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The news was there on Yomiuri Shinbun on January 5, 2012, but little noticed until someone picked it up and spread on Twitter overnight.The Japanese government in close collaboration with the big businesses in Japan is to build a city in southern India that will house 50,000 people, with "Japanese-quality" infrastructure including seaside resort, industrial park, hospital, shopping mall, and golf course (of course).

Many on Twitter are speculating that this is part of the plan by the Japan's political and business elites to abandon ship (Japan), and part of the reason for the Noda administration's insistence on the tax hike despite the incipient recession.While there is a great need for money within Japan to actually rebuild tsunami-devastated areas (not the bogus "decon" projects), the Noda administration has been busy distributing money in Asia. The Bank of Japan has opened multi-billion dollar currency swap lines with India ($15 billion) and South Korea ($70 billion).

AbstractAnalyses of (131)I, (137)Cs and (134)Cs in airborne aerosols were carried out in daily samples in Vilnius, Lithuania after the Fukushima accident during the period of March-April, 2011. The activity concentrations of (131)I and (137)Cs ranged from 12 μBq/m(3) and 1.4 μBq/m(3) to 3700 μBq/m(3) and 1040 μBq/m(3), respectively. The activity concentration of (239,240)Pu in one aerosol sample collected from 23 March to 15 April, 2011 was found to be 44.5 nBq/m(3). The two maxima found in radionuclide concentrations were related to complicated long-range air mass transport from Japan across the Pacific, the North America and the Atlantic Ocean to Central Europe as indicated by modelling. HYSPLIT backward trajectories and meteorological data were applied for interpretation of activity variations of measured radionuclides observed at the site of investigation. (7)Be and (212)Pb activity concentrations and their ratios were used as tracers of vertical transport of air masses. Fukushima data were compared with the data obtained during the Chernobyl accident and in the post Chernobyl period. The activity concentrations of (131)I and (137)Cs were found to be by 4 orders of magnitude lower as compared to the Chernobyl accident. The activity ratio of (134)Cs/(137)Cs was around 1 with small variations only. The activity ratio of (238)Pu/(239,240)Pu in the aerosol sample was 1.2, indicating a presence of the spent fuel of different origin than that of the Chernobyl accident.

A senior Iranian lawmaker stressed that Tehran will block its oil supplies to the European Union for the next 5 to 15 years as part of its strategy to punish the EU for its oil ban against Tehran.

"We will change the threat into an opportunity for Iran and cut Iran's oil supplies to the Europeans for five to 15 years," member of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Mohammad Karim Abedi told FNA on Sunday.

He pointed to a bill drafted in the parliament to cut oil exports to the EU, and noted, "We will not leave enemies' sanctions unanswered and we will impose other sanctions on them in addition to closing Iran's oil supplies to Europe." Abedi also said that Iran will use the banned oil in its refineries and petrochemical complexes to turn it into more valuable products.

An Iranian lawmaker says his parliament has postponed vote on a bill requiring the government to immediately halt crude oil sales to Europe. The ban would be a response to the EU's decision to stop importing Iranian oil and freeze assets of its central bank.

Lawmaker Ali Adiani Rad is quoted by the semiofficial ISNA news agency as saying lawmakers need experts' views before they vote on the ban. Many Iranian officials have called for an immediate ban on oil exports to the European bloc before the EU's ban goes into full effect in July.

Researchers working around Japan's disabled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant say bird populations there have begun to dwindle, in what may be a chilling harbinger of the impact of radioactive fallout on local life. In the first major study of the impact of the world's worst nuclear crisis in 25 years, the researchers, from Japan, the US and Denmark, said their analysis of 14 species of bird common to Fukushima and Chernobyl, the Ukrainian city which suffered a similar nuclear meltdown, showed the effect on abundance is worse in the Japanese disaster zone.

The study, published next week in the journal Environmental Pollution, suggests that its findings demonstrate "an immediate negative consequence of radiation for birds during the main breeding season [of] March [to] July".Two of the study's authors have spent years working in the irradiated 2,850 sq metre zone around the Chernobyl single-reactor plant, which exploded in 1986 and showered much of Europe with caesium, strontium, plutonium and other radioactive toxins. A quarter of a century later, the region is almost devoid of people.

Timothy Mousseau and Anders Pape Moller say their research uncovered major negative effects among the bird population, including reductions in longevity and in male fertility, and birds with smaller brains.Many species show "dramatically" elevated DNA mutation rates, developmental abnormalities and extinctions, they add, while insect life has been significantly reduced.

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.”

Short-term pressures on oil markets are easing with the economic slowdown and the expected return of Libyan supply. But the average oil price remains high, approaching $120/barrel (in year-2010 dollars) in 2035. Reliance grows on a small number of producers: the increase in output from Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is over 90% of the required growth in world oil output to 2035. If, between 2011 and 2015, investment in the MENA region runs one-third lower than the $100 billion per year required, consumers could face a near-term rise in the oil price to $150/barrel.Oil demand rises from 87 million barrels per day (mb/d) in 2010 to 99 mb/d in 2035, with all the net growth coming from the transport sector in emerging economies. The passenger vehicle fleet doubles to almost 1.7 billion in 2035. Alternative technologies, such as hybrid and electric vehicles that use oil more efficiently or not at all, continue to advance but they take time to penetrate markets.

Very low levels of the radioactive isotope iodine-131 in northern part of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Norwegian Radiation authorities is unsure about the source, but says it might come from, or via Russian territory.

Norwegian Radiation Protection Authorities (NRPA) says in a short press-note Tuesday evening that the levels they measured pose no health risk. The measurements of radioactive iodine in northern part of the Barents Region were made several days ago, but results of the analyses were first made public Tuesday evening by coordinated press-notes from radiation authorities in Finland, Sweden and Norway. NRPA says that two of the six online measuring stations in Finnmark in the high north of Norway have indicated increased levels of radioactive iodine.

Swedish radiation protection authority says in thier brief that very low levels of radioactive iodine-131 are meassured at their station in Kiruna in northern Sweden.

Here was the handwritten log kept by a senior engineer at the nuclear power plant:

Wiesel was very upset. He seemed very nervous. Very agitated. . . . In fact, the plant was riddled with problems that, no way on earth, could stand an earth- quake. The team of engineers sent in to inspect found that most of these components could "completely and utterly fail" during an earthquake. "Utterly fail during an earthquake." And here in Japan was the quake and here is the utter failure. The warning was in what the investigations team called The Notebook, which I'm not supposed to have.  Good thing I've kept a copy anyway, because the file cabinets went down with my office building .... WORLD TRADE CENTER TOWER 1, FIFTY-SECOND FLOOR

[This is an excerpt in FreePress.org from Vultures' Picnic: In Pursuit of Petroleum Pigs, Power Pirates and High-Finance Fraudsters, to be released this Monday.  Click here to get the videos and the book.] Two senior nuclear plant engineers were spilling out their souls and files on our huge conference table, blowing away my government investigations team with the inside stuff about the construction of the Shoreham, New York, power station. The meeting was secret. Very secret. Their courage could destroy their careers: No engineering firm wants to hire a snitch, even one who has saved thousands of lives. They could lose their jobs; they could lose everything. They did. That’s what happens. Have a nice day.

Nuclear supporters got some positive news from Europe last week. Although Germany has pulled its oldest plants out of operation and countries across the continent continue to debate the future of the industry in light of the Japanese reactor crisis, the European Parliament has excluded a moratorium on new reactors from nuclear safety legislation.

A construction moratorium failed in a vote Thursday, with 300 voting against the measure, 264 for it and 61 abstaining, according to Bulgarian newspaper Novinite

The moratorium would have been in effect at least until “stress tests” were conducted. The tests, approved earlier, will assess nuclear plants’ ability to withstand natural and man-made disasters. While some legislators argued the tests should be overseen at the European-Union level, the legislation directs regulators in individual EU countries to carry them out.

In Europe and the United States, signs of the long-discussed “nuclear renaissance” are increasingly positive. But it’s in China (which now has 21 out of the 53 reactors under construction around the world) that the initial boom is occurring. Increasing mentions of nuclear power in the mass media, often with a generally positive slant, are very welcome, but the industry now needs to build new reactors in great volume. China, with its vast requirements for clean power generation, is therefore the key

An important element has been public statements from respected third-party advocates for nuclear, many of whom were previously either strongly opposed or seen as agnostic. Some of these come from the environmental movement, notably Patrick Moore, one of the founders of Greenpeace, but the support of James Lovelock, the originator of the Gaia Theory of the Earth as a self-regulating organism, has been particularly important.

The industry has recognised that securing public buy-in is critical and conditional upon in-depth dialogue. It accepts that concerns over safety, waste and non-proliferation will continue to impose a strict regulatory regime on the industry and that this is necessary, despite it costing a great deal of valuable time and money. 

The Forum was created by the European Commission in 2007. It represents a unique platform for a broad discussion within European Union on all nuclear energy issues. It gathers all relevant stakeholders in the nuclear field: Governments, European Institutions (Commission, European Parliament, European Economic and Social Committee), academics, nuclear industry- electricity consumers and vendors- and representatives of the civil society

"Nuclear energy offers the best relative economical performance compared to other sources of energy when used for base load electricity generation. It contributes to the EU’s security of supply, emitting practically no greenhouse gases and thus combating climate change."

These conclusions are drawn by ENEF which annual plenary meeting took place in Bratislava, on June 25 and 26, 2010.

--China's State Council halted all new reactor construction Wednesday, pending revised safety regulations. The country also ordered a comprehensive inspection of its plants. China's current energy plan sets aside $10.7 billion annually for nuclear plant construction over the next decade. Some two dozen reactors are under construction in China, according to Reuters

The European Commission decided all 143 power plants in 27 European Union countries will be tested for emergency preparedness. Following radiation releases and core damage still unfolding at a Japanese nuclear plant brought on by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake, European officials have said they will reevaluate EU plants’ preparedness for emergencies like floods, tsunamis and terrorist attacks

According to a report in the New York Times, an estimated 110,000 people protested against nuclear power in some 450 German towns Monday. The newspaper reported that nuclear plants supply a third of the electricity in the EU.

French energy group Areva has entered tentative talks with the Tennessee Valley Authority that could pave the way for TVA’s nuclear plants to use fuel made from retired weapons. On Friday, the company announced it signed a letter of intent with TVA to initiate discussions on the use of fuel from the Department of Energy’s Mixed-Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility. While it would not obligate TVA to use the fuel, the letter highlights the agency’s ongoing relationship with DOE in evaluating the fuel-from-weapons program

Scheduled to begin operating in 2016, the mixed-oxide facility at DOE’s Savannah River site in South Carolina will blend plutonium from disassembled weapons with depleted uranium oxide, according to the National Nuclear Security Administration. Using the fuel in commercial reactors would make the plutonium unfit for explosives and help meet a commitment made by the United States and Russia in 2000 to dispose of 68 metric tons of surplus plutonium. Shaw Areva MOX Services Llc. holds the contract to build and operate the South Carolina facility

According to NNSA, more than 30 commercial reactors currently use mixed-oxide fuel, including at plants in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Belgium and Switzerland.

A Vancouver woman wants Canadian governments held more accountable for protecting public health in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear crisis. In an August 8 interview at the Georgia Straight office, Isabel Budke pointed out that citizens and nongovernmental organizations can exert a great deal more pressure on Health Canada and other regulators to improve monitoring, measuring, and reporting on radiation levels in water, soil, and food.

“I really think we need to have localized and regional testing because, from what I understand, the plumes that have drifted over the Pacific Ocean with this radiation are touching down on different areas in different ways, depending on where the jet stream is going and what weather conditions are,” Budke said. “We can’t rely on testing results from the United States or testing that has been done somewhere else in the country. I think we need to have our own testing in B.C.”

Budke, who has an SFU master’s degree in environmental and resource management, said that if governments won’t do this work, she wants the public to work collaboratively to have food, soil, and water tested. Her group has created a “Canadian Network for Radiation Awareness & Monitoring” website, which will post results from citizen-initiated laboratory tests.

radiation from the damaged Fukushima power plant has been detected in Glasgow, the Evening Times reports. However, the paper notes: “The levels picked up in Glasgow are tiny and similar to those detected in other parts of Europe and officials stress there is no risk to public health.”

In Japan, Premier Kan’s call is already facing opposition from pro-nuclear energy companies and LDP Opposition politicians. With PM Kan’s low poll ratings, some suggest neither he nor the policy will last. Beyond the shadow of Fukushima, others across Asia must take into account a wider energy challenge. In the global financial crisis, worldwide energy consumption paused. But Asia continues to grow, despite the dour economic outlook in the US and Europe, and so does its energy needs. Some talk of a power shift to Asia, but what is most certain is that Asians need more power.

Yet supply has been hit by uncertainties in the Middle East

Asia is not well positioned in this. The regional economies need but mostly are not self-sufficient in energy. China and India have few domestic energy sources, other than to use pollutive and carbon-heavy coal. Imports from the Middle East remain critical but look to be increasingly risky and expensive.

a new market research report is available in its catalogue: Nuclear Energy Quarterly Deals Analysis - M&A and Investment Trends, Q2 2011 http://www.reportlinker.com/p0285100/Nuclear-Energy-Quarterly-Deals-Analysis---MA-and-Investment-Trends-Q2-2011.html#utm_source=prnewswire&utm_medium=pr&utm_campaign=Nuclear_energy Nuclear Energy Quarterly Deals Analysis - M&A and Investment Trends, Q2 2011

Summary GlobalData's "Nuclear Energy Quarterly Deals Analysis - M&A and Investment Trends, Q2 2011" report is an essential source of data and trend analysis on Mergers and Acquisitions (M&As) and financings in the nuclear energy market. The report provides detailed information on M&As, equity and debt offerings, private equity and venture capital (PE/VC) and partnership transactions recorded in the nuclear energy industry in Q2 2011. The report provides detailed comparative data on the number of deals and their value in the last five quarters, categorized by deal types, segments and geographies. The report also provides information on the top advisory firms in the nuclear energy industry. Data presented in this report is derived from GlobalData's proprietary in-house Nuclear Energy eTrack deals database and primary and secondary research.

Scope - Analyze market trends for the nuclear energy market in the global arena - Review of deal trends in uranium mining & processing, equipment and services, and power generation markets - Analysis of M&A, Equity/Debt Offerings, Private Equity, Venture Financing and Partnerships in the nuclear energy industry - Summary of nuclear energy deals globally in the last five quarters - Information on top deals happened in the nuclear energy industry - Geographies covered include – North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, South & Central America, and Middle East & Africa - League Tables of financial advisors in M&A and equity/debt offerings. This includes key advisors such as Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, and Goldman Sachs

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.

Germany’s decision to close its reactors rejected as unrealistic

Since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami hit the six TEPCO reactors at Fukushima Japan, anti-nuclear groups have been on a roll.  Germany’s panic attack which will result in closing 17 reactors accounting for a quarter of its electricity is widely touted as a bellwether example for other countries.   The goal of post-industrial visionaries is to get the mainstream media and the public to accept a scenario of the inevitable end to the use of nuclear energy in as many places as possible. But is this trend really taking place?  Recent developments indicate it is not.  Here are some examples.

China to lift ban on new projects By early 2012 China will resume approving the start of new nuclear energy projects following completion of a national nuclear safety plan.  According to wire services, the China Securities Journal is reporting that in August the government completed the inspection of its existing fleet of nuclear reactors which provide about 11 Gwe of power.  It said that plants under construction, including four from Westinghouse and two from Areva, were also part of the review.  In an unexpected move, the Journal said the government would offer greater transparency on nuclear safety issues by making the results of the safety reviews available for public inspection.