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The Energy Spectator
Nuclear Since Fukushima
One year later, there have be no casualties from radiation. But will the worldwide Nuclear Renaissance revive?
It was one year ago that a 9.0 earthquake hit Japan and its eastern Fukushima province and buried whatever hopes there might have been for a worldwide Nuclear Renaissance.
The Achilles’ heel of nuclear, of course, is that despite its stellar safety record and statistical standing as the least dangerous way of generating electricity, there is always the specter of that one huge accident that will take a devastating toll and leave some large portion of the earth uninhabitable. Six coal miners a day die in accidents in China. Thirteen people die every year trying to service windmills by landing on the 45-story structures in helicopters. So far there have been no casualties at Fukushima. But the 12-mile zone still remains evacuated and mobs in Japan, India, Germany, and sometimes the United States are calling for nuclear power to be abandoned altogether.
So how does the scorecard stand a year later and what are the possibilities of continuing the slow but steady revival of nuclear?
Japan
The epicenter of the accident still remains fairly traumatized. Japan got 33 percent of its electric power from nuclear and was one of the most advanced countries in developing the technology. But it may be a long time before it embraces nuclear again. All but one of Tokyo Electric Power’s reactors are now shut down and half are unlikely to reopen. The resulting shortage of electricity has hurt manufacturing and led to the nation’s first trade deficit in 31 years.
So far there have been no deaths or illnesses from radiation, although two older workers did die of heat stroke during the accident. Of the 31,000 people who have been evacuated, many have suffered from depression and a few have committed suicide. Radiation levels in the region are now about twice normal background. People in various parts of the world live with background 1,000 times as high, but extremely strict standards prevent Fukushima evacuees from returning to their homes.
Strong anti-nuclear movements have become politically powerful and several leading newspapers are keeping up a constant drumbeat of alarm. It is unlikely that Japan will be building any more reactors in the near future. Government officials have indicated, however, that Japanese industries will continue to sell their excellent nuclear products abroad. Westinghouse, Hitachi, and Mitsubishi are all world-leading manufacturers.
Germany
Premier Angela Merkel, herself a physicist, was stricken with remorse during the Fukushima accident and vowed to close all of Germany’s reactors in the next decade. In the year previous, she had revived Germany’s program by renegotiating a 2000 agreement to phase out all reactors by 2020. Now Germany has embarked on an ambitious, government-subsidized effort to switch to renewable energy. The results so far have been unpromising. This winter the output of Germany’s 2.5 GW of solar collectors has been operating at less than 5 percent cent capacity and the country has survived only by importing nuclear electricity from France and the Czech Republic. At one point it had to ask Austria to fire up an old oil-burning plant. Siemens, the country’s largest manufacturer, has complained the transition will cost $2 trillion and RWE and E.ON, the two largest energy companies, are laying off 14,000 workers because of slumping profits. What Germany’s effort is likely to prove is that powering an industrial country with wind and sunshine is a mirage.
China
China has shrugged off Fukushima and is proceeding with plans to expand nuclear at all due speed. The Chinese are constructing the world’s first four Westinghouse AP1000 reactors, the first scheduled to go online in 2013. The AP1000’s “passive” design employs natural convection currents instead of electric pumps to circulate cooling water and will be able to avoid a Fukushima-type emergency.
Altogether China has 27 reactors under construction, with dozens more in the planning stage. All are being built on time and on budget. Last year Anne Lauvergeon, former CEO of France’s Areva, complained that the Chinese were building Areva’s EPR faster and cheaper than the French can do it themselves. Seventeen of the new reactors are the CPR-1000, China’s own design, pirated from Westinghouse’s AP1000. China has not yet tried to sell the design abroad, but when it does it could quickly dominate world markets.
The Chinese are also exploring futuristic technologies in a way that was once attempted in this country but has been abandoned. In 2011 the Chinese National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) announced the commercialization of its first Integral Fast Breeder Reactor, a design that burns any kind of nuclear fuel and can eliminate the problem of “nuclear waste.” Project director Wang Junfeng told reporters that recycling could provide China 3,000 years’ worth of cheap electricity. America built an Integral Fast Breeder at the Idaho National Laboratory in the 1980s, but the Clinton administration excised it as part of a nuclear phase-out in 1994.
It was not surprising, then, that when Bill Gates’ new company, Intellectual Ventures, headed by Mi-crosoft’s former head of research, Nathan Myhrvold, decided to attempt an experimental model of its futuristic Travelling Wave Reactor, Gates ended up in Peking signing an agreement with the CNNC. The Travelling Wave promises to reprocess its own wastes and run for 100 years without refueling. Gates saw no possibility of moving ahead with the project in the United States.
Russia
John786| 3.12.12 @ 7:34AM
Nuclear power is one of the solutions to global warming. But there are serious challenges. It's very expensive & relies heavily on government subsidy at every stage. No solution for the waste. Chernobyl caused effects across continents. They are too big to fail. who pays for decommissioning. The future does appear to look bleak for this technology.
Dick Nome| 3.12.12 @ 8:45AM
In case you haven't heard, GLobal Warming is a leftist scam.
TrueBlue | 3.12.12 @ 7:19PM
Breeder reactors take care of the "waste." By the time they are done what's left is nearly completely spent material that quickly breaks down.
Chernobyl? Seriously? That was caused because Russia tried to cut corners.
It does NOT rely on government subsidy, it relies on government getting the heck out of the way!
Why would we want to decomm the plants? They are the best source of electric power other than hydroelectric.
gearjammer| 3.12.12 @ 8:52AM
I guess you are Bill Gate's intellectual superior. Mr. Tucker has just demolished your belief system but you are unfazed. Go to Germany and live in a hut.
John786| 3.12.12 @ 9:26AM
I know you guys get your science from creationist pamphlets but the rest of us have to live in the real world.
Truth to Power| 3.12.12 @ 9:40AM
That is the world of left wing payoffs to Obama money bundlers. Science is political you see. Your average lefty thinks that he finds science in the Democratic Party Handbook.
Kostka Brukowa | 3.12.12 @ 9:30AM
Solar energy - the only way to go imo.
PolishKnight| 3.12.12 @ 9:35AM
Let's be philosophical about this: The same people who are against Nuclear as unsafe, and they have legitimate concerns, are the ones who have no problems with handing over power to big government in the hopes that they've make a big Swedish utopia even as they ignore all the horrors that big government has committed in the past century and the corruption they use to win power. Chernobyl is uninhabitable but then again, so is Detroit and Southeast DC but for different reasons.
Simultaneously, so-called free market capitalism is no sure thing either as the Nuclear industry should have learned its lessons from Chernobyl and three mile island. When the next accident occurs, even with new technology supposedly claimed to be safe, it makes it that much harder to convince the public "this time, we mean it's safe!"
So why do people fear nuclear power plants but are happy to have bureaucrats wander around with guns? It's the myth of control. They tell me that their "party" is their team and being humans, they can be controlled by the massive state. Since the socialist state is made up of human beings, they feel a strong connectionwith it even as a massive socialist state quickly becomes inhuman much like a mob.
On the other hand, ironically, the same leftists who proclaim that the God of Science has proclaimed global warming to be real fear nuclear power because they don't think they can control it. They can't launch a protest against Fokushima and get the radiation to be politically correct. They can't seduce it. They can't BS it. Nature and True Science are not influenced by leftist political games. It shatters their worldview of an omnipotent socialist state where 2 plus 2 can equal 5.
John786| 3.12.12 @ 10:21AM
Gravity is right wing: because it pulls you down.
To be serious for a moment In the event of a major catastrophe who pays for the clean up. It's abit like wall street- the losses can't be quantified or they are socialised. The only thing going for it is the global warming angle. we must all decide collectively so that if the too big to fail bills start to come in .....
Truth to Power| 3.12.12 @ 10:52AM
President Obama has signed a bill declaring a vacation from gravity into law. The savings will result in a balanced budget in 50 years. This is as plausible as the solar and wind scam promoted by the Democratic Party. The only skill needed to show the absurdity of the Democratic Party science based energy policy is the abilty to add.
Chico Escuela| 3.12.12 @ 11:23AM
Gravity is "just a theory".
John786| 3.12.12 @ 11:56AM
Gravitons vs warping of space: The truth is out there. Dark matter, energy a big spanner...
topeka| 4.27.12 @ 4:23PM
... space aliens, time travelers, angels dancing on the head of a pin...
David W| 3.12.12 @ 9:51AM
Per the Japan situation. I read an article where there were two sources of radiation - one from the reactors (due to government foot dragging there was the hydrogen explosion that blew up the reactor building, but not the containment vessels. Had the hydrogen been bled off no explosion would have occurred) and from the spent fuel holding ponds (when the earth shook the rods were exposed, causing them to overheat and release radiation). I believe the article stated that more radiation was released from the holding ponds than from the reactor.
There is a way to burn up the waste fuel as was stated in the article. The US per law apparently can't run reactors that will do that because it might generate materials that terrorists can use (apparently they will be able to get more than enough from N. Korea, Pakistan, and now Iran, so that is a moot point, but don't tell that to the environmental nutcases). We also have designs for "thorium(?) reactors that won't have any meltdown problems - but don't hold your breath about getting them built.
Thanks to environment nut cases no nuclear technology is "safe" (try living next to an oil refinery - I used to and also worked in one. While safe it is still full of danger for workers and those living nearby. And, whenever I visit and the wind is from the North it makes my lungs hurt. Coal power plants can't be "licensed" as nuclear power plants because they release too much radiation from the coal they burn). Environmentalists want us to go back to the pre-industrial revolution days (and don't tell me that solar and wind will replace coal or nuclear. And did you know that we now apparently pay wind power companies not to generate electricity when the demand isn't great enough?).
nathan| 3.12.12 @ 10:42AM
I'm sorry but there are credible stories that totally contradict this one regarding both regarding radiation sickness and the level of radiation released and present in the areas. There was a documentary where a guy went around with a geiger counter and you could see it jump to levels 50/100 times higher than anything being said here. Parents in the area found that when their kids went out of the area they felt fine, shortly after returning they showed all the signs of low grade radiation poisoning. A doctor who was involved in treating victims of Hiroshima and has been doing this his whole life says he has little doubt that what he's seeing mirrors some of that.
Areas outside of exclusion zone as I stated depending on where you drive show levels well in excess of of anything acceptable. The problem is that the Japanese government relies on overflights to measure the levels and that simply isn't reliable. Ground based measurements, either done by walking around or driving around gives more reliable measurements and those are not reasurring.
What was interesting is that the government screening program for people, especially the kids, where they measure exposure both externally and internally, the camera crews were not permitted to observe. What's there to hide? This should be totally open. The Japanese government simply doesn't look good here especially with some levels outside the exclusion zone in excess of Chernobyl.
And a major part of the problem is the reactors did explode and did melt down. Watch the scenes of the explosions releasing all that gas into the air.
I'm sorry based on what I've seen and heard it appears there's more here than what the author is saying and there's way more danger to the people than he thinks. But to admit it would incur costs well beyond what the Japanese government is willing to pay.
But the question becomes, how many children have to suffer here? What is their ultimate responsibility? Let's be honest, those reactors should NEVER have been sited where they were. Now that we've seen what happened what are the priorities? Do we relocated maybe millions of people in the interest of safety at the cost of tens of billions of dollars or do we just accept a certain loss rate here because that's cheaper in the long run?
dac| 3.12.12 @ 1:18PM
Sorry, hippies, the death toll score remains: Ted Kennedy's Car: 1 dead; Radiation from Fukushima, 0 dead. And that's the way it will stay, a generation from now.
If you want to live off your own land and burn wood for fuel, feel free. Ration yourself. But don't ration a cheap, abundant, recyclable energy source for the rest of us, most of whom realize that there's risk in everyday life, whether crossing the street or drinking on St. Patty's Day. Those who refuse to do realistic cost-benefit calculations are those who will ration every aspect of your lives, and snuff them out at their whim, because their ideology is judged superior to your freedom.
That's what this nuclear debate is about. If the eco-communist left wins the debate, then it will make energy (and life itself) easier for them to ration. If they lose, they will be unable to stop productivity and freedom, which is why they cannot afford to let actual scientific facts (see above, death toll score) see the light of day.
Japan has every interest in making sure its reactors are safe, and no interest in being anything less than fully transparent. Wait until this summer, when power prices spike there because 1/3 of their energy is off the grid--would you rather roast in the summer heat of an urbanized country, or have some 1 in a million risk of some type of disease from some tiny amount of radiation, when the odds are you'll die from something else well before any amount of dangerous radiation causes anything in your system? Maybe the Japanese will be allowed to choose. Eco-communists want to ensure that they, and we in the U.S., don't even have that choice.
dac| 3.12.12 @ 1:18PM
Sorry, hippies, the death toll score remains: Ted Kennedy's Car: 1 dead; Radiation from Fukushima, 0 dead. And that's the way it will stay, a generation from now.
If you want to live off your own land and burn wood for fuel, feel free. Ration yourself. But don't ration a cheap, abundant, recyclable energy source for the rest of us, most of whom realize that there's risk in everyday life, whether crossing the street or drinking on St. Patty's Day. Those who refuse to do realistic cost-benefit calculations are those who will ration every aspect of your lives, and snuff them out at their whim, because their ideology is judged superior to your freedom.
That's what this nuclear debate is about. If the eco-communist left wins the debate, then it will make energy (and life itself) easier for them to ration. If they lose, they will be unable to stop productivity and freedom, which is why they cannot afford to let actual scientific facts (see above, death toll score) see the light of day.
Japan has every interest in making sure its reactors are safe, and no interest in being anything less than fully transparent. Wait until this summer, when power prices spike there because 1/3 of their energy is off the grid--would you rather roast in the summer heat of an urbanized country, or have some 1 in a million risk of some type of disease from some tiny amount of radiation, when the odds are you'll die from something else well before any amount of dangerous radiation causes anything in your system? Maybe the Japanese will be allowed to choose. Eco-communists want to ensure that they, and we in the U.S., don't even have that choice.
topeka| 4.27.12 @ 4:17PM
nathan,
... oh brother - bet you'd burn witches who weigh the same as a duck...
- I used the Geiger counter trick myself on the operators at a plant once
- they wouldn't believe some naturally radioactive material was safe
- so I fiddled with the dials to pick up radiation everywhere and scared 'em half to death.
- management wasn't too thrilled - they could get the little chickenspits to calm down.
- so I had to go back and give 'em a lesson in how to operate the Geiger counter
- and the morons didn't understand that either
- it takes a special kind of stupid as they say...
Chico Escuela| 3.12.12 @ 11:21AM
Boy, the entire country is experiencing unprecedented temperatures 20 to 30 degrees HIGHER THAN NORMAL this whole week !
where's all that global cooling we hear the alarmists screaming their heads off about ???
cdc| 3.12.12 @ 11:45AM
Breeder reactors for now, but I'm still optimistic about fusion power within 50 years
.
JimH| 3.12.12 @ 12:50PM
Why not, it's been the power source of future for the past fifty years.
cdc| 3.12.12 @ 1:02PM
It's either solve fusion or we're screwed within several centuries
albert constantine jr.| 3.12.12 @ 12:16PM
I know it's like inviting vampires into your house, but I am surprised POST American hasn't weighed in yet, with all his frequent mention of Fukushima.
JimH| 3.12.12 @ 1:04PM
I could be way off on this, but the impression I get is that there is an awful lot of customization that goes into the design and construction of a nuclear plant. For other than experimental modals you would think that there would be standard designs, each with different capacities and advantages. Why is each plant bespoke rather than off the shelf? It would also seem to be overlooked common sense to incorporate in the design a safe shut down which does not require any external power. The default configuration should be safely off and only need power in order to operate. BTW, looking at your picture with the scarf, I'm wondering if you are going for a Tom Baker Dr. Who look?
turbine| 3.12.12 @ 7:25PM
every industrial plant is pretty much a one off custom construction, heck even most houses are pretty unique
OregonBuzz| 3.12.12 @ 8:10PM
Clean nuclear power without the Russian meltdown or Hanford problem or the Fukishima destruction is available. It's called thorium. At Oakridge in the 50's they developed a reactor far less volatile and dangerous using thorium. Unfortunately they were looking for weapons grade material and were not seeking a power plant to produce electricity. Thorium is safe, easy and far more available than Uranium. It is the power source of the future for the production of electricity and it was available in the 1940's!!! Why has no one brought this up? Why has no one pursued this avenue to cheap, safe electrical power? Ask yourself that question and seek the answer.
POST American| 3.13.12 @ 12:44AM
"9 out of 10 reactors across the country
ARE leaking. It's NOT even an issue.
NOT even talked about. Meanwhile,
as FUKISHIMA's being covered up
by Globalist media ----the EPA raises
the 'acceptable' levels of radiation
by 10,000%. ----Folks! NOTHIN' fries
fertility like radiation! ----NOTHIN'!"
-ALEX JONES
That's right NOTHIN'.
And STILL, Jeffrey 'I-Melt-down' of the
company responsible for the FLAWED
Mox reactors in Japan (GE) ---is dancing
across the globe building dirty plants
TAX FREE! ---even underwritten --by US!!!
BUT TAKE HEART!
InfoWars latest video 'ARREST Angelina Jolie
for War Crimes' ---now has 10 MILLION views
online.
-----------ESSENTIAL VIEWING!
Remember kiddies!
-------------------EUGENICS --means YOU!!!
nathan| 3.13.12 @ 10:01AM
Dac, I'll ask you a simple question. Real simple. Would you live right now within say 50 miles of those melted down reactors. Would you and say your children ages 2-10 live there and agree to live there for the next 20 - 30 years and plant a garden and eat food grown from that garden and feed those vegetables to your five year old and continue to eat those vegetables for the next two decades have the aforementioned children consume those vegetables for the next two decades. You may recall right that for the Bikini Atoll, the surface radiation is reasonable. Go down six inches and ooops, you can't eat anything grown there, right? And come on you know that radiation poisoning takes like forever to develop and even if it doesn't kill you, those cancers and other problems, treatable, are still so very unpleasant. A lot of the Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Chernobyl people "lived" if they survived the initial incident, they just had tons of problems to contend with. Health issues WAY in excess of the population as a whole. In 10/20/30 years are kids those going to have higher than normal rates of cancers, that won't result in their "deaths" but still will result in a less than pleasant "life"? Your metric here is way to narrow.
If your answer is "no", and frankly no way would I agree to that, then go back and read what you wrote and revise and amend your comments.
And conceded by the way, no energy source is without it's problems. But in this case, have the long term effects of what happened because of those two reactors been properly evaluated? Especially since we have a lot of history to go on, the two bombs and Chernobyl.
So tell the class, would you put yourself, your wife, and your children, say ages 2-6, within 40 miles of the reactors (the exclusion zone is 25 miles so I'm suggesting say 10/15 miles outside the official zone) and agree to eat vegetables, and meat products grown within the zone for the next two to three decades? Because right now millions of Japanese are doing exactly that. And if you wouldn't accept that risk (again no way I would) then the Japanese government needs to do more than it's doing now and we can't casually dismiss what's going on like you seemed to do.
Thank you.
topeka| 4.27.12 @ 4:19PM
nathan,
yes.
And if I could designate those areas as an idiot-free zone, I'd be packing now...
POST American| 3.13.12 @ 11:41PM
"-----WHY aren't ALLL the most talented
and brilliant engineers in the world heading
there to help that poor country? ---WHY???
----WHY???"
-Jay Weidner
interview April 2011
Rockefeller/Gates et al EUGENICS 'age--enda'
for the 21st century ----that's WHY. . .
"---Nothin' fries DNA like radiation!
----------------NOTHIN!"
-Alex Jones
You heard him ---NOTHIN'.
A year into the Globalist capstone cover up
of the Fukishima world nuclear disaster
------and cover up of the Wheeler murder
--------and cover up of the Breitbart 'unpleasantness'
--------------and GMO Monsanto Halocaust
-----------------and Gates weaponization of shots
--------------------and
------------------------and
---------------------------and
Now, go outside and take a great big whiff
of the CHEM--trailed air now enriched with
cesium 140.
And remember ----OPRAH LOVES YOU!
topeka| 4.27.12 @ 4:21PM
... b/c they enforce their immigration laws.
And, yes, that statement is based on actual experience.
StevenB.| 3.14.12 @ 4:16PM
"So there is a distinct possibility that we could wake up in ten years to find the giants of Asia have passed us by in nuclear technology and we have no choice but to buy it from them".
Just as we are doing right now with domestic vs. Middle Eastern energy production. Let's learn from our mistakes for a change!
topeka| 4.27.12 @ 4:34PM
Russians,
The fear of nuclear power is one of the most effective witch-hunts ever created by the politburo.
The reason the Russians are unafraid of nuclear has nothing to do with politics or science - they "know" the witch-hunt against nuclear in the western world is an Agitprop operation they concocted. - And while a 26 yo Belorussian programmer wasn't sure of that, a 60+ yo Russian professor did.
As for almost everything posted in the comments - obviously the uninformed cannot distinguish between science and the X-files.
Tucker's article is great - though I am very surprised the Chinese are still using anything American - shows how slow a commie govt is to change.
When I was in grad school - the Chinese were stealing everything not nailed down - and they were clearly more qualified than we were (b/c unlike us - they had jobs!)
At this point, communism is the only reason the Chinese are not telling us "how to" on this (and several other) technologies. Go PLA!
btw - that's sarcasm - you know, like if a bunch of commies can steal it, and make it work, why can't we? ...
... oh forget it ...
Bob K| 1.20.13 @ 9:50AM
Forget about Energy Density for a minute and consider Inertia Density!
There is nothing in the universe with as much Inertia Density as an American
Government Regulatory Commission!