Japan steps away from nuclear power
As Japan and France move away from nuclear energy, is it the endgame for nuclear proponents?
As the world slouches into the 21st century, one of the global economic realities is that more and more developing nations, much less the “First World,” are competing for fossil fuel resources whose production is rising more slowly than demand.
Complicating the picture are the booming economies of two BRIC nations, India and China, a development that ensures that developed nations will be in increasing competition for global supplies of oil, natural gas and coal, whose production is struggling to keep with increasing demand.
An alternative relentlessly pushed by Western corporate interests is nuclear power, whose proponents never cease to remind their potential audience that nuclear power plants (NPPs), unlike those fired by coal or oil, emit no greenhouse gases, no small consideration in the world community worried about global warming.
But the global nuclear power industry has three strikes against it - cost, catastrophes, whether man-made (Three Mile Island, Chernobyl) or natural (Fukushima Daiichi) and the not inconsiderable problem of disposing of nuclear waste generated by NPPs. Despite civilian nuclear programs dating back to the early 1960s, no country has yet developed an environmentally safe means of disposing of NPP's nuclear by products, and these three issues are forcing a slow but significant worldwide rethink on the viability of nuclear electrical production.
Needless to say, the well-entrenched world nuclear power generation, with trillions of dollars invested and potentially billions more in the form of new NPP contracts, is fighting a furious rear-guard action, but the ultimate outcome of the titanic struggle is anything but clear, given a number of recent events.
The United States has 104 NPPs in operation, France 58, Japan's (currently offline) 54, Russia 32, South Korea 20, India 19, Canada 18, Germany 17, China 11, Taiwan six and Pakistan two, while nations with nuclear power reactors under construction include China with 23, Russia - nine, South Korea - six, India four and Taiwan two.
On 14 September, bowing to public opposition, Japan's government joined Germany and Switzerland in turning away from nuclear power after the March 2011 earthquake unleashed a tsunami that destroyed Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s six-reactor Fukushima Daiichi NPP complex. The decision represents a major about-face by the Japanese government of Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, which before Fukushima stated that the nation's energy policy would increase the country's share of atomic energy to more than half of the country's electricity generation. Noda's government intended to ramp up by 300% the country's share of renewable power to 30% of its energy mix. Noda's decision earlier this year to restart two NPPs to avoid potential summer power outages, flying in the face of public opinion, energized anti-nuclear protests.
Noda's government's decision to phase out the country's NPPs by both refusing to extend nuclear plant operating licenses beyond 40 years and committing to building no new ones provoked an immediate and predictable backlash from Japan's powerful nuclear energy lobby, which argued that the short sighted decision would boost electricity prices, making industry uncompetitive and complicating efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Nearly fifty years ago, when the US led the way in deploying civilian nuclear electricity NPPS, proponents excitedly maintained that soon electricity would be “too cheap to measure.”
But, while this advertising slogan never panned out, a second nuclear power reality overlooked by proponents of its centrality to a nation's power generation base is the uncomfortable fact that it was in fact born from the stupendously expensive US “Manhattan Project,” which produced the nuclear weapons dropped on Japan in August 1945, which both ended World War Two and inaugurated the Cold War. The nexus between civilian electrical power generation and weaponry have existed uneasily since then, as evidenced by the recent international campaign against Iran.
So, what to make of Japan's tepid decision to downsize its nuclear energy commitment? Thoughtful analysts might note that Europe's leading technological powerhouses, Germany and Japan, have apparently decided to pursue energy alternatives to nuclear while France, Europe's leading user of nuclear energy, is also rethinking its position.
Do Berlin and Tokyo know something that other nations do not? Whatever occurs, expect a vigorous rear-guard action by the global nuclear power industry, as it attempts to preserve its multi-billion dollar industry, starting with them suddenly joining the climate change bandwagon by emphasizing that NPPs generate zero greenhouse gases.
Which, of course is why former Fukushima residents outside the NPP's 12 mile exclusion zone breathe so much more easily.
Source: http://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/Japan-Steps-Away-from-Nuclear-Power.html
By. John C.K. Daly of Oilprice.com
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Without a proper alternative, it may yet turn out to be a unwise move,
Still,
China may very well heat Japan up for free. [Soon]
..
very true.
Britain will be out of electricity VERY SOON. In fact it is already too late to avoid future black-outs because all governments have been hijacked by the hockey-stick liars.
It has shades of the old 'Dad's Army' show with 'don't panic, don't panic' being shouted by the 'coalition twats'.
If you think I am upset then you are damn well right.
We need help now,
But we have no money to invest,
We only have billions for overseas aid,
But just pennies for home use,
We love it, when the British government, puts Britain first,
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
,nuclear waste,
Put it into vast space ships,
Hire the best argentine pilots, train them, And send them into the sun,
Justa thought.
.
And that was before the price of solar dropped in half this year :)
we cut down the winmill things,
and try your idea, on a country wide scale.
1) When the sun goes down, or the clouds come in, there is no energy production.
2) The space required to create a significant amount of energy makes it enviable.
Nuclear waste is not a big deal people. It came from the ground, it is mined remember. So if you simply make some nice containers and store them well things should be okay. If they leak, clean it up. Yes there are methods to clean it up. New ones are being developed such as bacteria that clean the contaminated areas. Allow money to flow into the industry and the problems will get solved.
Ironically clean energy has probably killed more people than dirty coal energy. Just by having diverted billions to an industry that didn't deserve the money, you prevented it from being spent on useful things and thus improving the world as a whole. What if that money had been spent on say finding a vaccine against malaria? Or maybe new methods of farming to increase food production and lower food prices? Get my point? Governments need to stop trying to control societies because they only create more harm than good.
“Solar panels last indefinitely”
No, they do not and are you aware that the energy used to make these devices is GREATER than the energy they will capture throughout their existence?
Solar panels are only useful for saving other energy usage such as remote cameras and safety devices where the running of power lines, etc. would be impossible or prohibitively costly.
Please read 13 BAMF Paraguay above he has covered it nicely.
Solar is cheaper than new nuclear -in the U.S.-
www.fastcompany.com/1675672/solar-power-now-cheaper-nuclear-energy
Nuclear is uninsurable.
-typed w solar
Did you bother looking at this link?
If you did do you understand what it said?
Some of the 'comments' are clearly from people with no engineering or scientific knowledge.
'Dark storage' for producing energy when the sun does not shine (like at night) is not explained at all, just given as 'a fact'.
The standard of litteracy is also abysmal. One commenter making the claim that a new sign warning of nuclear radiation was needed because some people opened drums of radioactic material and died.
Sounds like survival of the fittest worked. The dummies die!
BTW the article did NOT say get rid of nuclear.
I believe in a patient transition using existing nuclear is fine, to solar and onwards..
My state doesn't want it or have it.
Howevers, there has been hundreds of over 5s off the coast of Honshu since the biggie. They can compromise previously weakened structures, so I understand the desire of many Japanese to put security first.
I gave you that link for the study inside,, and cause it's FUN!
You've stumble on one of the main problems with nuclear, its actually a finite resource like oil and coal. Plus I think your being far too blase about the waste, its not the same stuff that came out of the ground once its been enriched. I'm not 100% anti-nuclear but solar is probably cheaper and safer as well as a real renewable resource
No, the constituen materials used for the present generation of solar panels come out of the ground as well, BUT as I said above the energy used to make this damn things FAR outways the energy that they will ever generate befor ethey fail.
So the net energy balance is NEGATIVE.
That's a great reason for using them, NOT.
You miss my point so I will use this analogy.
You have a product that costs you £1000 to manufacture but you can only get £800 use out of it. How long can anyone afford to go on like this until the money supply (energy) dries up?
Doesn't make any sense, even to you does it?
BTW the sun will be a red giant well before it goes out. It will be that big it will encompass the earth from the position it is in now.
Infra red will kill everything on the planet well before then of course. But as you say it's about 4 million years in the future.
I wonder if man can last that long without blowing the planet up?
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