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Japan Aims To Abandon Nuclear Power By 2030s
mdsolar writes "Reuters reports that the Japanese government said it 'intends to stop using nuclear power by the 2030s, marking a major shift from policy goals set before last year's Fukushima disaster that sought to increase the share of atomic energy to more than half of electricity supply. Japan joins countries such as Germany and Switzerland in turning away from nuclear power ... Japan was the third-biggest user of atomic energy before the disaster. In abandoning atomic power, Japan aims to triple the share of renewable power to 30 percent of its energy mix, but will remain a top importer of oil, coal and gas for the foreseeable future. Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's unpopular government, which could face an election this year, had faced intense lobbying from industries to maintain atomic energy and also concerns from its major ally, the United States, which supplied it with nuclear technology in the 1950s.' Meanwhile, the U.S. nuclear renaissance appears to be unraveling."
Just put it off for a while. It can be done safely. The path is obvious.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
...from a dude that owns a solar-power company? The story is slashdot-worthy, but the tone is partisan fluff. Is he really the only guy submitting this story?
Oh man, a mdsolar story. I was beginning to miss his astroturf shenanigans.
They have even been repairing units 5 and 6 at Fukushima Daiachii to go back on line within the next few years. All other nuclear plants are being repaired and re-fitted. It looks like a long way from a plan to phase out nuclear power any time soon.
The way I have seen the debate presented:
1. The world runs on fossil fuels primarily
2. Fossil fuels contribute to global warming
3. The world needs energy sources that don't contribute to global warming
4. Atomic energy does not produce CO2, but questions about its safety (Chernobyl, Fukushima, 3 mile) or public worries about its safety persist
5. Renewable energy sources, in there current state, can't satisfy current or projected demand for energy
6. Oh no.
Not need-*only*, but when needed, yes. Like any parliamentary system, election are held if the government suffers a vote of no confidence. There's also a set term, at the end of which elections are held regardless, but they can happen early. in Japan, the term for the lower house is four years, but this wouldn't be the first time in recent history that an early election was called; the 2003 lower house went back to the polls in 2005.
In fact, it could be more than 20 prime ministers until that time.
The big question is, whether Japan is even capable of doing anything like this at all. They have been unable to implement internationally widespread safety measures that the contructors of the very reactors recommended, that have been destroyed in the accident. And that would have been cheap, less than $10bn for all 50 reactors, yet the Japanese didn't. And this isn't a singular experience.
Japan has stagnated economically for the last 25 years. Last year, the global shortage of harddisks wasn't down to the tsunami in Japan, but a flood in Thailand of all places. (Which intends to build at least 5 nuclear reactors, btw.) Currently, Japan is paying on the order of $30bn on imports per year to very imperfectly compensate for the lack of nuclear power - "volontary" blackouts and shutdown are continuing as power saving measures during the summer. And unlike other expenditures, Japan can't pay for this with domestic debt, because they actually have to pay a foreign country in foreign currency - which is unsustainable in the long run without a source of income, which hasn't been forthcoming in Japan for the last quarter of a century. And as Steins Law says, this will stop.
Renewable energy is expensive and no country has as yet installed anything in the way of the infrastructure require to use them on more than a small scale. So far, only the low-hanging fruits have been picked that stress the existing infrastructure to its limit. And Japan, being an island with two separate power systems, is in an even worse position than just about any other country imaginable.
The question for anyone outside Japan isn't just whether Japan will be capable of pulling it off. The question isn't just if one of the regularly resigning Prime Ministers of Japan turns his or her back to this policy and makes it null and void. The actual question is whether, by 2040, Japan is still going to matter.
Japan is a tiny, resource-poor but energy-hungry country. Nuclear energy is the only thing that makes sense economically. What are they going to replace it with? Oil? Natural gas? Those sources come from so far away and from such temperamental suppliers that it's too risky to depend on long-term.
To get reelected Japanese politicians have to put on an anti-nuclear Kibuki theatre to placate the masses. But the fact is they'll never give up nuclear and "renewable" energy sources won't ever put even a dent in their supersized energy demand.
If they increase their renewables to 30% of their total then that will more than replace current nuclear capacity, so their use of oil and coal for electricity won't go up. Furthermore you would actually expect it to go down as people switch to electric vehicles.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Yes, the erections are held on need-only basis. You do it differently? ;-D
Nuclear power has an very low deaths per kWh, even when you include chernobyl, 3mile island and fukushima ( http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html ). chernobyl is a terrible design (as the coolant boils, the reaction goes faster. fail), nothing like that could happen in any modern (by which i mean anything made in last few decades).
Switching to any other form of power generation will cost lives.
From a environmental point of view, suppose japan can build enough wind and solar to replace nuclear (big job on the scale of a war effort), if they did that along side nuclear they would be reducing carbon emissions. if you do it instead of nuclear then you are standing still. Now take a look at this http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/ and have a read of IPCC, and explain how we are going to not hit 400 ppm.
People shouldn't be turning away from nuclear, they should be embracing it. One of the greatest discoveries in the last 100 years and people are shying away from it because of teething issues. Of course the teething issues left huge marks, but so do a lot of things of tremendous amounts of potential and power. Leaps and bounds have been made in the field too. Everyone wants to get back to the basics, but harnessing the atom still remains an extremely viable option, let alone what would happen if it went mainstream.
Stuff like this really makes me sad. It's made me sad ever since I learned about nuclear power and found out it was never widely used... It made me ask why. And so far, after all these years, the only reason I can come up with is fear.
Why do you hate America? Obviously, the power companies that cut corners will kill more people and therefore have fewer customers than the companies that don't cut corners and kill fewer people. See? The market solves everything.
No, but if 30-40% of your electrical supply is based on the sun shining a tropical storm can kill people dependent on electricity.
Japan should go with Geothermal. There is plenty of hot rock very close to the surface south east of Tokyo. There are also good GT sites close to Nagoya and Osaka. There is enough to meet all of their electricity needs for centuries.
One drawback for GT is minor earthquakes, but Japan has so many of those already, that a few more shouldn't matter.
The plant took an earthquake *and* flooding, and yet still the radiation leakage into the surrounding area was negligable. Containment held, even if it did need a bit of improvised emergency cooling. That was on an old plant design - if it had been built to a more modern design, there would have been no need even for that. And yet if you watched the television coverage, it looked like Chenobyl II. There was more airtime given to that nuclear plant than to all the rest of Japan put together, so it is no surprise people were terrified. The media played-up the nuclear aspect, because nuclear means scarey and scarey means viewers. And viewers mean money.
A planetary power grid would run into a few problems. Just look at the situation with the middle east right now, and how much the rest of the world invests into trying to keep favor and keep order so the oil flows. That same region is also ideal for solar: Near the equator, and very little cloud coverage to block the precious photons. Do you think Europe would be happy about depending on them for power? We're having enough worry about Russia's control of the gas supply.
There are some technological magic bullet possibilities. A true smart grid could make renewables much more practical, but that has technological and political difficulties too.
If anything, Fukushima has re-assured me. It kind of seems like it went "really wrong" - but nobody died, and according to the scientific evidence, no one *will* die from Fukushima radiation. What am I missing - how can it go "really wrong"?
It appears to me that the biggest threat to public health if something goes wrong at a nuclear plant, is people panicking and causing harm to themselves or others - self medicating on Potassium Iodide and overdosing themsevles or their children; getting into traffic accidents while trying to evacuate, etc.
Those are potentially real harms, but can be minimized by honest reporting by the media and sustained public education. Instead, the public is convinced that any release of radioactive isotopes from a nuclear plants is an end-of-the-world scenario, which it clearly is not.
Has no one else been wondering why Germany is being seen as a utopia with all of the answers, recently?
No. Germany is a prosperous western nation. Germany has its budget deficit under control. Germany has its trade balance under control. Germany financial laws minimized exposure to toxic debt. As a result, the effects of collapse of the debt bubble in '07-08, the so-called financial crisis, were much more limited in Germany, amounting to a total bailout liability of only about 5.5% of GDP. The costs to other western nations was/is much higher.
Among the many effects of this is that Germany still has the luxury of indulging new social programs. It is also the go-to repository of wealth whenever one of the unproductive and misgoverned PIGS needs to be propped up which gives Germany a great deal of influence in the EU.
In my opinion Germany has all of these things for three basic reasons;
First, Germany has managed to keep its spending under control. There are many public benefits and a great deal of wealth redistribution in Germany, but the Germans don't tolerate large accumulations of debt; if the revenue of the German treasury can't fund it the dependents don't get it. That includes the medical system and the education system.
Second, Germany has an industrial policy that isn't subject to certain veto by pressure groups and their civil lawsuits. This means Germany can make choices, like replacing nuclear reactors with renewable, coal or anything else they decide to use and it doesn't get killed by some judge. This attracts capital.
Finally, Germany protects its domestic industry and workers from unrestrained competition with Asia. Trade unions, businesses and governments can all, independently, pursue importers in court to enforce Germany's sovereign trade laws, and they do so with high frequency. This all somehow happens without statist punditry crying 'oh noes trade war!' The result is Germany has a fully developed industrial base and workforce that is very attractive to capital.
Wealth is important. Germany has consistently sustained real wealth creation since the end of of the Second World War through hard nosed trade policy, credible industrial policy and sound fiscal governance. It doesn't surprise me that Germany has earned some respect.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!