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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.

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.

On Tuesday, July 12, the Energy Subcommittee of the House Committee on Science will hold a hearing to examine whether it would be economical for the U.S. to reprocess spent nuclear fuel and what the potential cost implications are for the nuclear power industry and for the Federal Government. This hearing is a follow-up to the June 16 Energy Subcommittee hearing that examined the status of reprocessing technologies and the impact reprocessing would have on energy efficiency, nuclear waste management, and the potential for proliferation of weapons-grade nuclear materials.

Dr. Richard K. Lester is the Director of the Industrial Performance Center and a Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He co-authored a 2003 study entitled The Future of Nuclear Power. Dr. Donald W. Jones is Vice President of Marketing and Senior Economist at RCF Economic and Financial Consulting, Inc. in Chicago, Illinois. He co-directed a 2004 study entitled The Economic Future of Nuclear Power. Dr. Steve Fetter is the Dean of the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland. He co-authored a 2005 paper entitled The Economics of Reprocessing vs. Direct Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel. Mr. Marvin Fertel is the Senior Vice President and Chief Nuclear Officer at the Nuclear Energy Institute.

3. Overarching Questions  Under what conditions would reprocessing be economically competitive, compared to both nuclear power that does not include fuel reprocessing, and other sources of electric power? What major assumptions underlie these analyses?  What government subsidies might be necessary to introduce a more advanced nuclear fuel cycle (that includes reprocessing, recycling, and transmutation—''burning'' the most radioactive waste products in an advanced reactor) in the U.S.?

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.”

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 disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant complex continued to unfold, the nuclear gang—principals of the nuclear industry and pro-nuclear members of the U.S. Congress and the Obama administration—held a two-day “summit” in Washington, D.C. last week on pushing for new nuclear plant construction.

The conclusion about the impacts of Fukushima on their drive for a “renaissance” of nuclear power: it will be only a “speed bump,” as participants put it at the Special Summit on New Nuclear Energy.

“The momentum of the renaissance has hit a speed bump,” Ganpat Mani, president and CEO of ConverDyn which produces uranium hexafluoride which is used to produce fuel for nuclear power plants. ConverDyn is a partnership between Honeywell and General Atomics.

The March nuclear disaster in Fukushima in Japan led countries with nuclear power plants to revisit safety measures. The International Atomic Energy Agency constituted a global expert fact-finding mission to the island nation. The purpose of the mission was to ascertain facts and identify initial lessons to be learned for sharing with the nuclear community.

The mission submitted its report in June and the report stated in clear terms that “there were insufficient defence for tsunami hazards. Tsunami hazards that were considered in 2002 were underestimated. Additional protective measures were not reviewed and approved by the regulatory authority. Severe accident management provisions were not adequate to cope with multiple plant failures”.

Further, on the regulatory environment the report states: “Japan has a well organized emergency preparedness and response system as demonstrated by the handling of the Fukushima accident. Nevertheless, complicated structures and organizations can result in delays in urgent decision making.” The inability to foresee such extreme scenarios is a forewarning to countries that are expanding nuclear capacity at a frenzied pace.

As a long time proponent of nuclear power, last week France announced that it will invest $1.4 billion in its nuclear energy program, diverging from contentious deliberation from neighboring states on nuclear energy policy after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan that damaged the Fukushima Daiichi plant in March. The President of France, Nicholas Sarkozy, issued a strong commitment announcing the energy funding package by declaring there is “no alternative to nuclear energy today.” With the capital used to fund fourth generation nuclear power plant technology, focusing research development in nuclear safety, the announcement validates many decades of energy infrastructure and legacy expansion. France currently operates the second largest nuclear fleet in the world with 58 reactors, responsible for supplying more than 74 percent of domestic electricity demand supplied to the world’s fifth largest economy last year. At the end of last month, French uranium producer, Areva Group (EPA:AREVA), and Katko announced plans to increase production to 4,000 tonnes of uranium next year.  Katco is a joint venture for Areva, the world’s largest builder of nuclear power plants, and Kazatomprom the national operator for uranium prospecting, exploration and production for Kazakhstan.

German closure The pronouncement to maintain the nuclear prominence in France provides a strong counterweight to other countries in the region. Germany recently announced the phased shutdown of its 17 nuclear power stations by 2022.  Last week, Germany’s federal parliament voted overwhelmingly to close its remaining nine active plants according to a preset 11 year schedule. A Federal Network Agency, which oversees German energy markets, will decide by the end of September whether one of the eight nuclear plants already closed in recent months should be kept ready on a “cold reserve” basis, to facilitate the transition for national energy supply. The German commitment to an energy policy transition indicates that the national power mix towards renewable sources will have to double from its present range of 17 percent to an ambitious 35 percent. Subsidies for hydro electric and geothermal energy will increase; however, financial support for biomass, solar, and wind energy will be reduced. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she would prefer for utility suppliers not to make up any electrical shortfalls after 2022 by obtaining nuclear power from neighboring countries like France. Germany will require an expansive supergrid to effectively distribute electricity from the north to growing industrial urban centers like Munich, in the south. In order to execute this plan the new laws call for the addition of some 3,600 kilometers of high capacity power lines. Germany’s strategy will partially include the expansion of wind turbines on the North Sea, enabling some 25,000 megawatts’ worth of new offshore wind power which will have to be developed by 2030. Nuclear persistence in the United Kingdom Last month, the government in the United Kingdom maintained its strong commitment to nuclear energy, confirming a series of potential locations for new nuclear builds.  The national policy statements on energy said renewables, nuclear and fossil fuels with carbon capture and storage “all have a part to play in delivering the United Kingdom’s decarbonisation objectives,” and confirmed eight sites around the country as suitable for building new nuclear stations by 2025. The statements, which are to be debated in Parliament, include a commitment for an additional 33,000 megawatts of renewable energy capacity, while the government said more than $160 billion will be required to replace around 25 percent of the country’s generating capacity, due to close by 2020. The Scottish government has also softened its tough opposition to nuclear power, following recognition by the energy minister of a “rational case” to extend operations at Scotland’s two nuclear plants. Additional Eurozone participation In June, Italian voters rejected a government proposal to reintroduce nuclear power. The plan by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to restart Italy’s nuclear energy program abandoned during the 1980s, was rejected by 94 percent of voters in the referendum. Another regional stakeholder, the Swiss government has decided not to replace the four nuclear power plants that supply about 40 percent of the country’s electricity. The last of Switzerland’s power nuclear plants is expected to end production by 2034, leaving time for the country to develop alternative power sources. Although the country is home to the oldest nuclear reactor presently in operation, the Swiss Energy Foundation has stated an objective to work for “an ecological, equitable and sustainable energy policy”. Its “2000 watt society” promotes energy solutions which employ renewable energy resources other than fossil fuels or nuclear power.

In the aftermath of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan, many wondered what the event’s impact would be on the nuclear renaissance in the United States. Those who follow the nuclear industry didn’t need eight months of hindsight to give an answer: what nuclear renaissance? The outlook for U.S. nuclear power has worsened considerably in the past five years. Where once there were plans for new reactors at more than 30 different sites, today there are only five, and even those planned reactors might disappear. Only one is actually under construction, and to credit the industry with breaking ground on a new reactor is overstating its prospects. However, none of this gloom is the result of Japan’s tsunami. On the eve of the Tohoku earthquake, U.S. nuclear power looked just as moribund as it is today. The cause of this decline is not renewed concerns about safety, or even that old red herring, waste disposal — instead, it is simple economics. Other technologies, particularly natural gas, offer much cheaper power than nuclear both today and in the foreseeable future.

In 2009, the MIT Future of Nuclear Power study released an update to its 2003 estimate of the costs of nuclear power. Estimating a capital cost of $4,000/kW and a fuel cost of $0.67/MMBtu, the study’s authors projected a cost of new nuclear power of 6.6 cents/kWh. Using the same modeling approach, the cost of electricity from a natural gas plant with capital costs of $850/kW and fuel costs of $5.16/MMBtu would be 4.4 cents/kWh. What’s worse, the estimate of 6.6 cents/kWh assumes that nuclear power is able to secure financing at the same interest rate as natural gas plants. In reality, credit markets assign a significant risk premium to nuclear power, bringing its total levelized cost of electricity to 8.4 cents/kWh, nearly twice the cost of natural gas power. Unless the capital costs of new nuclear power plants turn out to be significantly less than what experts expect, or natural gas prices rise considerably in the near future, there is little reason to believe that any new nuclear plants will be built without significant subsidies. This is not to say that nuclear power could not make a comeback within the next 10 to 20 years. But before nuclear can once again be considered a credible competitor to fossil fuels, four changes must happen.

The second problem facing nuclear power is its high borrowing costs. To some extent, this problem is a natural consequence of nuclear power plants taking a longer time to build than natural gas plants and having a much higher construction risk (the capital cost of natural gas plants is well-established relative to that of nuclear power). And likewise, to some extent, this problem might resolve itself over time, both as the completion of nuclear plants helps nail down the true capital cost of nuclear power, and as vendors add smaller, modular reactor designs to their list of offerings. But much of the reason behind the high interest rates on loans to nuclear construction is that the industry is scoring an own-goal. In the current relationship between utilities and reactor vendors, utilities are asked to absorb all of the costs of a vendor’s overruns — if a reactor ends up costing a couple billion dollars more than the vendor quotes, it’s the utility that is expected to make up the difference.

Nuclear Phase-Out Related articles, background features and opinions about this topic. Print E-Mail Feedback 07/13/2011   Phase-Out Hurdle Germany Could Restart Nuclear Plant to Plug Energy Gap dapd Germany might need to switch a nuclear power plant back on. Germany's energy agency is warning that one of the German reactors mothballed in the wake of Fukushima may have to be restarted to make up for possible power shortages this winter and next. Berlin is also   using money earmarked for energy efficiency to subsidize coal-fired power plants. For reasons of data protection and privacy, your IP address will only be stored if you are a registered user of Facebook and you are currently logged in to the service. For more detailed information, please click on the "i" symbol. Nuclear energy, as has become abundantly clear this year, has no future in Germany. For once the government, the parliament and the public all agree: Atomic reactors in the country will be history a decade from now. Before that can happen, however, the country has to find alternate power sources. In fact, amid concerns that supply shortages this winter could result in temporary blackouts, Germany's Federal Network Agency on Tuesday indicated that one of the seven reactors shut down in the immediate wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan could be restarted this winter to fill the gap . "The numbers that we currently have indicate that one of these nuclear energy plants will be needed," said agency head Matthias Kurth on Tuesday in Berlin. He said that ongoing analysis has indicated that fossil fuel-powered plants would not prove to be adequate as a backup.

Nuclear Phase-Out Related articles, background features and opinions about this topic. Print E-Mail Feedback 07/13/2011   Phase-Out Hurdle Germany Could Restart Nuclear Plant to Plug Energy Gap dapd Germany might need to switch a nuclear power plant back on. Germany's energy agency is warning that one of the German reactors mothballed in the wake of Fukushima may have to be restarted to make up for possible power shortages this winter and next. Berlin is also   using money earmarked for energy efficiency to subsidize coal-fired power plants. For reasons of data protection and privacy, your IP address will only be stored if you are a registered user of Facebook and you are currently logged in to the service. For more detailed information, please click on the "i" symbol. Nuclear energy, as has become abundantly clear this year, has no future in Germany. For once the government, the parliament and the public all agree: Atomic reactors in the country will be history a decade from now. Before that can happen, however, the country has to find alternate power sources. In fact, amid concerns that supply shortages this winter could result in temporary blackouts, Germany's Federal Network Agency on Tuesday indicated that one of the seven reactors shut down in the immediate wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan could be restarted this winter to fill the gap

Nuclear Phase-Out Related articles, background features and opinions about this topic. Print E-Mail Feedback 07/13/2011  Phase-Out Hurdle Germany Could Restart Nuclear Plant to Plug Energy Gap dapd Germany might need to switch a nuclear power plant back on. Germany's energy agency is warning that one of the German reactors mothballed in the wake of Fukushima may have to be restarted to make up for possible power shortages this winter and next. Berlin is also using money earmarked for energy efficiency to subsidize coal-fired power plants.

Nuclear power is no magic solution, argues Pervez Hoodbhoy — it's not safe, or cheap, and it leads to weapons programmes. A string of energy-starved developing countries have looked at nuclear power as the magic solution. No oil, no gas, no coal needed – it's a fuel with zero air pollution or carbon dioxide emissions. High-tech and prestigious, it was seen as relatively safe. But then Fukushima came along. The disaster's global psychological impact exceeded Chernobyl's, and left a world that's now unsure if nuclear electricity is the answe

Core concerns The fire that followed the failure of emergency generators at the Daiichi nuclear complex raised the terrifying prospect of radiation leaking and spreading. The core of the Unit 1 reactor melted, and spent nuclear fuel, stored under pools of water, sprang to life as cooling pumps stopped. Fukushima's nuclear reactors had been built to withstand the worst, including earthquakes and tsunamis. Sensors successfully shut down the reactors, but when a wall of water 30 feet high crashed over the 20-foot protective concrete walls, electrical power, essential for cooling, was lost. The plume of radiation reached as far as Canada. Closer, it was far worse. Japan knows that swathes of its territory will be contaminated, perhaps uninhabitable, for the rest of the century. In July, for example, beef, vegetables, and ocean fish sold in supermarkets were found to have radioactive caesium in doses several times the safe level. [1]

The Japanese have been careful. In the country of the hibakusha (surviving victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki), all reactors go through closer scrutiny than anywhere else. But this clearly wasn't enough. Other highly developed countries — Canada, Russia, UK, and US — have also seen serious reactor accidents. What does this mean for a typical developing country? There, radiation dangers and reactor safety have yet to enter public debate. Regulatory mechanisms are strictly controlled by the authorities, citing national security reasons. And individuals or nongovernmental organisations are forbidden from monitoring radiation levels near any nuclear facility. Poor and powerless village communities in India and Pakistan, that have suffered health effects from uranium and thorium mining, have been forced to withdraw their court cases.

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.

It took Japan’s Fukushima disaster to make nuclear energy interesting to students in Karl Craddock’s advanced placement chemistry class at William Fremd High School in Palatine, Ill. Too bad the buzz was about radiation plumes, iodine pills, and potential deadly threats at nuclear power plants that generate more than half the electricity in Illinois. It wasn’t the sort of talk to get kids excited about a career in nuclear energy. “It doesn’t have the cool factor right now, that’s for sure,” says Craddock, who has taught science at the suburban Chicago high school for seven years.

Nuclear utilities in the U.S. will need to hire nearly 25,000 people to replace the 39 percent of its workforce that will be eligible for retirement by 2016, says Carol L. Berrigan, senior director for industry infrastructure for the Nuclear Energy Institute, a Washington-based trade group. Meanwhile, U.S. universities awarded a total of 715 graduate and undergraduate degrees in nuclear engineering in 2009, the most recent year for which data is available.

After nuclear plant disasters at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania and Chernobyl in Ukraine, nuclear power lost political support in the U.S. Hiring slowed through the 1990s and nuclear workers under the age of 40 became a rarity as talk turned from expansion to shutting down existing plants. “That’s not an exciting prospect for a young person thinking about their career,” says K.L. “Lee” Peddicord, a professor of nuclear engineering and director of the Nuclear Power Institute at Texas A&M University.

What do you do with the waste? – Kirk Sorensen’s answers by Rod Adams on October 13, 2011 in Fuel Recycling , Nuclear Batteries , Nuclear Waste , Plutonium , Thorium Share3   Gordon McDowell, the film maker who produced Thorium Remix , has released some additional mixes of material gathered for that production effort. One in particular is aimed at those people whose main concern about using nuclear energy is the often repeated question “What do you do with the waste.” Many people who ask that question think that it is a trump card that should end all conversation and let them win the hand. I used to play bridge and enjoyed it when I could “no trump” a smug contestant who thought he had a winner. Kirk’s discussion below is one example of how that can be done in the nuclear energy field . My friends who like the Integral Fast Reactor have another answer . I am pretty certain there are dozens of other good answers to the question – the primary obstacle to implementing them comes from the nefarious forces that LIKE raising (artificial) barriers to the use of nuclear energy. On another note, I want to point to a story published in the evening of October 12, 2011 on the Wall Street Journal web site titled WSJ: Fluor Buys Stake In Reactor Maker NuScale Energy . I am happy to see that NuScale has found a suitable, deep pockets investor with a lot of nuclear plant engineering and construction experience. One more short note. Jay Hancock, a writer for the Baltimore Sun, has taken note of some of the work published on Atomic Insights regarding Exelon’s decision to destroy the Zion Nuclear power station rather than allowing it to compete against existing power plants to increase the supply and decrease the price of electricity. On October 8, 2011, Hancock published a column titled State should pull plug on Constellation-Exelon deal that explored whether or not it would be beneficial for Marylanders to allow a company like Exelon to own a dominant number of electrical power generation facilities in the state. One of the pieces of evidence that has convinced Hancock to oppose the proposed merger is the way that Exelon has acted with regard to the Zion nuclear station. He recognizes that the company has adequately demonstrated a history of using market power to drive up prices and profits at the expense of customer interests. Additional reading related to Exelon bear hug attempt: EDF Asks Maryland Regulators To Block Exelon-Constellation Merger

What do you do with the waste? – Kirk Sorensen’s answers by Rod Adams on October 13, 2011 in Fuel Recycling, Nuclear Batteries, Nuclear Waste, Plutonium, Thorium Share3  Gordon McDowell, the film maker who produced Thorium Remix , has released some additional mixes of material gathered for that production effort. One in particular is aimed at those people whose main concern about using nuclear energy is the often repeated question “What do you do with the waste.” Many people who ask that question think that it is a trump card that should end all conversation and let them win the hand. I used to play bridge and enjoyed it when I could “no trump” a smug contestant who thought he had a winner. Kirk’s discussion below is one example of how that can be done in the nuclear energy field . My friends who like the Integral Fast Reactor have another answer. I am pretty certain there are dozens of other good answers to the question – the primary obstacle to implementing them comes from the nefarious forces that LIKE raising (artificial) barriers to the use of nuclear energy. On another note, I want to point to a story published in the evening of October 12, 2011 on the Wall Street Journal web site titled WSJ: Fluor Buys Stake In Reactor Maker NuScale Energy. I am happy to see that NuScale has found a suitable, deep pockets investor with a lot of nuclear plant engineering and construction experience. One more short note. Jay Hancock, a writer for the Baltimore Sun, has taken note of some of the work published on Atomic Insights regarding Exelon’s decision to destroy the Zion Nuclear power station rather than allowing it to compete against existing power plants to increase the supply and decrease the price of electricity. On October 8, 2011, Hancock published a column titled State should pull plug on Constellation-Exelon deal that explored whether or not it would be beneficial for Marylanders to allow a company like Exelon to own a dominant number of electrical power generation facilities in the state.

Gordon McDowell, the film maker who produced Thorium Remix, has released some additional mixes of material gathered for that production effort. One in particular is aimed at those people whose main concern about using nuclear energy is the often repeated question “What do you do with the waste.” Many people who ask that question think that it is a trump card that should end all conversation and let them win the hand. I used to play bridge and enjoyed it when I could “no trump” a smug contestant who thought he had a winner. Kirk’s discussion below is one example of how that can be done in the nuclear energy field

The probability of an accident due to a nuclear plant is one is to infinity and all atomic power plants in the country conform to safety standards, chairman of Atomic Energy Commission Srikumar Banerjee said on Thursday. “At least 1.75 lakh people die due to road accidents in a single year whereas there are nearly 14,000 nuclear plants in the world and the casualty rate till date is just 52,” Dr. Banerjee told reporters on the sidelines of the golden jubilee celebrations of Terminal Ballistic Research Laboratory (TBRL) at Ramgarh, near Chandigarh. Pointing out that no human activity can be risk-free, he said there was a definite need for creating awareness and programmes should to be intensified to convince the people in the neighbourhood of a proposed or existing nuclear plant. He said human body faces more radiation during a CT scan than working in a nuclear power plant.

Referring to the recent Fukushima nuclear accident, Dr. Banerjee said it happened after a gap of 25 years and the cause and effect of the accident was earthquake followed by a tsunami. “It was not a nuclear accident... immediately after the earthquake, the nuclear reactor shut down and nuclear chain reaction stopped,” he said adding it was a complete station blackout as the decay heat produced in the plant could not be taken out. He, however, said the total casualty due to the nuclear accident was zero. “The spread of radiation was not as high as it was projected,” he said talking about the nuclear accident in Japan. After a nuclear reactor is shut down the energy level comes down to around 2 per cent from 100 per cent due to heat decay, Dr. Banerjee said. He, however, exuded confidence all nuclear plants in the country are safe and conform to the standards of Atomic Energy Regulatory Board and are taken care of by Nuclear Power Corporation. “India too experienced earthquakes and tsunami in the past but there was no nuclear accident as the nuclear plants had all the gadgets to give signal much in advance,” he said. Dr. Banerjee rejected that alarm bells had rung in India after the Japanese nuclear accident. “All steps needed for safety and security for nuclear plants have been taken by Nuclear Power Corporation,” he added.

He, however, stressed that it was necessary to strengthen the mechanism in the passive cooling system in nuclear plants in India. In the passive cooling system, heat can be taken out from the plant. Responding to a query regarding protests by habitants before setting up a nuclear plant in their neighbourhood, he said what is needed is to explain things to local people in simple local language and also convince them what actually the plant is. After land acquisition, a package must be given to the affected people and at all costs excellent relationship is needed with people living around the plant. He termed it as “baseless,” the allegation that nuclear radiation comes out from the nuclear plant. Besides, the plants along the coastal areas do not have any effect on the lives of fish, he added.

Germany will be redirecting its economy towards renewable energy, because of the political decision to decommission its nuclear plants, triggered by the Fukushima event in Japan and subsequent public opposition to nuclear energy. Germany's decision would make achieving its 2020 CO2 emission reduction targets more difficult.   To achieve the CO2 emissions reduction targets and replace nuclear energy, renewable energy would need to scale up from 17% in 2010 to 57% of total electricity generation of 603 TWh in 2020, according to a study by The Breakthrough Institute. As electricity generation was 603 TWh in 2010, increased energy efficiency measures will be required to flat-line electricity production during the next 9 years.   Germany has 23 nuclear reactors (21.4 GW), 8 are permanently shut down (8.2 GW) and 15 (13.2 GW) will be shut down by 2022. Germany will be adding a net of 5 GW of coal plants, 5 GW of new CCGT plants and 1.4 GW of new biomass plants in future years. The CCGT plants will reduce the shortage of quick-ramping generation capacity for accommodating variable wind and solar energy to the grid.

Germany is planning a $14 billion build-out of transmission systems for onshore and future offshore wind energy in northern Germany and for augmented transmission with France for CO2-free hydro and nuclear energy imports to avoid any shortages.    Germany had fallen behind on transmission system construction in the north because of public opposition and is using the nuclear plant shutdown as leverage to reduce public opposition. Not only do people have to look at a multitude of 450-ft tall wind turbines, but also at thousands of 80 to 135 ft high steel structures and wires of the transmission facilities.   The $14 billion is just a minor down payment on the major grid reorganization required due to the decommissioning of the nuclear plants and the widely-dispersed build-outs of renewables. The exisitng grid is mostly large-central-plant based. 

This article includes the estimated capital costs of shutting down Germany's nuclear plants, reorganizing the grids of Germany and its neighbors, and building out renewables to replace the nuclear energy.    Germany’s Renewable Energy Act (EEG) in 2000, guarantees investors above-market fees for solar power for 20 years from the point of installation. In 2010, German investments in  renewables was about $41.2 billion, of which about $36.1 billion in 7,400 MW of solar systems ($4,878/kW). In 2010, German incentives for all renewables was about $17.9 billion, of which about half was for solar systems.   The average subsidy in 2010 was about ($9 billion x 1 euro/1.4 $)/12 TWh = 53.6 eurocents/kWh; no wonder solar energy is so popular in Germany. These subsidies are rolled into electric rates as fees or taxes, and will ultimately make Germany less competitive in world markets.   http://thebreakthrough.org/blog//2011/06/analysis_germanys_plan_to_phas-print.html http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-31/merkel-faces-achilles-heel-in-grids-to-unplug-german-nuclear.html http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/829664/revealed_how_your_country_compares_on_renewable_investment.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Germany  

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).

Sixteen tons and what you get is a nuclear catastrophe. The explosions that rocked the Fukushima No.1 nuclear plant were more powerful than the combustion of hydrogen gas, as claimed by the Tokyo Electric Power Company. The actual cause of the blasts, according to intelligence sources in Washington, was nuclear fission of. warhead cores illegally taken from America's sole nuclear-weapons assembly facility. Evaporation in the cooling pools used for spent fuel rods led to the detonation of stored weapons-grade plutonium and uranium.   The facts about clandestine American and Israeli support for Japan's nuclear armament are being suppressed in the biggest official cover-up in recent history. The timeline of events indicates the theft from America's strategic arsenal was authorized at the highest level under a three-way deal between the Bush-Cheney team, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Elhud Olmert's government in Tel Aviv.

Tokyo's Strangelove   In early 2007, Vice President Dick Cheney flew to Tokyo with his closest aides. Newspaper editorials noted the secrecy surrounding his visit - no press conferences, no handshakes with ordinary folks and, as diplomatic cables suggest, no briefing for U.S. Embassy staffers in Tokyo.   Cheney snubbed Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma, who was shut out of confidential talks. The pretext was his criticism of President George Bush for claiming Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. The more immediate concern was that the defense minister might disclose bilateral secrets to the Pentagon. The Joint Chiefs of Staff were sure to oppose White House approval of Japan's nuclear program.

Abe has wide knowledge of esoteric technologies. His first job in the early 1980s was as a manager at Kobe Steel. One of the researchers there was astrophysicist Hideo Murai, who adapted Soviet electromagnetic technology to "cold mold" steel. Murai later became chief scientist for the Aum Shinrikyo sect, which recruited Soviet weapons technicians under the program initiated by Abe's father. After entering government service, Abe was posted to the U.S. branch of JETRO (Japan External Trade Organization). Its New York offices hosted computers used to crack databases at the Pentagon and major defense contractors to pilfer advanced technology. The hacker team was led by Tokyo University's top gamer, who had been recruited into Aum.   After the Tokyo subway gassing in 1995, Abe distanced himself from his father's Frankenstein cult with a publics-relations campaign. Fast forward a dozen years and Abe is at Camp David. After the successful talks with Bush, Abe flew to India to sell Cheney's quadrilateral pact to a Delhi skeptical about a new Cold War. Presumably, Cheney fulfilled his end of the deal. Soon thereafter Hurricane Katrina struck, wiping away the Abe visit from the public memory.

(check out this ebook from Foreign Policy on Japan's post-Fukushima future). Anti-nuclear sentiment has grown ever since -- making it a major political issue.

There are legitimate questions, nevertheless, about whether Japan could actually shift away from nuclear power. Japan is incredibly dependent on nuclear energy -- the country's 54 nuclear reactors account for 30 percent of its electricity; pre-earthquake estimates noted that the share to grow to 40 percent by 2017 and 50 percent by 2030. The prime minister today offered few details on how he'll transition away from nuclear reliance.   Japan joins a list of nuclear countries that have grown increasingly skittish about the controversial energy source since the disaster in March.

The country plans to make up the difference by cutting energy usage by 10 percent, it said, with more energy efficient appliances and buildings and to increase the use of wind energy.

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.