Japan Restarts Two of Its 50 Nuclear Reactors

Darth_brooks writes "Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda ordered the restart of two idle nuclear reactors Saturday, amid split public response. The Japanese government is trying to fill a summer power shortfall. According to the article, the two reactors supply power to the Kansai region near Osaka, where local officials were predicting a 15% shortfall in power capacity during July and August."

Comments

Re:What an incredibly stupid argument

[Anonymous Coward]

You're obviously not familiar with the facts.

• 1. A large earthquake and tsunami are most certainly expected in that area, as there is much evidence that such quakes and tsunamis have happened many times in the past. The plant was not built for them in order to cut costs, because nuclear power is not financially viable if done properly.
• 2. The plant did not survive the earthquake -- the indications are that the reactors broke down during the earthquake, not because of the tsunami. It is not "official" yet, but that is not surprising -- the meltdown became "official" more than 6 months after it actually happened. This is done to give Tepco time to close the contracts with owners for damages, so that the final liability to the government is lower when it takes over. Again, nuclear is "cheap and plentiful" only when someone else is paying for it, or taking the risks uncovered.
• 3. Few people were killed, but there was an enormous damage to the economy, and the area is unlikely to recover -- young people have practically moved out.
• 4. Nuclear power is not cheap at all, unless you cut corners. Just to cover the costs of closing the Fukushima-1 NPP, the electricity prices in the whole Kanto area (that is Tokyo and the surroundings, a territory with more people than most countries in the world) are up 20% this year. And this is a far cry from the real cost of the affair.
• 5. From the accident, I see nothing about inherent safety, on the contrary, it is obvious it is inherently unsafe, and very costly measures are needed to mitigate the risk. Only partly.

Go peddle your "cheap power for the people" fantasy somewhere else.

Nuclear disaster nearly shut down Tokyo

[solferino]

To all the uranium power nuclear boosters who will appear in this thread I have one fact to remind you of. The Japanese PM at the time of the disaster was seriously considering having to evacuate Tokyo. If he had not forced Tepco to be more proactive in their management of the disaster and thus managed to head-off a nuclear cascade (with the disaster spreading to nuclear reactors closer to Tokyo) this would have happened.

Imagine what that would have done to Japan and its economy. Not total wipe-out for the country but it would have certainly brought it to its knees. If there was a similar disaster in one of Taiwan's uranium reactors it would destroy the country as there is nowhere far enough to get away in that small island which has a population of over 20 million and is a key part of the IT supply chain.

These risks are too significant and severe to hazard and we have shown that we do not have the level of social and political sophistication to contain them.

I'm not saying that some of the existing reactors might not need to be restarted. But no new uranium reactors should ever be built and massive investment should be thrown into renewable energy and thorium nuclear.