Archive for the ‘Nukes’ Category

December 5, 2011

Helen Caldicott
New York Times OpEd

The nuclear power industry has been resurrected over the past decade by a lobbying campaign that has left many people believing it to be a clean, green, emission-free alternative to fossil fuels. These beliefs pose an extraordinary threat to global public health and encourage a major financial drain on national economies and taxpayers. The commitment to nuclear power as an environmentally safe energy source has also stifled the mass development of alternative technologies that are far cheaper, safer and almost emission free — the future for global energy.

When the Fukushima Daiichi reactors suffered meltdowns in March, literally in the backyard of an unsuspecting public, the stark reality that the risks of nuclear power far outweigh any benefits should have become clear to the world. As the old quip states, "Nuclear power is one hell of a way to boil water."

Instead, the nuclear industry has used the disaster to increase its already extensive lobbying efforts. A few nations vowed to phase out nuclear energy after the disaster. But many others have remained steadfast in their commitment. That has left millions of innocent people unaware that they — all of us — may face a medical catastrophe beyond all proportions in the wake of Fukushima and through the continued widespread use of nuclear energy.

The world was warned of the dangers of nuclear accidents 25 years ago, when Chernobyl exploded and lofted radioactive poisons into the atmosphere. Those poisons "rained out," creating hot spots over the Northern Hemisphere. Research by scientists in Eastern Europe, collected and published by the New York Academy of Sciences, estimates that 40 percent of the European land mass is now contaminated with cesium 137 and other radioactive poisons that will concentrate in food for hundreds to thousands of years. Wide areas of Asia — from Turkey to China — the United Arab Emirates, North Africa and North America are also contaminated. Nearly 200 million people remain exposed.

That research estimated that by now close to 1 million people have died of causes linked to the Chernobyl disaster. They perished from cancers, congenital deformities, immune deficiencies, infections, cardiovascular diseases, endocrine abnormalities and radiation-induced factors that increased infant mortality. Studies in Belarus found that in 2000, 14 years after the Chernobyl disaster, fewer than 20 percent of children were considered "practically healthy," compared to 90 percent before Chernobyl. Now, Fukushima has been called the second-worst nuclear disaster after Chernobyl. Much is still uncertain about the long-term consequences. Fukushima may well be on par with or even far exceed Chernobyl in terms of the effects on public health, as new information becomes available. The crisis is ongoing; the plant remains unstable and radiation emissions continue into the air and water.

Recent monitoring by citizens groups, international organizations and the U.S. government have found dangerous hot spots in Tokyo and other areas. The Japanese government, meanwhile, in late September lifted evacuation advisories for some areas near the damaged plant — even though high levels of radiation remained. The government estimated that it will spend at least $13 billion to clean up contamination.

Many thousands of people continue to inhabit areas that are highly contaminated, particularly northwest of Fukushima. Radioactive elements have been deposited throughout northern Japan, found in tap water in Tokyo and concentrated in tea, beef, rice and other food. In one of the few studies on human contamination in the months following the accident, over half of the more than 1,000 children whose thyroids were monitored in Fukushima City were found to be contaminated with iodine 131 — condemning many to thyroid cancer years from now.

Children are innately sensitive to the carcinogenic effects of radiation, fetuses even more so. Like Chernobyl, the accident at Fukushima is of global proportions. Unusual levels of radiation have been discovered in British Columbia, along the West Coast and East Coast of the United States and in Europe, and heavy contamination has been found in oceanic waters.

Fukushima is classified as a grade 7 accident on the International Atomic Energy Agency scale — denoting "widespread health and environmental effects." That is the same severity as Chernobyl, the only other grade 7 accident in history, but there is no higher number on the agency’s scale.

After the accident, lobbying groups touted improved safety at nuclear installations globally. In Japan, the Tokyo Electric Power Co. — which operates the Fukushima Daiichi reactors — and the government have sought to control the reporting of negative stories via telecom companies and Internet service providers.

In Britain, The Guardian reported that days after the tsunami, companies with interests in nuclear power — Areva, EDF Energy and Westinghouse — worked with the government to downplay the accident, fearing setbacks on plans for new nuclear power plants.

Nuclear power has always been the nefarious Trojan horse for the weapons industry, and effective publicity campaigns are a hallmark of both industries. The concept of nuclear electricity was conceived in the early 1950s as a way to make the public more comfortable with the U.S. development of nuclear weapons. "The atomic bomb will be accepted far more readily if at the same time atomic energy is being used for constructive ends," a consultant to the Defense Department Psychological Strategy Board, Stefan Possony, suggested. The phrase "Atoms for Peace" was popularized by President Dwight Eisenhower in the early 1950s.

Nuclear power and nuclear weapons are one and the same technology. A 1,000 megawatt nuclear reactor generates 600 pounds or so of plutonium per year: An atomic bomb requires a fraction of that amount for fuel, and plutonium remains radioactive for 250,000 years. Therefore every country with a nuclear power plant also has a bomb factory with unlimited potential.The nuclear power industry sets an unforgivable precedent by exporting nuclear technology — bomb factories — to dozens of non-nuclear nations.

Why is nuclear power still viable, after we’ve witnessed catastrophic accidents, enormous financial outlays, weapons proliferation and nuclear-waste induced epidemics of cancers and genetic disease for generations to come? Simply put, many government and other officials believe the nuclear industry mantra: safe, clean and green. And the public is not educated on the issue.

There are some signs of change. Germany will phase out nuclear power by 2022. Italy and Switzerland have decided against it, and anti-nuclear advocates in Japan have gained traction. China remains cautious on nuclear power. Yet the nuclear enthusiasm of the U.S., Britain, Russia and Canada continues unabated. The industry, meanwhile, has promoted new modular and "advanced" reactors as better alternatives to traditional reactors. They are, however, subject to the very same risks — accidents, terrorist attacks, human error — as the traditional reactors. Many also create fissile material for bombs as well as the legacy of radioactive waste.

True green, clean, nearly emission-free solutions exist for providing energy. They lie in a combination of conservation and renewable energy sources, mainly wind, solar and geothermal, hydropower plants, and biomass from algae. A smart-grid could integrate consuming and producing devices, allowing flexible operation of household appliances. The problem of intermittent power can be solved by storing energy using available technologies.

Millions of jobs can be created by replacing nuclear power with nationally integrated, renewable energy systems. In the U.S. alone, the project could be paid for by the $180 billion currently allocated for nuclear weapons programs over the next decade. There would be no need for new weapons if the Russian and U.S. nuclear arsenals — 95 percent of the estimated 20,500 nuclear weapons globally — were abolished.

Nuclear advocates often paint those who oppose them as Luddites who are afraid of, or don’t understand, technology, or as hysterics who exaggerate the dangers of nuclear power.

One might recall the sustained attack over many decades by the tobacco industry upon the medical profession, a profession that revealed the grave health dangers induced by smoking.

Smoking, broadly speaking, only kills the smoker. Nuclear power bequeaths morbidity and mortality — epidemics of disease — to all future generations.

The millions of lives lost to smoking in the era before the health risks of cigarettes were widely exposed will be minuscule compared to the medical catastrophe we face through the continued use of nuclear power.

Let’s use this extraordinary moment to convince governments and others to move toward a nuclear-free world. Let’s prove that informed democracies will behave in a responsible fashion.

Originally published in the New York Times, 2 Dec 2011

Helen Caldicott, a pediatrician, is founding president of Physicians for Social Responsibility. A native of Australia, she left her Harvard Medical School post in 1980 to work full-time on anti-nuclear education.

Jan 26, 2012

By Yuriy Humber
Bloomberg News

Japan will lose its last nuclear- generated power in April at the current rate of shutting down reactors for safety checks, cheering opponents of the industry after the Fukushima disaster while adding to concern about potential blackouts and factory shutdowns.

The country has just three of its 54 nuclear reactors producing electricity after one more unit was idled for maintenance today. Another Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501) unit was shut earlier this week for scheduled checks.

With one exception, no reactors taken off-line since the March 11 disaster have been allowed to restart as they await results of so-called stress tests. The checks began after an earthquake and tsunami caused reactor meltdowns at Tokyo Electric’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi station that led to radiation fallout over an area about half the size of New York City and the evacuation of about 160,000 people.

With public opinion running against restarting reactors, Japan’s becoming free of nuclear power within three months would have a "psychological" effect, according to Yuji Nishiyama, an analyst with Credit Suisse Group AG.

"If we experience a zero-nuclear situation the argument that we don’t need nuclear power anymore will be stronger," Nishiyama said by telephone in Tokyo. "But, at the moment we cannot live without nuclear power. We may not need 50 reactors, but we do need about 10 or 20."

Fossil Fuel Costs

With atomic stations providing about 30 percent of Japan’s electricity before the Fukushima disaster, utilities have been forced to rely more on oil- and gas-fired power plants to make up the difference.

A switch from nuclear to fossil fuels based on average operating rates at atomic plants would require the equivalent of 323 million barrels of oil a year, adding about $34 billion to the country’s import bill, according to Osamu Fujisawa, an ex- Saudi Arabian Oil Co. manager and now an independent energy economist in Tokyo.

Japan relied on imports to meet 81 percent of its net energy needs in 2010, according to the latest data on the World Bank’s website. That compares with 22 percent for the U.S. in the same year and 8 percent for China in 2009, the latest data the bank has.

Japan’s consumption of liquefied natural gas jumped 32 percent in December, while crude oil use increased more than fivefold, according to the Federation of Electric Power Companies data.
Mothballed Plants

"We do have a number of mothballed power plants, but it takes time to restore those generators, sometimes years," Nishiyama said. "And these plants often have low-utilization rates. Some cannot be used at night."

The cost of burning oil to generate power is almost twice that of gas, he said.

Companies including Toyota Motor Corp. (7203) and Panasonic Corp. (6752) escaped power cuts after they were ordered to cut consumption by 15 percent in some areas during last year’s summer when demand peaked. Households were asked to regulate use of air conditioners. The restrictions were lifted as temperatures cooled.

Trade and Industry Minister Yukio Edano said Japan may have no nuclear plants operating this summer and the government is preparing measures to avoid power shortages, the Asahi newspaper reported, citing his comments in an interview. The safety issue is more important than power supply concerns, Edano told the Asahi.
Reactor Closures
Chugoku Electric Power Co. (9504) shut the No. 2 reactor at its Shimane nuclear station today, leaving 6.4 percent of Japan’s 48,960 megawatts of nuclear capacity on-line. Tokyo Electric’s No. 5 unit at its Kashiwazaki Kariwa station was idled on Jan. 25. The remaining three reactors are due to go off-line for regular checks during the next three months.

Whatever the cost to the utilities, local governments that usually approve a restart of a nuclear reactor have balked. Yuhei Sato, governor of Fukushima, where Tokyo Electric has two nuclear stations including the wrecked Dai-Ichi plant, has vowed to make the region a nuclear-free zone.

Hirohiko Izumida, the governor of Niigata, where Tokyo Electric’s Kashiwazaki Kariwa plant is located, will "never" negotiate with the power utility on restarts until all of the deficiencies exposed by the Fukushima accident are explained and corrected, the governor’s spokesman Takeshi Kumakura said by phone on Jan. 24.

Stress Tests

Tepco, as Tokyo Electric is known, has submitted to the government results of so-called stress tests on the Nos. 1 and 7 reactors at the Kashiwazaki plant, the company said Jan. 16. The tests set up by the Trade and Industry Ministry aim to show how prepared a nuclear plant is to withstand disasters.

Kashiwazaki, the world’s largest nuclear station, has yet to restart three of its seven units since a 2007 quake that led to a radioactive water spill. The work to upgrade Kashiwazaki’s earthquake defenses since 2007 would make it one of the better stations to restart, said Penn Bowers, a utilities analyst with CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets.

"If it didn’t have the Tepco name out there it would probably be on the top of the list for restarts," Bowers said. Kashiwazaki’s units have "been retrofitted to a quake prevention standard that’s probably the best out there."

Reactor Wrangles

Reactor restarts is one of three conditions set by lenders as Tepco negotiates to borrow as much as 2 trillion yen to stay solvent, covering rising fuel costs and compensation claims, two people familiar with the matter said this month. Higher power rates and Tepco accepting a capital injection from a state-run fund are the other two conditions, the people said.

Tepco’s management is resisting giving up control to the state fund even as it faces collapse under the weight of compensation claims and cleanup costs for the disaster. Tepco shares fell 1.4 percent to 210 yen at 12:28 p.m. in Tokyo today. The stock is down about 90 percent since the day before the disaster.

The company owns three nuclear stations. The Fukushima Dai- Ni station, situated close to the Dai-Ichi site, temporarily lost control of its cooling system following the March 11 record earthquake and tsunami. It remains shut down.

Without nuclear reactors, Kansai Electric Power Co. (9503), the main supplier to Japan’s second-largest industrial region, may see demand exceed generation capacity by 9.5 percent in February, the biggest shortfall among suppliers, according to a November assessment released by the government.

Kansai Nightmare

"In Kansai it’s a nightmare," Nishiyama said. "Saving energy is not enough to save the region. We need to think about restarting nuclear power plants more seriously."
Kansai Electric, which serves a region with an economy the size of Mexico’s and has Sharp Corp. and Panasonic factories, is asking customers to voluntarily reduce consumption by more than 10 percent this winter. Kyushu Electric Power Co. (9508) will also be short of capacity after it shutters its last reactor on-line for maintenance, Nishiyama said.

"I think we go to zero before we get restarts," CLSA’s Bowers said, forecasting the first nuclear units to come on-line before summer when power consumption reaches its peak. By summer Kansai may have supplies falling more than 19 percent short of demand, the government has forecast.

"It’s not going to be one switch is flipped and all of them come back on," Bowers said. "Still, if you get a certain amount back on-line you’re not going to have a horrible problem. If you have zero, that leads to a significant economic impact."

To contact the reporter on this story: Yuriy Humber in Tokyo at yhumber(at)bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Langan at plangan(at)bloomberg.net

September 18, 2011

German industrial and engineering conglomerate Siemens is to withdraw entirely from the nuclear industry.

The move is a response to the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan in March, chief executive Peter Loescher said.

He told Spiegel magazine it was the firm’s answer to "the clear positioning of German society and politics for a pullout from nuclear energy".

"The chapter for us is closed," he said, announcing that the firm will no longer build nuclear power stations.

A long-planned joint venture with Russian nuclear firm Rosatom will also be cancelled, although Mr Loescher said he would still seek to work with their partner "in other fields".

Siemens was responsible for building all 17 of Germany’s existing nuclear power plants.

But more recently, the firm has limited itself to providing the non-nuclear parts of plants being built by other firms, including current projects in China and Finland.

The latest decision appears to imply a step back from building "conventional islands" – the non-nuclear plant in nuclear power stations – an area in which Siemens has remained active.

However, Mr Loescher also said Siemens would continue to make components, such as steam turbines, that are used in the conventional power industry, but can also be used in nuclear plants.

U-turn

He also gave his backing to the German government’s planned switch to renewable energy sources, calling it a "project of the century" and claiming Berlin’s target of reaching 35% renewable energy by 2020 was achievable.

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, announced at the end of May that all of the country’s 17 nuclear reactors would be shut down by 2022.

Before the Fukushima disaster, nuclear power accounted for 23% of electricity production in Germany.

The German government’s decision marked a complete U-turn by the chancellor, who only in September 2010 had announced that the life of existing nuclear plants would be extended by an average of 12 years.

Siemen’s move, announced on Sunday, is also a turnaround.

In 2009, the firm withdrew from an eight-year-old nuclear joint venture with French energy firm Areva, shortly before announcing its new deal with Rosatom.

"In view of global climate change and the increasing power demand worldwide, for us nuclear energy remains an essential part of a sustainable energy mix," Mr Loescher had said at the time.

Sep 18, 2011

(AFP)

BERLIN — German industrial giant Siemens is turning the page on nuclear energy in line with Berlin’s decision to agree to an end to atomic power, the group’s CEO Peter Loescher said Sunday.

"We will no longer be involved in overall managing of building or financing nuclear plants. This chapter is closed for us," he told the Der Spiegel weekly in an interview published on Sunday.

"We will from now on supply only conventional equipment such as steam turbines," he said. "This means we are restricting ourselves to technologies that are not only for nuclear purposes but can also be used in gas or coal plants."

There has been massive debate in Germany on the safety of nuclear energy after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami which knocked out cooling systems at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi plant, causing reactors to overheat and radiation to leak.

Germany switched off several of its reactors in the wake of the disaster and has since passed legislation to phase out nuclear energy by 2022.

In the interview, Loescher also definitively buried a long-planned joint venture project with Russian group Rosatom in the nuclear sector.

The partnership was announced in March 2009, shortly after Siemens ended a deal with France’s Areva.

"The two groups are still very interested in a partnership but it will be in another field," he said.

Loescher said his group’s decision to withdraw from the nuclear industry reflected "the very clear stance taken by Germany’s society and political leadership."

"That changed things for us at Siemens," he said.

Germany is the first major industrialised power to agree an end to atomic power since the disaster, the world’s worst since Chernobyl in 1986, with tens of thousands of people living near Fukushima evacuated.

Germany wants to boost the share of the country’s power needs generated by renewable energies to 35 percent by 2020 from 17 percent at present.

Siemens, which produces gas turbines and equipment used to produce solar and wind power, wants to develop a pioneering role in "green" energy.

Elsewhere is Europe, a recent vote against Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi’s plans to resume the country’s nuclear programme was seen as a reflection of popular unease about atomic energy after Fukushima.

The Swiss government in May, too, recommended that nuclear plants be phased out.

The new chief of the Paris-based International Energy Agency Maria van der Hoeven said earlier this month that nuclear power will have a place in the future however.

Van der Hoeven, formerly the Dutch minister for economic affairs, said: "There will be room for nuclear energy in the future.

"I think if we really want to go — and we do — towards a future where we have less CO2 emissions, there are only two real things to get there, and it has to do with nuclear, because it doesn’t produce CO2, and it has to do with renewables.

Copyright © 2012 AFP. All rights reserved.

10/26/11

By Andrew Restuccia
The Hill

Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee pressed Republicans Wednesday to broaden their loan guarantee investigation to include investments in nuclear energy projects.

Republicans are"picking oversight targets based on which administration approved the loan or loan guarantee or on whether [they] approve or disapprove of the type of energy produced," the Democrats said.

"The Committee’s goal should be to protect the taxpayer, not to single out an industry you may disfavor for special scrutiny," Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the committee, said in a letter to Republicans Wednesday.

Committee Republicans have focused much of their attention on the $535 million loan guarantee to the failed California solar panel maker Solyndra. But Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), the chairman of the committee’s investigative panel, has expanded the investigation to include a number of other loans and loan guarantees to renewable energy projects.

The letter – which was also signed by Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), the top Democrat on the committee’s investigative panel, and Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) – calls on Republicans to expand the investigation to include nuclear loan guarantees as well as a $267 million loan approved by the George W. Bush administration to a communications company that filed for bankruptcy this month.

"Oversight should be conducted with an even hand," the letter said."That requires giving a failed multi-million-dollar loan issued by the Bush Administration as much attention as failed multi-million-dollar loan guarantee issued by the Obama Administration. And it requires giving DOE nuclear loan guarantees as much scrutiny as DOE renewable energy loan guarantees."

Democrats want Republicans to examine the Energy Department’s decision last year to issue a conditional commitment for an $8.33 billion loan guarantee for construction of a Georgia nuclear plant. The Energy Department has also issued a conditional commitment for a $2 billion loan guarantee for an Idaho uranium enrichment project sponsored by Areva.

"From a taxpayer perspective, there is no reason to ignore the nuclear loan guarantees," the letter says. "Nuclear power companies are slated to receive loans significantly larger than the loan received by Solyndra."

Waxman, DeGette and Markey have long criticized the administration for moving forward with the nuclear loan guarantees, arguing it could leave the taxpayer on the hook for billions of dollars if the projects collapse.

The Democrats also call on Republicans to examine a $267 million Agriculture Department loan offered in 2008 and finalized in 2009 shortly before President George W. Bush left office. The loan to Colorado-based Open Range Communications was intended to provide rural communities with broadband Internet access.

The company filed for bankruptcy earlier this month.

"When Solyndra filed for bankruptcy in September, you issued press releases trumpeting the bankruptcy and said, ‘We smelled a rat from the onset’ and Solyndra was a ‘bad bet from the beginning,’" the letter said, referring to comments by Republicans on the committee.

"Your concern was to ‘protect American taxpayers’ and to examine whether there had been ‘disregard for taxpayer dollars.’ You made no similar comments when Open Range filed for bankruptcy."

The Democrats allege that Republicans did not investigate the Open Range Communications loan because it was approved during the Bush administration.

"The main distinction between the Solyndra guarantee and the Open Range loan appears to be that the Open Range loan was approved in 2008, when President Bush was in office," the letter said."That is not a defensible reason for ignoring Open Range."