Emissions Rise As Japan Shuts Down Nuclear Power

[Samstwitch]

Concept image about dangerous radioactivity levels in Japan.

Emissions Rise As Japan Shuts Down Nuclear Power

May 4, 2012: TOKYO (AP) — The Fukushima crisis is eroding years of Japanese efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming, as power plants running on oil and natural gas fill the electricity gap left by now-shuttered nuclear reactors.

Before last year's devastating tsunami triggered meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, Japan had planned to meet its carbon emissions reduction targets on the assumption that it would rely on nuclear power, long considered a steady, low-emissions source of energy.

But now it's unclear to what extent nuclear energy will even be part of the electricity mix.
Japan will be free of atomic power for the first time since 1966 on Saturday, when the last of its 50 usable reactors is switched off for regular inspections. The central government would like to restart them at some point, but it is running into strong opposition from local citizens and governments.

With the loss of nuclear energy, the Ministry of Environment projects that Japan will produce about 15 percent more greenhouse gas emissions this fiscal year than it did in 1990, the baseline year for measuring progress in reducing emissions. In fiscal 2010, Japan's actual emissions were close to 1990 levels. It also raises doubts about whether it will be able to meet a pledge made in Copenhagen in 2009 to slash emissions by 25 percent from 1990 levels by 2020.

For years, nuclear power was a pillar in Japan's energy and climate policies. Until the Fukushima disaster last year, it accounted for about a third of Japan's power generation, and Tokyo had planned to expand that to half by 2030.

Now Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has pledged to reduce reliance on nuclear power, although his government is eager to restart some reactors to meet a looming power crunch during the hot summer months.

"The big open question is whether and when the nuclear plants will come back on line, and what that implies for Japan's long-term emissions trajectory," said Elliot Diringer, executive vice president at the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, formerly the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, in Arlington, Virginia.

"If nuclear will no longer be a part of the energy mix, Japan is going to have a much tougher time reducing emissions," he said.

Japan is a world leader improving energy efficiency, one important method of reining in emissions. But it has done less to expand renewable energy than several other nations, including Germany, which is phasing out nuclear power.

Renewable energy accounts for about 9 percent of Japan's power generation — similar to the U.S. Most of that energy is hydroelectric power from dams; and some experts say solar and wind power are too intermittent to be a reliable source of base-load energy.

As an incentive, the government will require utilities to buy power from renewable energy producers for a fixed price called "feed-in tariffs" starting in July. But the higher cost to produce renewable energy will mean higher prices for consumers.

The 28-nation International Energy Agency maintains that nuclear power remains an important tool to battle global warming.

"If you want to have something at a reasonable cost in terms of low carbon-emissions, then nuclear has to play a role," said Ulrich Benterbusch, director of the Paris-based group's Directorate for Global Energy Dialogue. "If you have more renewables in the mix, it's going to be more expensive."

The government plans to announce a new energy strategy this summer with targets for renewables, nuclear and conventional power generation. In the meantime, Japan is spending billions importing extra oil and gas to meet demand — which is spewing more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Without nuclear power, Japan is projected to produce an additional 180 million-210 million tons of emissions this fiscal year compared to the base year of 1990, when emissions totaled 1.261 billion tons.

That wipes out a significant chunk of reductions Japan achieved during 2008-2010 through energy efficiency, credits for helping developing countries devise cleaner technologies and planting trees to absorb carbon dioxide. Officials believe Japan can still barely meet its commitment under the Kyoto Protocol to reduce emissions during the five-year period through 2012 by an average of 6 percent from 1990 levels.

Some experts see a model in Germany, which turned decisively against nuclear power after the Fukushima crisis, shutting down eight reactors and planning to close the remaining nine nuclear power plants by 2022. Yet its greenhouse gas emissions decreased 2 percent last year from 2010, and by 26.5 percent compared to 1990.

While a mild winter seems to have helped, Germany's growing renewable energy sector, which now accounts for over 20 percent of power generation, played a key role in that emissions decline, experts say. The German government has been actively promoting green energy for more than a decade, and aims to boost the share of renewables to 35 percent by 2020 — and 80 percent by 2050.

"If the government puts in place the right set of policies and incentives, then Germany is an example that you can reduce nuclear and greenhouse gases at the same time," said Jennifer Morgan, director of climate and energy program at the World Resources Institute in Washington.
Germany, however, has a safety net that Japan lacks. If it has shortfalls or blackouts, Germany can buy electricity from neighboring countries through the European power grid. The island nation of Japan has no such fallback.

Japanese politics, with its high leadership turnover, internal power battles and gridlock, is another obstacle. Its track record in recent years has been marked with indecision.

If Japan can put its collective mind to expand renewable energy, it too can achieve similar levels as Germany, said Sei Kato, deputy director at Environment Ministry's Low Carbon Society Promotion Office.

"We have the technological know-how. Japan can do anything Germany can," Kato said.

SOURCE: Emissions Rise As Japan Shuts Down Nuclear Power - US News and World Report

 

[Samstwitch]

Personally, I'm totally against ANYTHING Nuclear! Nuclear waste and Nuclear weapons are seriously harmful to the environment, causes damage that lasts for centuries, and people living in the vicinity of Nuclear Power Plants get cancer.

Expert: Nuclear Power Is On Its Deathbed:
A new report from a University of Vermont researcher says the cost of the safety measures needed for nuclear energy will eventually make the power source economically unviable

March 30, 2012: After the Fukushima power plant disaster in Japan last year, the rising costs of nuclear energy could deliver a knockout punch to its future use in the United States, according to a researcher at the Vermont Law School Institute for Energy and the Environment.
"From my point of view, the fundamental nature of [nuclear] technology suggests that the future will be as clouded as the past," says Mark Cooper, the author of the report. New safety regulations enacted or being considered by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission would push the cost of nuclear energy too high to be economically competitive.

The disaster insurance for nuclear power plants in the United States is currently underwritten by the federal government, Cooper says. Without that safeguard, "nuclear power is neither affordable nor worth the risk. If the owners and operators of nuclear reactors had to face the full liability of a Fukushima-style nuclear accident or go head-to-head with alternatives in a truly competitive marketplace, unfettered by subsidies, no one would have built a nuclear reactor in the past, no one would build one today, and anyone who owns a reactor would exit the nuclear business as quickly as possible."

That government backing of nuclear energy is starting to change after the Fukushima meltdown. Even the staunchest nuclear advocates say that with new technologies, nuclear power can always be made safer, but nothing can offer a guarantee against a plant meltdown.
"In the wake of a severe nuclear accident like Fukushima, the attention of policymakers, regulators, and the public is riveted on the issue of nuclear safety," the report says. "The scrutiny is so intense that it seems like the only thing that matters about nuclear reactors is their safety."

Although several reports by nonpartisan groups have reinforced the perception that America's nuclear reactors aren't in danger of a meltdown, the public is wary. Earlier this month, an analysis of Fukushima by the American Nuclear Society blamed Japan's regulatory oversight and reaction to the meltdown for magnitude of the disaster. According to Michael Corradini, a co-author of that report, "things are acceptable going forward in the States." "I don't think anything coming out of Fukushima would imply we aren't prepared," Corradini says.

Steven Kerekes, a spokesperson for the Nuclear Energy Institute, says that new safety measures are being placed in a new reactor set to go online in Georgia in 2017. "There's some safety enhancements they're undertaking, despite the fact they're already safe," Kerkes says. "These enhancements will increase the margin of safety by another order of magnitude."

But according to a report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, 80 percent of America's nuclear reactors are vulnerable to at least one of the factors involved in the Fukushima disaster, including vulnerability to earthquakes, fire hazard and elevated spent fuel.

Retrofitting existing reactors with the latest safety equipment is extremely expensive, Cooper says. "Regardless of what Congress does, the NRC has put on the table very serious and important changes in how we look at safety after Fukushima," Cooper says. "There was one permit [for a new reactor] issued recently, and there's a second one expected in the near future. Frankly, that's about it. I don't see any other reactors moving forward. The economics are so unfriendly that I don't think the rest of the [proposals] are very active."

That could be problematic for consumers, considering that the Environmental Protection Agency wants to limit carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants. People in the nuclear power industry point to the fact that coal pollution kills many more people than nuclear disasters, with some putting the ratio as high as 4,000 to 1.

Cooper says the very different natures of nuclear disaster versus coal pollution rightly makes people worried. "Sometimes the industry says 'If people understood it better, they wouldn't be as concerned,'" he says. "It's a different kind of disaster, and the industry has to start accepting it is different. There's a very wide impact in the aftermath of a nuclear disaster—you've got large dead zones, large exclusion zones. These problems you create, they strike a chord in human beings that is very deep-seeded and real. It's the nature of the technology."

SOURCE: Expert: Nuclear Power Is On Its Deathbed - US News and World Report

 

[Samstwitch]

Thousands march as Japan shuts off nuclear power

May 5, 2012 TOKYO (AP) — Thousands of Japanese marched to celebrate the switching off of the last of their nation's 50 nuclear reactors Saturday, waving banners shaped as giant fish that have become a potent anti-nuclear symbol. Japan was without electricity from nuclear power for the first time in four decades when the reactor at Tomari nuclear plant on the northern island of Hokkaido went offline for mandatory routine maintenance.

After last year's March 11 quake and tsunami set off meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, no reactor halted for checkups has been restarted amid public worries about the safety of nuclear technology.

"Today is a historic day," Masashi Ishikawa shouted to a crowd gathered at a Tokyo park, some holding traditional "koinobori" carp-shaped banners for Children's Day that have become a symbol of the anti-nuclear movement. "There are so many nuclear plants, but not a single one will be up and running today, and that's because of our efforts," Ishikawa said.

The activists said it is fitting that the day Japan stopped nuclear power coincides with Children's Day because of their concerns about protecting children from radiation, which Fukushima Dai-ichi is still spewing into the air and water.

The government has been eager to restart nuclear reactors, warning about blackouts and rising carbon emissions as Japan is forced to turn to oil and gas for energy.

Japan now requires reactors to pass new tests to withstand quakes and tsunami and to gain local residents' approval before restarting. The response from people living near nuclear plants has been mixed, with some wanting them back in operation because of jobs, subsidies and other benefits to the local economy.

The mayor of Tomari city, Hiroomi Makino, is among those who support nuclear power. "There may be various ways of thinking but it's extremely regrettable," he said of the shutdown.

Major protests, like the one Saturday, have been generally limited to urban areas like Tokyo, which had received electricity from faraway nuclear plants, including Fukushima Dai-ichi.

Before the nuclear crisis, Japan relied on nuclear power for a third of its electricity.

The crowd at the anti-nuclear rally, estimated at 5,500 by organizers, shrugged off government warnings about a power shortage. If anything, they said, with the reactors going offline one by one, it was clear the nation didn't really need nuclear power.

Whether Japan will suffer a sharp power crunch is still unclear. Electricity shortages are expected only at peak periods, such as the middle of the day in hot weather, and critics of nuclear power say proponents are exaggerating the consequences to win public approval to restart reactors.

Hokkaido Electric Power Co. spokesman Hisatoshi Kibayashi said the shutdown was completed late Saturday. The Hokkaido Tomari plant has three reactors, but the other two had been halted earlier. Before March 11 last year, the nation had 54 nuclear reactors, but four of the six reactors at Fukushima Dai-ichi are being decommissioned because of the disaster.

Yoko Kataoka, a retired baker who was dancing to the music at the rally waving a small paper carp, said she was happy the reactor was being turned off. "Let's leave an Earth where our children and grandchildren can all play without worries," she said, wearing a shirt that had, "No thank you, nukes," handwritten on the back.

SOURCE: Thousands march as Japan shuts off nuclear power - Times Union

 

[Peregrini]

"The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry" (John Steinbeck)

Imagine what the world would be like today if our pioneering predecessors had reacted to adversity with the same trepidation as the "do-gooders" do today. I'm sure there were some like them back in the day but the adventurous spirit of the many far out weighed the fearfulness of the few, fortunately. Knee jerk reactions always follow a disaster such as this but common sense will hopefully prevail or the predictions of a "return to the dark ages" will be fulfilled thru fear, not necessarily the direct cause of an event. If we turn away from the energy sources that 'actually work', in favor of some "pie-in-the-sky" green alternative, we will have no choice but to live without the things that so many have come to totally rely on for their daily survival. People are too spoiled to "eating their cake and having it too" to allow it to happen by choice. Oh, they will talk a good game but when push comes to shove, they will be unable and unwilling to give up their comfy lifestyle. Like the save the planet hypocrite Al Gore, live an opulent life style while telling others how they need to cut back for the sake of us all. But, will it be forced on us by a caring and concerned Government?