental costs of various energy sources, and encouraging the development and use of cleaner sources (including nuclear) without requiring legislation. Given the failure of Congress to take action on global warming, as well as environmental issues in general, non-legislative approaches to accomplishing environmental goals may be necessary. The Problem

One may say that the best response would be to significantly tighten pollution regulations, perhaps to the point where no sources have significant external costs. There are problems with this approach, however, above and beyond the fact that the energy industry has (and will?) successfully blocked the legislation that would be required. Significant tightening of regulations raises issues such as how expensive compliance will be, and whether or not viable alternative (cleaner) sources would be available. The beauty of simply placing a cost (or tax) on pollution that reflects its costs to public health and the environment is that those issues need not be addressed. The market just decides between sources based on the true, overall cost of each, resulting in the minimum overall (economic + environmental) cost-generation portfolio

The above reasoning is what led to policies like cap-and-trade or a CO2 emissions tax being proposed as a solution for the global warming problem. This has not flown politically, however. Policies that attempt to have external costs included in the market cost of energy have been labeled a “tax increase.” This is particularly true given that the associated pollution taxes (or emissions credit costs) would have largely gone to the government.

Global growth in the civilian nuclear energy sector represents an annual trade market estimated at $500 billion to $740 billion over the next 10 years.  As new nations consider nuclear energy technology to produce low-carbon electricity, the United States should take a leadership role that will enhance the safety and nuclear nonproliferation regimes globally, while creating tens of thousands of new American jobs. The United States is the world leader in safe and efficient operation of nuclear power plants, with an average capacity factor of 90 percent or higher in each of the past 10 years.  When ranked by 36-month unit capability factor, the United States has the top three best performing nuclear reactors in the world, seven of the top 10, and 16 of the top 20.  Nuclear energy facilities produce electricity in 31 states and have attained a four-fold improvement in safety during the past 20 years.  This underpinning in safety and reliability is one reason why America generates more electricity from nuclear energy than the next two largest nuclear programs combined.

Bilateral agreements on nuclear energy cooperation are vital to advancing global nonproliferation and safety goals as well as America’s interests in global nuclear energy trade.  A 123 agreement, named after section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act, establishes an accord for cooperation as a prerequisite for nuclear energy trade between the United States and other nations.  The agreement contains valuable nonproliferation controls and commitments.  One of the most significant elements of U.S. agreements is approval granted by our government as to how other countries process uranium fuel after it is used in a commercial reactor.  Under U.S. agreements, these nations cannot reprocess the fuel—chemically separating the uranium and plutonium—without U.S. notification and consent to do so.  This is a significant safeguard against the potential misuse of low-enriched uranium from the commercial sector.

Several public policy considerations must be weighed in evaluating the impact of 123 agreements, including those related to national security, economic development, energy production, and environmental protection. In the competitive global marketplace for commercial nuclear technology, inconsistent bilateral agreements will have unintended consequences for U.S. suppliers.  Imposing overly restrictive commercial restrictions or conditions in U.S. 123 agreements that are not matched by other nations’ bilateral agreements may significantly bias the country against selecting U.S.-based suppliers, even if the agreements don’t have malicious intentions. 

Nuclear power proponents claim: It has low carbon emissions. It is the peaceful face of the atom and proliferation problems are manageable. It is compact -- so little uranium, so much energy. Unlike solar and wind, it is 24/7 electricity. It reduces dependence on oil. Let's examine each argument.

1. Climate. Nuclear energy has low carbon emissions. But the United States doesn't lack low-carbon energy sources: The potential of wind energy alone is about nine times total US electricity generation. Solar energy is even more plentiful. Time and money to address climate change are in short supply, not low carbon dioxide sources. Instead of the two large reactors the United States would require every three months to significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions, all the breathless pronouncements from nuclear advocates are only yielding two reactors every five years -- if that. Even federal loan guarantees have not given this renaissance momentum. Wall Street won't fund them. (Can nuclear power even be called a commercial technology if it can't raise money on Wall Street?) Today, wind energy is far cheaper and faster than nuclear. Simply put: Nuclear fares poorly on two crucial criteria -- time and money.

2. Proliferation. President Eisenhower spoke of "Atoms for Peace" at the United Nations in 1953; he thought it would be too depressing only to mention the horrors of thermonuclear weapons. It was just a fig leaf to mask the bomb: Much of the interest in nuclear power is mainly a cover for acquiring bomb-making know-how. To make a real dent in carbon dioxide emissions, about 3,000 large reactors would have to be built worldwide in the next 40 years -- creating enough plutonium annually to create 90,000 bombs, if separated. Two or three commercial uranium enrichment plants would also be needed yearly -- and it has only taken one, Iran's, to give the world a nuclear security headache.

As we continue to learn about and understand the implications of the Fukushima event, here are five realities that are sometimes lost in the debate:Eliminating nuclear energy is not realistic if we want to maintain our quality of life.

omes from nuclear energy, while about 68 percent comes from greenhouse gas-emitting fossil fuels like coal. Nuclear plants continuously produce large amounts of electricity and make up about 70 percent of America's emissions-free generation. Wind and solar make up 8 percent and .01 percent, respectively. Solar, wind and nuclear energy all play a valuable role in our energy mix, but currently, nuclear plants are the only large sources of emissions-free generation that can provide the amount of power we need to keep our homes and businesses running 24 hours per day.Nuclear energy also helps keep electricity costs low. Including the costs of operations, maintenance and fuel, nuclear energy has the lowest production cost of any major energy source. For the past 15 years, the cost of nuclear fuel has remained steadily lower than oil, natural gas and even coal. Of course, these savings, and the benefits of being non-emitting, are realized by utility customers.

Day-to-day activities present a greater health threat than a local nuclear plant.The anti-nuclear activists often invoke perceived "dangers" associated with nuclear plants. A review of the facts, however, tells a vastly different story regarding actual risk.In 2010, almost 34,000 people in the United States died in auto accidents. That's about one death every 15 minutes. In the past 60 years, while nuclear energy supplied American electricity, annual fatalities from aircraft crashes ranged from a high of 3,214 deaths in 1972 to a low of 771 deaths in 2004.

As the full cost of the Fukushima nuclear accident continues to climb—Japanese officials now peg it at $64 billion or more—nuclear power’s future is literally headed south. Developed countries are slowing or shuttering their nuclear-power programs, while states to their south, in the world’s hotspots (think the Middle East and Far East), are pushing to build reactors of their own. Normally, this would lead to even more of a focus on nuclear safety and nonproliferation. Yet, given how nuclear-reactor sales have imploded in the world’s advanced economies, both these points have been trumped by nuclear supplier states’ desires to corner what reactor markets remain.

This spring, Germany permanently shut down eight of its reactors and pledged to shutter the rest by 2022. Shortly thereafter, the Italians voted overwhelmingly to keep their country nonnuclear. Switzerland and Spain followed suit, banning the construction of any new reactors. Then Japan’s prime minister killed his country’s plans to expand its reactor fleet, pledging to reduce Japan’s reliance on nuclear power dramatically. Taiwan’s president did the same. Now Mexico is sidelining construction of 10 reactors in favor of developing natural-gas-fired plants, and Belgium is toying with phasing its nuclear plants out, perhaps as early as 2015.

China—nuclear power’s largest prospective market—suspended approvals of new reactor construction while conducting a lengthy nuclear-safety review. Chinese nuclear-capacity projections for the year 2020 subsequently tumbled by as much as 30 percent. A key bottleneck is the lack of trained nuclear technicians: to support China’s stated nuclear-capacity objectives, Beijing needs to graduate 6,000 nuclear experts a year. Instead, its schools are barely generating 600.

SciDev.Net reporters from around the world tell us which countries are set on developing nuclear energy despite the Fukushima accident. The quest for energy independence, rising power needs and a desire for political weight all mean that few developing countries with nuclear ambitions have abandoned them in the light of the Fukushima accident. Jordan's planned nuclear plant is part of a strategy to deal with acute water and energy shortages.

The Jordan Atomic Energy Commission (JAEC) wants Jordan to get 60 per cent of its energy from nuclear by 2035. Currently, obtaining energy from neighbouring Arab countries costs Jordan about a fifth of its gross domestic product. The country is also one of the world's most water-poor nations. Jordan plans to desalinate sea water from the Gulf of Aqaba to the south, then pump it to population centres in Amman, Irbid, and Zarqa, using its nuclear-derived energy. After the Fukushima disaster, Jordan started re-evaluating safety procedures for its nuclear reactor, scheduled to begin construction in 2013. The country also considered more safety procedures for construction and in ongoing geological and environmental investigations.

The government would not reverse its decision to build nuclear reactors in Jordan because of the Fukushima disaster," says Abdel-Halim Wreikat, vice Chairman of the JAEC. "Our plant type is a third-generation pressurised water reactor, and it is safer than the Fukushima boiling water reactor." Wreikat argues that "the nuclear option for Jordan at the moment is better than renewable energy options such as solar and wind, as they are still of high cost." But some Jordanian researchers disagree. "The cost of electricity generated from solar plants comes down each year by about five per cent, while the cost of producing electricity from nuclear power is rising year after year," says Ahmed Al-Salaymeh, director of the Energy Centre at the University of Jordan. He called for more economic feasibility studies of the nuclear option.

Federal regulators have been working closely with the nuclear power industry to keep the nation's aging reactors operating within safety standards by repeatedly weakening standards or simply failing to enforce them, an investigation by The Associated Press has found.Officials at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission regularly have decided original regulations were too strict, arguing that safety margins could be eased without peril, according to records and interviews.The result? Rising fears that these accommodations are undermining safety -- and inching the reactors closer to an accident that could harm the public and jeopardize nuclear power's future.

Examples abound. When valves leaked, more leakage was allowed -- up to 20 times the original limit. When cracking caused radioactive leaks in steam generator tubing, an easier test was devised so plants could meet standards.Failed cables. Busted seals. Broken nozzles, clogged screens, cracked concrete, dented containers, corroded metals and rusty underground pipes and thousands of other problems linked to aging were uncovered in AP's yearlong investigation. And many of them could escalate dangers during an accident.

Despite the problems, not a single official body in government or industry has studied the overall frequency and potential impact on safety of such breakdowns in recent years, even as the NRC has extended dozens of reactor licenses.Industry and government officials defend their actions and insist no chances are being taken. But the AP investigation found that with billions of dollars and 19 percent of America's electricity supply at stake, a cozy relationship prevails between industry and the NRC.Records show a recurring pattern: Reactor parts or systems fall out of compliance. Studies are conducted by industry and government, and all agree existing standards are "unnecessarily conservative."

This year’s World Energy Outlook report has been published by the International Energy Agency, and says wealthy and industrializing countries are stuck on policies that threaten to lock in “an insecure, inefficient and high-carbon energy system.”You can read worldwide coverage of the report here. Fiona Harvey of the Guardian has a piece on the report that focuses on the inexorable trajectories for carbon dioxide, driven by soaring energy demand in Asia.A variety of graphs and slides can be reviewed here:

According to the report, Russia will long remain the world’s leading producer of natural gas, but exploitation of shale deposits in the United States, and increasingly in China, will greatly boost production in those countries (which will be in second and third place for gas production in 2035).Last month, in an interview with James Kanter of The Times and International Herald Tribune, the new head of the energy agency, Maria van der Hoeven, discussed one point made in the report today — that concerns raised by the damage to the Fukushima Daiichi power plant could continue to dampen expansion of nuclear power and add to the challenge of avoiding a big accumulation of carbon dioxide, saying: “Such a reduction would certainly make it more difficult for the world to meet the goal of stabilizing the rise in temperature to 2 degrees Centigrade.”

Here’s the summary of the main points, released today by the agency: “Growth, prosperity and rising population will inevitably push up energy needs over the coming decades. But we cannot continue to rely on insecure and environmentally unsustainable uses of energy,” said IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven. “Governments need to introduce stronger measures to drive investment in efficient and low-carbon technologies. The Fukushima nuclear accident, the turmoil in parts of the Middle East and North Africa and a sharp rebound in energy demand in 2010 which pushed CO2 emissions to a record high, highlight the urgency and the scale of the challenge.”

There are battles being fought on two fronts in the five months since a massive earthquake and tsunami damaged the Daiichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan. On one front, there is the fight to repair the plant, operated by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and to contain the extent of contamination caused by the damage. On the other is the public’s fight to extract information from the Japanese government, TEPCO and nuclear experts worldwide.

The latter battle has yielded serious official humiliation, resulting high-profile resignations, scandals, and promises of reform in Japan’s energy industry whereas the latter has so far resulted in a storm of anger and mistrust. Even most academic nuclear experts, seen by many as the middle ground between the anti-nuclear activists and nuclear lobby itself, were reluctant to say what was happening: That in Fukushima, a community of farms, schools and fishing ports, was experiencing a full-tilt meltdown, and that, as Al Jazeera reported in June, that the accident had most likely caused more radioactive contamination than Chernobyl

As recently as early August, those seeking information on the real extent of the damage at the Daiichi plant and on the extent of radioactive contamination have mostly been reassured by the nuclear community that there’s no need to worry.

The world's largest nuclear energy producer, the United States, Tuesday aired its first detailed public examination of whether stronger safety standards are needed in light of Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.Although the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) task force concluded that the sequence of events that caused Japan's crisis was unlikely to recur in the United States, the panel has urged a new focus on preparing for the unexpected.(Related: "How is Japan's Nuclear Disaster Different?)Especially at issue is how to deal with "beyond design-basis" risks, events considered too unlikely to be factored in when the plants were being designed. The U.S. task force recommended that a framework of "extended design-basis" requirements be established for the 104 reactors in the United States. This is especially important, task force member Gary Holahan said, in light of the fact that "many of the older plants might have less robust seismic, flooding, and other features."

Part of the concept of the framework is for the NRC to articulate” expected safety requirements, and to test all plants, no matter their age or design, against that same standard, said Holahan, deputy director of NRC's office of new reactors.The post-Fukushima inspection reports that NRC ordered for all U.S. nuclear power plants provide a window into risks that the task force says the agency should address.

For instance, in their April visit to the oldest U.S. nuclear power plant, Exelon's Oyster Creek, near Toms River, New Jersey, close to the shore, the inspectors noted that if power were lost, emergency venting procedures "could result in hydrogen accumulation in the reactor building." Such a build-up is believed to have caused the explosions at Fukushima Daiichi, which, like Oyster Creek, had boiling water reactors with Mark 1 containment systems. Among the NRC task force's recommendations is that reliable hardened vent designs be required in such reactors. (Fukushima and most of the 31 U.S. boiling water reactors have hardened vent designs; the task force is urging steps to make them more reliable.)Here's a look at some of the other post-Fukushima concerns raised by inspectors at the ten oldest U.S. nuclear power plants.

NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION [NRC-2011-0147] Receipt of Request for Action

Notice is hereby given that by petition dated March 12, 2011, Thomas Saporito (petitioner) has requested that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) take action to order shutdown of all ``nuclear power reactors in the USA [United States of America] which are known to be located on or near an earthquake fault-line.''

As the basis for this request, the petitioner states that following an 8.9 magnitude earthquake on March 11, 2011, in Fukushima, Japan, one or more nuclear power reactors there sustained significant damage which resulted in the release of radioactive particles into the environment, and that the Japanese authorities ordered a ``General Emergency Evacuation,'' but many Japanese citizens were not able to timely leave the affected area and were subject to radioactive contamination at this time. The petitioner further stated that many of NRC's licensees operate nuclear power reactors on or near earthquake fault lines and could, therefore, be subject to significant earthquake damage and loss- of-coolant accidents similar to that experienced by those in Japan for which an on-going state of emergency continued to unfold.

From the White House press release (4/30/2012; emphasis is mine): Bilateral Commission on Civil Nuclear Cooperation: Building on the close U.S.-Japan cooperation following Japan’s March 2011 nuclear accident, Japan and the United States will establish a high-level Bilateral Commission on Civil Nuclear Cooperation to further strengthen our work in this field. The Commission will foster comprehensive strategic dialogue and joint activities related to the safe and secure implementation of civil nuclear energy and the response to the accident such as decommissioning and decontamination. The Commission is to coordinate more robust research and development exchanges in areas which may include nuclear energy, safety, and security, environmental management, and nonproliferation. It builds upon our March 2012 agreement on cooperation in the field of nuclear energy R&D, and also supports the commitments made by both countries at the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit. It is anticipated that the Commission will hold its first meeting at the earliest mutually convenient date. Japan and the United States will work for the success of the Fukushima Ministerial Conference on Nuclear Safety held by Japan in co-sponsorship with the IAEA in December this year.