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In the money-driven battle over our future energy supply choices, the people who fight nuclear energy have imagination on their side. They can, and often do, invent numerous scary tales about what might happen without the need to actually prove anything.

One of the most powerful weapons in their arsenal is the embedded fantasy that a nuclear reactor accident can lead to catastrophic consequences that cannot be accepted. This myth is doubly hard to dislodge because a large fraction of the nuclear energy professionals have been trained to believe it. When you want to train large numbers of slightly above average people to do their job with great care and attention to detail, it can be useful to exaggerate the potential consequences of a failure to perform. It is also a difficult myth to dislodge because the explanation of why it is impossible requires careful and often lengthy explanations of occasionally complex concepts.

The bottom lines of both Chernobyl and Fukushima tell me that the very worst that can realistically happen to nuclear fission reactors results in acceptable physical consequences when compared to the risk of insufficient power or the risk of using any other reliable source of power. The most negative consequences of both accidents resulted from the way that government leaders responded, both during the crisis stage and during the subsequent recoveries.

Florida Power & Light and Progress Energy are asking the Public Service Commission to sign on off their proposals to pass off about $355 million in nuclear energy-related costs to residents and businesses. The money would go to upgrade existing power plants, including one in St. Lucie County, and two cover the costs of new nuclear reactors that may not begin operating for at least another decade.

Hearings on the nuclear cost recovery plans are scheduled to begin this morning at 9:30 a.m in Tallahassee and can be viewed live on the internet at www.floridapsc.com or The Florida Channel’s website at www.thefloridachannel.org. The meeting will begin with a discussion of which documents will remain secret.

Juno Beach-based FPL is asking for about $196 million next year to help upgrade nuclear plants in St. Lucie and Miami-Dade counties and to move forward on a plan to build two new reactors at the Miami-Dade site known as “Turkey Point.” The energy companies and many state lawmakers the expansion of nuclear power is necessary to wean the state off fossil fuels and to save money for customers.

A third-party panel tasked by the government with overseeing Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s cost-cutting efforts has decided to call for a resignation by the utility's management, sources familiar with the matter said Tuesday. In its final report to be possibly compiled later this month, the panel is set to clearly state that it would be desirable for the management to "fulfill its business responsibility through measures including resigning, declining retirement pay and returning stock holdings" as a prerequisite for the firm to receive government financial support in compensation to victims of the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.

A cost-cutting plan unveiled by the utility in May includes pay cuts for the management, eliminating the full remuneration for the president and cutting 60 percent of pay for managing directors. But the panel has apparently judged that a stricter measure will be needed, calling on the management to fulfill a level of responsibility from a moral perspective as the firm would be receiving a large amount of public funds.

TEPCO, which is expected to draft a special business plan possibly at the end of next month with the Nuclear Damage Compensation Facilitation Corp., is supposed to reflect the panel's final report into the plan. In the report, the panel will suggest that TEPCO have a serious discussion with the compensation facilitation body over specific ways to take business responsibility, the sources said.

In our new report “True Cost of Nuclear Power in South Africa”, presented to the Department of Energy today, we expose the significant social and economic impacts of the country’s nuclear program in the past, and highlight the benefits of a nuclear-free future. At the same time we also made a submission to the Environmental Impact Assessment on the proposed Nuclear-1 power station to the DoE.

Greenpeace urges the Minister of Energy to reconsider the role of nuclear energy in South Africa and put a moratorium on any new nuclear reactors at least until the safety implications of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan have been fully evaluated. Rather than investing in dangerous energy technologies, our country should opt for clean energy options. The True Cost of Nuclear report outlines South Africa’s costly nuclear history, its failure to learn from past mistakes, and how the country could leave dirty and dangerous energy behind by investing in renewables. To achieve a nuclear-free South Africa, whilst still reducing the country’s dependency on coal, the electricity sector needs to be the pioneer of renewable energy utilisation. According to our Advanced Energy [R]evolution, 49% of electricity can be produced from renewable sources by 2030, increasing to 94% by 2050. “Nuclear energy is a dangerous distraction from the clean energy development needed to prevent catastrophic climate change. Nuclear power simply delivers too little, too late, and at too high a price for the environment,” said Kumi Naidoo, Executive Director of Greenpeace International.

As host of the international climate negotiations COP17 in Durban this year, South Africa should play a leading role both in terms of its domestic energy choices, and by debunking false energy solutions to catastrophic climate change, such as nuclear. Greenpeace Africa is calling for decisive action and the political leadership required to secure the brighter future South Africans deserve. A future that is free of the threats posed by nuclear energy. “We need an Energy [R]evolution driven by the creation of green jobs. With the political will and South Africa’s abundance of renewable energy resources, the country could and should become a renewable energy leader in Africa,” said Ferrial Adam, Greenpeace Africa campaigner.

Southern Co. is poised to end a three-decade freeze on nuclear development as the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission holds a final hearing today before granting it a license to build and operate two reactors. The stakes for Atlanta-based Southern are greater than its bottom line, Chief Executive Officer Thomas Fanning said during two interviews. If there is to be a nuclear revival in the U.S., Southern, the largest U.S. power company, must deliver the $14 billion project on-time and on-budget, he said.

“We’ve got to be successful,” Fanning said during an interview at Bloomberg headquarters in New York. “This is the first, best shot for the nuclear renaissance in America.” Nuclear expansion ground to a halt in the U.S. as cost overruns, construction delays and a thicket of new regulations after Three Mile Island’s partial-meltdown in 1979 turned some plants into economic disasters, Ted Quinn, past president of the American Nuclear Society, said in a telephone interview.

A far worse accident at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear station this March so far hasn’t derailed Southern’s project at Plant Vogtle south of Augusta, Georgia, as critics predicted. Southern is on track to license the plant by early 2012, provided the commission certifies design changes for the Westinghouse AP1000 reactors that will power Vogtle, said Scott Burnell, a commission spokesman, in a telephone interview.

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.

Friday's 8.9 magnitude earthquake in Japan, which damaged four nuclear power plants, will make it harder for Minister of National Infrastructures Uzi Landau to realize his dream of a nuclear power plant in Israel, which is also in a seismic zone. The problem is not only the increased public awareness about safe risks of nuclear power plants, but also skyrocketing costs to build them.

Landau and other ministry officials have said that they want to build a nuclear power plant at Shivta in the Negev. Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) (TASE: ELEC.B22) is an enthusiastic supporter of the plan, and is financing a department of nuclear engineering at Ben Gurion University. The IEC workers committee has obtained a Ministry of Finance promise for the company to build the plant, known as Project E, involving two 1,200-megawatt power plants to generate 10% of Israel's electricity needs, in 2025-35. The advantages of large nuclear power plants equal their disadvantages, however. It is easy to store the nuclear fuel, which can operate the plant for decades. There are no emissions of greenhouse gases, and nuclear power is considered a cleaner fuel than natural gas. The new fourth generation of reactors is intended to provide almost perfect solutions to the operational safety risks.

The biggest obstacle facing Israel's building of a nuclear power plant is the fact that Israel is not a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The government believes that it is possible to get around this obstacle through diplomatic means, using the precedent set by India. Another problem is the government's inability to realize strategic infrastructure projects on schedule. For example, just a few months ago, a collection of environmental organizations and local authorities blocked the construction of a terminal for the Tamar gas field at Dor Beach near Hadera. Without thorough reform of planning and building procedures, the government has no chance of passing a plan to build a nuclear power plant.

NIRS, Public Citizen, South Carolina Sierra Club, and former NRC Commissioner Peter Bradford have warned in a press release that the same forces -- skyrocketing new reactor construction costs, decreased demand for electricity, competition from renewables and efficiency, low natural gas prices, etc. -- which just undermined the Calvert Cliffs 3 new reactor proposal in Maryland are also battering away at the new reactor proposals in Texas (South Texas Project Units 3 and 4) and South Carolina (V.C. Summer Units 2 and 3). Calvert Cliffs, South Texas Project, and Summer were the top three federal nuclear loan guarantee finalists after Vogtle Units 3 and 4 in Georgia, which the Obama administration awarded a conditional $8.3 billion taxpayer-backed loan guarantee last February. The audio recording of the full press conference is also posted online.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) was on her high horse, and the California Democrat wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity to disparage nuclear power. As head of a Senate panel that controls spending on energy technology, Sen. Feinstein zeroed in on a new program that would design small modular reactors over the next five years, striking it from the Department of Energy (DOE) budget for the coming fiscal year. Yet it happens to be precisely the sort of “Made in America” program with great commercial potential that President Obama called for in his jobs speech.

Feinstein prefers renewable energy sources, favoring government financial support for solar energy. Never mind that Solyndra Inc., a California-based maker of solar panels that received a $535 million U.S. loan guarantee, recently went bankrupt, along with two other solar firms. By contrast, small modular reactors are affordable and practical. They could be built in U.S. factories for a fraction of the cost of a large nuclear plant and exported for use in generating electricity around the world. In fact, small reactors have been used successfully for more than a half-century to power the U.S. Navy’s nuclear submarines. And the U.S. Army used small reactors during the 1950s and 1960s to provide electricity at remote military installations in Wyoming, Alaska, Greenland, Antarctica and other locations.

Several other countries with nuclear programs see great commercial potential in modular reactors; France, China, Japan and Korea are developing simplified, cheaper designs for a global market. “Our choice is clear: Develop these technologies today or import them tomorrow,” Energy Secretary Steven Chu said recently.

Discarded Tyvek suits, 480,000 of them, which TEPCO would have to treat as low-level radioactive waste and dispose accordingly (unlike regular garbage or sewer sludge ash in Tokyo, which may be more contaminated than the Tyvek suits in Fuku I):

New Tyvek suits being distributed. Inventory at J-village, about 500,000:

A Tyvek suit costs about 1,000 yen (US$13) average in Japan, so it is costing TEPCO 1 billion yen ($13 million). As is usual for a big corporation like TEPCO, cost-cutting always starts at the bottom; the company is asking the Fuku I workers not to take more than one Tyvek suit.According to one of the workers who tweet from Fukushima I Nuke Plant, TEPCO has already downgraded Tyvek suits quality. It used to be 1,440 yen per piece, now it's 840 yen, achieving 40% cost reduction.The government, whether national or prefectural, shows no sign of helping TEPCO in any way when it comes to supporting and taking care of the workers at Fuku I. Instead, they want to waste taxpayers' money on inviting foreigners on free Japan trips (1 billion yen), inviting big social media writers (1.5 billion yen) to Tohoku, inviting IAEA "decontamination" mission who just recommended relaxing the standards (1 billion yen). Fukushima Prefecture is really raking in, over 100 billion yen for building a new cancer hospital at the medical university presided by Dr. Shunichi Yamashita.

Yet another fine example of how a government is so good at misallocating the resource. By pledging to pour hundreds of billions of yen (probably in trillions) into "decontaminating" Fukushima, the Japanese government has already spawned a brand-new industry of residential decontamination. Who are the industry participants? Cleaners, painters, just about anyone who has a high-pressure washer.Some are apparently charging 1 million yen (US$13,000) to hose down your house. As you can see in the video in the previous post, their idea of "decontamination" looks little more than year-end cleanup. Power washing seems to somehow turn cleanup into "decontamination".From Yomiuri Shinbun (10/19/2011):

As decontamination work gets underway in Fukushima Prefecture to remove radioactive materials from the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident, so do troubles with the decontamination contractors. Some are asking 1 million yen [US$13,000] to decontaminate a house.

Disputes over the cost may increase in the future, and there are some who point out that there should be a guideline specifying what constitutes the standard decontamination work and the cost associated with it.

TOKYO -(Dow Jones)- Japanese Industry minister Yukio Edano on Monday instructed Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501.TO) to commit to cutting "at least" Y2.5 trillion in costs over 10 years before receiving funds to help it pay compensation over the nuclear crisis at its Fukushima Daiichi power plant, Kyodo News reported. The target was included in a third-party panel report submitted to the government on Oct. 3, which would be reflected in Tokyo Electric's special business plan to be compiled as a precondition to receive financial aid from a state-backed body set up to help it meet its massive compensation obligations.

Tokyo Electric President Toshio Nishizawa told reporters after his talks with Edano, "We will take the minister's words sincerely and steadily implement (what we are told to do)."

In relation to damages payments, the utility known as TEPCO requested to the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry Y120 billion in government compensation, the maximum amount set by a contract between the government and TEPCO for an accident at one nuclear power plant.

One of 5 worst nuclear plants in world for exposure to radiation * Tepco prioritised cost-savings over radiation standard * Tepco says old plants like Fukushima have high radiation * Foreign workers used to avoid exposing staff to high radiation * Improvements made at Fukushima before disaster hit

Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant ranked as one of the most dangerous in the world for radiation exposure years before it was destroyed by the meltdowns and explosions that followed the March 11 earthquake.     For five years to 2008, the Fukushima plant was rated the most hazardous nuclear facility in Japan for worker exposure to radiation and one of the five worst nuclear plants in the world on that basis. The next rankings, compiled as a three-year average, are due this year.     Reuters uncovered these rankings, privately tracked by Fukushima's operator Tokyo Electric Power, in a review of documents and presentations made at nuclear safety conferences over the past seven years.     In the United States -- Japan's early model in nuclear power -- Fukushima's lagging safety record would have prompted more intensive inspections by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission

It would have also invited scrutiny from the U.S. Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, an independent nuclear safety organization established by the U.S. power industry after the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, experts say.     But that kind of stepped-up review never happened in Tokyo, where the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency remains an adjunct of the trade ministry charged with promoting nuclear power.     As Japan debates its future energy policy after the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, a Reuters review of the long-troubled record at Fukushima shows how hard it has been to keep the country's oldest reactors running in the best of times. It also shows how Japan's nuclear establishment sold nuclear power to the public as a relatively cheap energy source in part by putting cost-containment ahead of radiation safety over the past several decades.     "After the Fukushima accident, we need to reconsider the cost of nuclear power," Tatsujiro Suzuki, vice chairman of Japan's Atomic Energy Commission, told Reuters. "It's not enough to meet safety standards. The industry needs to search for the best performance."  

EDF's 1,650-megawatt Flamanville 3 nuclear reactor was already two years behind schedule and $2.4 billion over budget before Wednesday's announcement, in which the utility says it needs to carry out tougher safety inspections in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.

Citing "structural and economic reasons" for the new delays, the state-owned company sent notice its flagship plant's costs will increase to $9 billion due to the new requirements while its opening has been pushed back to 2016.

The latest cost overruns and delays are a blow to the French company and its hopes for the worldwide commercialization of a new type of nuclear reactor, known as a European Pressurized Reactor, manufactured by the French nuclear group Areva.

Nothing coming out of Japan makes sense any more, so this news is simply adding to that growing list. The national government will lift the ban on sales and shipment of meat cows raised in Fukushima and Miyagi Prefectures because the government is satisfied that the radioactive rice hay is now separated from other feed - either under the tarp or buried - so that it will not be fed to the cows. If I remember right, the worry was not the rice hay but the meat itself, which tested high in radioactive cesium all over Japan as the cows from these two prefectures (and several more in Tohoku) had been sold far and wide because of the suddenly "affordable" price. They were particularly favored by certain cost-conscious municipalities (most notably Yokohama City) that fed the suspected meat to the kindergarteners and school children in school lunches, ignoring protests from the parents. Humans eat beef not rice hay, as far as I know. But now the ban will be lifted because of ... rice hay storage procedure?

From Mainichi Shinbun (8/18/2011):

The Japanese government started to prepare for the total lifting of the shipping ban on meat cows raised in Fukushima and Miyagi Prefectures on August 18. The government will instruct the governors of the two prefectures as early as August 19. As radioactive cesium exceeding the provisional national safety limit (500 becquerels/kg) was found in the meat, the government banned the shipping of the cows in Fukushima, Miyagi, Iwate, and Tochigi Prefectures between July 19 and August 2. Fukushima and Miyagi would be the first to have the ban lifted.

The Swiss parliament's upper house on Wednesday approved plans to phase out the country's nuclear plants over the next two decades in the wake of the Fukushima disaster in Japan.It followed a June vote by the lower chamber to back an exit from nuclear energy recommended by the government, which had earlier frozen plans for a new construction programme after the Fukushima atomic plant explosion.

Bern said it would count on the development of its already considerable hydro-electric plants and other renewable energy to make up for the loss of nuclear power, while not ruling out importing electricity.If necessary the country could also fall back on electricity produced by fossil fuels, a statement added, while still respecting targets set under Switzerland's climate change policy.Under the government's recommendation, the first nuclear plant to be shut down would be Beznau I in 2019, followed by Beznau II and Muehleberg in 2022, Goegen in 2029 and Leibstadt in 2034.

The government predicted that such a programmed phasing out nuclear energy would favour businesses involved in green technology, boost employment and help Switzerland deal with expected rising electricity prices in Europe.Initial calculations estimate that the cost of reshaping the country's energy resources, offset by measures to cut consumption, would cost the country between 0.4 percent and 0.7 percent of gros s domestic product per year.Environment and Energy Minister Doris Leuthard also noted that nuclear energy was anyway becoming more expensive, due to the rising cost of making plants safer and more secure.However, the move to halt atomic energy was opposed by the federation of Swiss businesses EconomieSuisse, which had slammed it as an "irresponsible decision."The association of Swiss electricity companies applauded the decision for a progressive end to nuclear energy, rather than an immediate stop."The continuation of these plants gives us time to find solutions amid a shortage as well as implement more efficient measures," it said.

This nation has recovered from worse natural – and manmade – catastrophes. But it is the triple meltdown and its aftermath at the Fukushima nuclear power plant 40km down the coast from Soma that has elevated Japan into unknown, and unknowable, terrain. Across the northeast, millions of people are living with its consequences and searching for a consensus on a safe radiation level that does not exist. Experts give bewilderingly different assessments of its dangers.

Some scientists say Fukushima is worse than the 1986 Chernobyl accident, with which it shares a maximum level-7 rating on the sliding scale of nuclear disasters. One of the most prominent of them is Dr Helen Caldicott, an Australian physician and long time anti-nuclear activist who warns of "horrors to come" in Fukushima.

Chris Busby, a professor at the University of Ulster known for his alarmist views, generated controversy during a Japan visit last month when he said the disaster would result in more than 1 million deaths. "Fukushima is still boiling its radionuclides all over Japan," he said. "Chernobyl went up in one go. So Fukushima is worse."

Solar photovoltaic (PV) power installations on university and college campuses have surged 450% over the last three years, according to a new database constructed by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE).A dramatic 40% fall in the installed cost of solar PV systems and the advent of new financing mechanisms, such as solar leasing, has led administrators to invest in renewable, clean solar power as a way of both hedging against rising future electricity prices and reducing campus greenhouse gas emissions and carbon footprints, the the AASHE says.

According to the AASHE Campus Solar Photovoltaic Installations database:• The 137 megawatts (MW) of solar capacity installed on higher education campuses to date is equivalent to the power used by 40,000 U.S. homes. • The market in 2010 for on-campus solar installations was over $300 million in the U.S. • Higher education solar installations in 2010 made up 5.4 percent of the total 956 MW installed that year in the U.S. • Since 2009, the median project size has grown six fold. • Only five states installed more solar in 2010 than the 52 MW installed on U.S. campuses in 2010.

AASHE developed and publicly opened the campus solar PV database with the aim of building on the success of solar on US campuses to date. It enables users to browse installations and stories by type, size and location.

A new study by Dr. Mark Cooper of Vermont Law School, released today, warns "it is highly unlikely that the problems of the nuclear industry will be solved by an infusion of federal loan guarantees and other subsidies to get the first plants in a new building cycle completed. U.S. policymakers should resist efforts to force the government into making large loans on terms that put taxpayers at risk in order to ‘save' a project or an industry that may not be salvageable." The press release contains a link to the executive summary and the full report. Steven Thomas of Greenwich University in London, expert on Electricite de France and Areva economic woes, joined Dr. Cooper for the press conference, a full audio recording of which can be found at www.nuclearbailout.org after 6 p.m. today.

That slogan in the title above is posted at the headquarters building of Enel in Rome. Enel is one of the leading European energy companies, and European Energy Review has just published an interview with CEO Fulvio Conti where he mentioned that particular fact. I like that slogan. Conti also said that investments in the energy sector need to look ahead for a long time. It can take ten years from decision to realization of some project, which will be operating for another 40 years, so in the planning stage you need to be able to look 50 years ahead.

Enel has a total production capacity of 97 GW, of which 34 GW are renewable energy. Only 22 percent of the revenue from renewable is from subsidies. As Conti said:

In renewables, we go where the natural resources offer the best returns, e.g. in Brazil or Mexico for solar and wind power. Subsidies will come and go. Our investments are for the long term. We need to be able to get a return on our investments without subsidies. With our renewable power portfolio, only 22% of our revenues came from subsidies last year. But we are moving through difficult times, with slower growth. I wonder how the natural resources of Mongolia compare to Brazil or Mexico. There seems to be some major untapped potential in the Gobi.