Fukushima Disaster Leads Japan To Backpedal On Emissions Pledge

mdsolar writes with this excerpt from the New York Times: "Japan took a major step back on Friday from earlier pledges to slash its greenhouse gas emissions, saying a shutdown of its nuclear power plants in the wake of the Fukushima disaster had made previous targets unattainable. The announcement cast a shadow over international talks underway in Warsaw aimed at fashioning a new global pact to address the threats of a changing climate. Under its new goal, Japan, one of the world's top polluters, would still seek to reduce its current emissions. But it would release 3 percent more greenhouse gases in 2020 than it did in 1990, rather than the 6 percent cut it originally promised or the 25 percent reduction it promised two years before the 2011 nuclear disaster."

Comments

Nuclear energy reduces greenhouse emissions

[tlambert]

Nuclear energy reduces greenhouse emissions, according to Japan.

OK, so is the most important thing to be anti-nuclear, or to actually save the environment?

Re:Nuclear energy reduces greenhouse emissions

[aliquis]

One important thing would had been competent people handling the plant.

Re:Nuclear energy reduces greenhouse emissions

[FlyHelicopters]

It would help if it wasn't a 40 year old reactor design.

Often missed when talking about nuclear reactors among the general media is that most are old and few new designs have been built.

We have newer, safer, designs. We should, quite frankly, scrap the 40 year old reactors and replace them all with something much newer and much safer.

And yes, hire people who know what they are doing.

Re:Nuclear energy reduces greenhouse emissions

[FlyHelicopters]

Sadly, from everything I've heard from "environmentalists" for the past 20 years, they seem to be against almost everything that might do something bad at some point.

Look, I don't knock the idea, harming the enviroment is bad, polution is bad, and there is a reasonable chance that all this CO2 is bad.

Ok, fair enough. But the "environmentalists" are against coal, they are against natural gas, they are against oil, they are against nuclear, they are against... well, everything.

Are they expecting us to all go back and live in caves?

Solar and wind are nice, they help, but they aren't going to become our primary power source anytime soon (and probably not ever).

So what then? What exactly can we use to power our world?

Re:Nuclear energy reduces greenhouse emissions

[antifoidulus]

Nuclear does emit fewer greenhouse gasses than either coal or oil. Energy generation isn't usually a dichotomy between nuclear vs. coal, but for Japan, who had to shut down all of its nuclear plants in a hurry, it basically is. The only way they could compensate for that loss in capacity in such a short time is oil/coal. Obviously poor planning, but thats where it is at, not a lot you can do about it now.

Re:Nuclear energy reduces greenhouse emissions

[khallow]

One important thing would had been competent people handling the plant.

This has never been shown to be an actual problem at Fukushima. I've complained about this attitude since shortly after the disaster happened. Where's the evidence that TEPCO acted incompetently? Instead, I see now as I did back when, that TEPCO recovered well from a huge disaster.

The Fukushima plant was exposed due to one of the largest earthquakes of modern history to conditions beyond its design specifications and it behaved as intended with a contained meltdown of several reactors.

TEPCO then acted to prevent the situation from getting worse. They've since expended considerable effort to clean up their mess and take responsibility for their actions (which includes compensating those who have been harmed by the Fukushima accident).

So where is this alleged evidence of incompetence?

Re:Nuclear energy reduces greenhouse emissions

[livingboy]

It might surprise you, that some environmentalists are engineers. I did take one environmental course during my B. of Science studies, that was toughest course I did during my studies.

On that course I learned that there are alternatives, all alternatives have their own problems, but solutions exist.

Main alternative is reducing power consumption on consumer products, then comes renewable energy sources and hybrid power production.

Re:Nuclear energy reduces greenhouse emissions

[AmiMoJo]

We have newer, safer, designs.

The newer designs are not that different though. They are better, but can still fail in similar ways if emergency cooling is unavailable for some reason. They are still vulnerable to extreme lateral motion from an earthquake.

And yes, hire people who know what they are doing.

Can you guarantee that for the entire life of the plant? Actually I'd question if you can guarantee that even for the building stage or first month of operation. Nuclear is expensive and the desire to drive down costs and maximize profit will always make safety considerations secondary.

Re:Nuclear energy reduces greenhouse emissions

[cmdr_tofu]

hydro, geothermal, wave, leaf (and other biomass) gassification, biogas, biodiesel (not ethanol)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_energy

It is false to say there is a technology problem. It's more of a political problem. Indeed with simply changes (proper insulation, solar water heater switch in summer, requiring new buildings have south facing windows), we could get dramatic energy savings.

Those who the most powerful economic interests in the world do not benefit from deterring from business as usual oil, coal and natural gas.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/10/21/1249269/-For-the-Koch-brothers-possible-100-billion-in-tar-sands-profit-if-Keystone-XL-pipeline-is-approved#

Re:Nuclear energy reduces greenhouse emissions

[Kjella]

Are they expecting us to all go back and live in caves?

Not caves but... well, most environmentalists don't want to raise the average to modern standards. Looking at the current estimates the average CO2 emissions in tons/capita is:
World: 4.9 (2011)
EU: 8.6 (2011)
US:16.4 (2012)

So if everyone were to pollute as much as the US our total emissions would over triple. People like to blame China but they're "only" up to 7.1 tons/capita, they're lower than the EU they just happen to be a billion people plus. And there's huge countries like India with 1.6 tons/capita that aren't going to stay down there just to get everyone else off the hook. Of course they want the same standard of living as the rest of us. So it is this vast inequality while the environmentalists feel the current 4.9 ton/capita is already far too high. They don't want just the US down, they want China down, the EU down, hell probably India down because the world can't take it.

And you know what? The world won't take it, nobody and I mean absolutely nobody wants to back down to 4.9 tons/capita voluntarily. The EU would have to find ways to cut emissions by 43%, the US by 70%, even China would have to cut 30%. Even if we admit that there's a lot of excess consumption as well, there's a whole lot to modern living that I don't consider luxuries and that do consume power. People lived before refrigerators, freezers, washing machines, dishwashers, microwaves, TVs and computers too but I don't plan on being one of them. And cars and bikes, maybe they'll go electric or whatever but we're never giving up that freedom of personal transportation. Bicycles aren't a full substitute.

Honestly, I don't know what the f*ck Americans are doing to have almost twice as much emissions as here in Europe. But the reason you should get down to EU levels is because otherwise China is just going to point to the US and say why aren't you dealing with the bad boy in class and instead picking on us? That way maybe we could all meet somewhere under 10 tons/capita and agree that's a reasonable maximum for a modern country. Even with the world at EU levels it'd still be a 75% increase from today, but I'm more worried that if nothing happens China decides to become 1.35 billion Americans and if the whole world follows it'll be a 235% increase instead. Because if you can, so can we.

Re:Nuclear energy reduces greenhouse emissions

[bmajik]

Are they expecting us to all go back and live in caves?

Main alternative is reducing power consumption

To the GP, yes. That is apparently the plan.

I think it is ethical to identify and mitigate "flagrantly wasteful" misuses of power and abuses of environmental resources. But beyond that, there are ethical and intellectual problems with some environmentalists

People need to realize a few things

The ideal amount of pollution is not "none". No pollution necessarily implies no resource usage.

To maintain a quality of life better than Ogg the caveman, we need to continue using resources to improve our comfort, safety, health, etc. Whether that is cutting down trees or burning coal, we need to continue doing both, because people want shelter, heat, and electricity.

To develop the quality of life we have now, we had to use resources and create pollution. People who advocate for sharp declines in pollution and resource use necessarily advocate stopping human progress.

Given how much suffering there is left in the world, suffering that requires our hard work, investment, and energy to address, people who ask us to stop resource consumption and power production are essentially anti-humanists. They, whether they know it or not, ask for more suffering, less comfort, and a reduced quality of life, for most people.

Perhaps there is a deeper underlying question to address.

What is the point of environmentalism? What is the goal of humanity?

Environmentalists often talk of "saving the earth". Sometimes, they say this in terms of "its the only one we have" and sometimes they are more honest and sinister when they explain that the Earth deserves to live long after humanity has died.

These latter type disgust me. We'll not discuss them further.

These former type are correct, but are missing the point.

While it is true that Earth is currently the only home we have, in my view it should be the goal of humanity to sustainably and indefinitely move beyond the earth to other worlds.

That is a significant undertaking; not everyone believes it is possible. I do.

We know that saving the earth is impossible. And our contributions to its demise are finally measurable, but are unlikely to be the fatal wound.

At some point, we will take a hit from a comet, meteor, alien race, etc, and it will end most or all human life on our home planet.

If we have not used our resources quickly and wisely enough BEFORE then to allow us to have permanently escaped the Earth, we have failed.

I think we should accelerate our usage of resources and production of energy, with a goal towards escaping this rock. Note that I said "a goal". Certainly making life better for people here who are here and alive today is ALSO a goal, and that also requires energy and resource consumption.

Obviously, building nuclear plants that are cleaner and longer lasting is a better way to do this than building more unscrubbed coal plants, but we need to accept that "more power production" is a necessary reality of the human condition, and get on with the show.

There are still people out there with no light and no heat. There are still people who die every year from flooding and basic sanitation issues.

Will you deny them new power plants when they develop enough to desire them?

It is horrendously myopic for people living the luxury of western lives to look around themselves, see that they are finally comfortable, and then demand that the world stop innovating and using resources to improve itself.

Finally, here's the bottom line about nuclear power safety: more people die _every year_ from petroleum drilling accidents than will ever get cancer from Fukushima emissions.

There has been ONE large scale nuclear incident with high loss of life, and it was in the despotic Soviet Union. How many people do you think died in the Soviet Union from coal mine collap

Re:Nuclear energy reduces greenhouse emissions

[MrKaos]

One important thing would had been competent people handling the plant.

This has never been shown to be an actual problem at Fukushima. I've complained about this attitude since shortly after the disaster happened. Where's the evidence that TEPCO acted incompetently? Instead, I see now as I did back when, that TEPCO recovered well from a huge disaster.

The evidence to the contrary has been examined by appropriately legislated independent Japanese bodies. You just refuse to recognize it as such, your complaints are, therefore, irrelevant.

The Fukushima plant was exposed due to one of the largest earthquakes of modern history to conditions beyond its design specifications and it behaved as intended with a contained meltdown of several reactors.

TEPCO re-rated the plant to 600Gal, the plant was only ever exposed to 150Gal during the Earthquake, so clearly this is an incorrect statement.

TEPCO then acted to prevent the situation from getting worse. They've since expended considerable effort to clean up their mess and take responsibility for their actions (which includes compensating those who have been harmed by the Fukushima accident).

Your posts come across as if you are you an apologist for TEPCO or the Nuclear industry. Are you in any way related to, paid for by or sponsored in any way by the Nuclear industry or TEPCO in a professional or other capacity?

So where is this alleged evidence of incompetence?

I ask again. Do you have evidence of incompetence?

Yes. The answers you seek are contained in the official report of The Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission prepared for the The National Parliment (Diet) of Japan, which cites (amongst others);

• a multitude of errors and willful negligence that left the Fukushima plant unprepared for the events of March 11
• serious deficiencies in the response to the accident by TEPCO, regulators and the government
• TEPCO must undergo dramatic corporate reform, including governance and risk management and information disclosure—with safety as the sole priority.

The most telling citation I can provide you from the official report is how the nuclear industry managed to avoid absorbing the critical lessons learned from Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. I'm sure you've sen that before.

Re:Nuclear energy reduces greenhouse emissions

[AK Marc]

How would you know if something was successfully suppressed, given that the definition of "successful" includes those who use bullshit assertions themselves while attempting to label others statements as such?

Why is it the government is incompetent at everything it does, but is still suspected of pulling off (or being able to pull off) the most fanciful of conspiracy theories?

Re:Nuclear energy reduces greenhouse emissions

[khallow]

Let's look at the complaints from the only actual evidence you gave, the report by the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission:

The TEPCO Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant accident was the result of collusion between the government, the regulators and TEPCO, and the lack of governance by said parties. They effectively betrayed the nationâ(TM)s right to be safe from nuclear accidents. Therefore, we conclude that the accident was clearly âoemanmade.â We believe that the root causes were the organizational and regulatory systems that supported faulty rationales for decisions and actions, rather than issues relating to the competency of any specific individual. (see Recommendation 1)

They then give a bunch of failings of the Japanese nuclear regulatory agency. One particular gem is the claim that in 2006, all the relevant parties "knew" that tsunamis could be much worse than was originally forecast. And nobody seems to bring up the point that the plant was scheduled to be decommissioned in 2011.

Even if we grant that dubious claim (since I see no evidence that TEPCO institutionally knew of this prior to 2008 or 2009, when they had conducted their own studies), we still have the problem of determining what measures to take in response. In hindsight, it's obvious that backup generators were a weak point for such flooding. It's not so obvious in foresight.

Large organizations don't turn on a dime. Nuclear regulation in particular is a control system with several years lag.

Another complaint was that regulators apparently made a habit of asking what the plant operator would do and then demanding that the operator do just that. It's collusion, but collusion that was irrelevant to the problem at hand.

Similarly, the Commission complains about TEPCO's lack of preparedness without explaining where this preparedness for a first time ever accident in Japanese history is supposed to come from.

Much of the complaints about the "TEPCO, regulators and the government" are by regulators and government which among other things claimed by the Commission interfered with TEPCO's chain of command and caused communication breakdowns in the early stages of the crisis. Lumping all three together is deceitful.

I found remarkably little blame is specifically attached to TEPCO from this report. We know that they made mistakes, had poor design, gamed the regulatory system a little, and moved slow on recent historical earthquake research. That doesn't make them incompetent as a result.

As to the call for TEPCO's reform, let me cite the appropriate section of the report's conclusions:

The risk management practices of TEPCO illustrate this. If the risk factors of tsunami are raised, for example, TEPCO would only look at the risk to their own operations, and whether it would result in a suspension of existing reactors or weaken their stance in potentia

Problems with TEPCOâ(TM)s management style, based on the government taking final responsibility, became explicit during the accident. It prioritized the Kanteiâ(TM)s intent over that of the technical engineers at the site. TEPCOâ(TM)s behavior was consistently unclear, and the misunderstanding over the âoecomplete withdrawalâ from the plant is a good example of the confusion that arose from their behavior. (See Section 3)

After the accident, TEPCO continued to avoid transparency in disclosing information. It limited disclosure to confirmed facts, and failed to disclose information that it felt was uncertain or inconvenient. Some examples of continuing disclosure issues include the delay in releasing electricity demand projections used as the basis for rolling blackouts, and the lack in up-to-date information on the core conditions at the plant.

One third of the above complaint isn't even about TEPCO, but interference by government. And the rest can be boiled down to poor enforcement of

Re:Nuclear energy reduces greenhouse emissions

[ultranova]

Can you guarantee that for the entire life of the plant?

Certainty is not the realm of mere mortals. The question is, which is likely to cause least damage: nuclear power, coal, or deindustrialization?

Thus far, the "green" solution seems to be picking coal and pretending you'll switch to renewables - any decade now.

Re:Nuclear energy reduces greenhouse emissions

[khallow]

The most telling citation I can provide you from the official report is how the nuclear industry managed to avoid absorbing the critical lessons learned from Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. I'm sure you've sen that before.

That thread is instructive. My immedicate response to that claim was:

If someone does something incredibly stupid, like drive drunk and slam a car into a tree, what is there to learn? Don't be stupid?

What lessons were there to learn from Chernobyl? Japan didn't have reactors as unsafe as those used at Chernobyl. They didn't do stupid stuff nor were inclined to. They didn't fail to warn the public nor were inclined to.

There wasn't anything going on that was dangerous or stupid enough to where lessons from Chernobyl could have applied.

Nothing has changed to make that comment any less relevant today. And that's when I predicted:

March 24. Bet you that's the date when all these problems started getting better.

I was right on the money while you are still digging that Chernobyl hole over two years later. And my summary still holds:

In summary, I have shown that TEPCO, the owners of the Fukushima 1 nuclear plant, implemented safety systems and measures to mitigate the harm from earthquake and tsunami damage and that that these systems actually did mitigate the harm from a very large earthquake. Yet you continue your ignorant libel in the face of these facts. In your stunted view, not having high enough specs for safety systems is equivalent to all the crazy stuff that the Russians did at Chernobyl.

It's one thing to act on emotion a few weeks after a major disaster. It's a much more pathetic thing to be still parroting the same failed ideas over two years later. You've had plenty of time to correct the error of your thinking. When are you going to do it? Will you go to your deathbed clutching this ignorance?

Haven't the Japanese went through enough hell?

[anubi]

Anyone watching what happened must be aware the Japanese took one helluva hit.

I, for one, am extremely impressed with the Japanese, making do despite such a setback.

My take: Salute them and cut them some slack. A lot of slack.

Re:Haven't the Japanese went through enough hell?

[Xest]

They ran a dangerously unsafe reactor, protected to a size of tsunami and magnitude earthquake less than is possible in the area, and then completely and utterly fucked up the aftermath.

Now following that they want to make the whole situation worse by not doing as much to reduce CO2 emissions, which don't just contribute to global warming but go hand in hand with burning of fossil fuels that have been linked to increased incidences of things like asthma and other illnesses.

I don't blame all the Japanese of course because I'm sure many as dismayed at this new decision by their leadership, but this is just a classic case of taking a bad situation, and making it even worse.

There's no escaping the fact that this whole situation exists because of complete and utter ineptitude throughout. Fukushima shouldn't have even happened if they at least had a sane policy on both ageing nuclear reactors, and the protection of them against natural disasters. Even if it happened anyway for some other reason it could've still been mitigated by better post-disaster planning.

Re:Haven't the Japanese went through enough hell?

[AmiMoJo]

They ran a dangerously unsafe reactor, protected to a size of tsunami and magnitude earthquake less than is possible in the area, and then completely and utterly fucked up the aftermath.

To be fair they are not the only ones, and the international atomic energy community was praising their safety up until it happened. In other words it isn't just them, it's a world-wide and industry-wide problem of over-confidence and failure to appreciate risk when profits are threatened.

Fukushima shouldn't have even happened if they at least had a sane policy on both ageing nuclear reactors

Name one country that did. Now Germany and a few others are ditching nuclear, but only after Fukushima gave them that wake-up call.

Re:Haven't the Japanese went through enough hell?

[Kjella]

The final estimates is that it was a magnitude 9.0 earthquake, it's on the top 5 list of recorded earthquakes and the others were in Chile, Alaska, Sumatra and Kamchatka, Russia. It tops the list of property damage by earthquake by a factor of two. If this had been a "normal" 8.0 earthquake (which is an amplitude 10 times smaller and 31 times less energy) we almost certainly wouldn't be having this discussion. It's like the engineers of the WTC towers, they had simulated a small aircraft flying into the towers but not a 747. Yes, in perfect retrospect of course it was too little but I think you're being more than a little unfair.

Re: Haven't the Japanese went through enough hell?

[JWW]

How about cutting the country that got hit by one of the worst Tsunamis in the HISTORY OF THE WORLD some slack.

Re:Haven't the Japanese went through enough hell?

[ColdWetDog]

They did not build the seawall to protection level suggested by their own geologists. They created a 'backup' system that had obvious holes in it. The groundwork had indeed been done (pardon the pun) to determine the worst credible ground / water movement. They knew there were historical tsuanamis who's water lines were higher than the plant could handle.

TEPCO just couldn't be arsed to spend the money to build the system up because 'it wasn't likely to happen'.

Yeah, the engineers did their job. Management fucked up.

Surprised?

Carbon politics

[Tailhook]

Australia just elected a government on an unapologetic anti-carbon tax platform.

France has thousands of truckers shutting down the major roads protesting carbon taxes, and the people support them widely.

Japan is all done indulging carbon caps; reality has imposed itself and they have other priorities now.

I don't know whether our CO2 is going to Venus the Earth. And neither do you. What I am absolutely certain of is that we're going to find out — people will not subject themselves to energy poverty and they are no longer in doubt about the consequences of carbon caps and carbon taxes.

Re:Carbon politics

[KeensMustard]

Australia just elected a government on an unapologetic anti-carbon tax platform.

The new government has exactly the same emissions target as the old one. They just plan to do it in a less competent fashion.

Re:Carbon politics

[AmiMoJo]

All your examples are short sighted. In the case of Japan they put too much faith in nuclear and didn't have enough diversity when it failed. In the other cases countries are having short term economic problems due to the lingering financial crisis and high cost of living, and carbon reduction is an easy target for politicians and newspapers.

The irony is that these two factors should re-enforce just how important carbon reduction is. Forget climate change, countries need diverse and distributed energy sources that are not reliant on one dangerous technology or resources from other countries that might become hard to get (coal, gas, oil). From a purely economic point of view it makes sense, to protect energy supplies and dampen sudden price rise shocks.

Re:Carbon politics

[AmiMoJo]

"Nuclear" didn't fail; a single plant failed due to massive mismanagement and a huge natural disaster.

Nuclear did fail. The flaws discovered in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster have kept every other nuclear plant in the country out of operation. It isn't clear if any design of reactor can be guaranteed to be safe in the event of a large earthquake based on what we know now. More over it is also clear that even the world's third largest economy, rated higher than the US by the in the Rule of Law report for regulation, can't operate it safely.

When a hydroelectric dam fails, nobody shuts down all other dams.

Because the failure tends not to be systematic or inherent in the design, or other dams are no subject to the same risks.

When a fly ash reservoir spills and wipes out towns and huge areas of land, nobody shuts down all other coal plants.

Actually we have closed mines after similar mines collapsed, due to a better understanding of the risk after the fact.

Shutting down your country's power generation network in a blind panic is just as much of a management problem as having no power production diversity.

It wasn't a blind panic, it was due to the other plants having the same vulnerabilities to earthquakes and tsunami. At the very least it was necessary to inspect them for earthquake damage. In addition new technology has revealed fault lines directly under some of them, meaning they will probably never be re-started.

LDP setting stage to restart reactors

[ingulsrud]

Regardless of the safety of modern reactor designs, Japan's seismic instability and high population density makes it an inherently inappropriate location for nuclear power plants.

The back-pedalling on previous emission pledges and blaming it on idled reactors is all about convincing the domestic electorate to approve nuclear power. The LDP is responsible for putting Japan on the path of nuclear power dependency in the first place, and now that they are back in power they want this particularly bad idea resuscitated.

Japan has a long way to go before exhausting its latent solar, wind, geothermal and conservation potential. With plenty of industrial capacity to embark on leading the world in non-nuclear, non-fossil-fuel energy infrastructure, the LDPs obsession with nuclear is a clear sign of their lack of wisdom and cozy relationship with the like of Mitsubishi.

Re:LDP setting stage to restart reactors

[Luckyo]

I'm yet to see any evidence of this "latent solar, wind, geothermal and conservation potential" not being thoroughly exhausted as far as meaningful numbers go. Japanese went through amazing campaign of conservation after the tsunami and shutdown of all nuclear plants in the country in the middle of very hot summer after it was made "cool" (in Japanese way) to conserve energy. It still wasn't enough to prevent occasional brownouts.Fact is, you need base power, especially when you're industrialized country with a lot of heavy industry. There's not much conservation potential beyond what was done back then. Wind and solar offer zero solution here.

The location is appropriate as long as plant is up to date and not a 60s design. If anything it proved just how safe plants are, that the plant designed for magnitude 7 took a hit from magnitude 9 which is a hundred times stronger and still survived it with no problems. It took a followup tsunami that killed over 30.000 and devastated a huge area to kill it.

I do see the typical "industry is BAAAAAD" claim here repeated a lot though as that is the main source of "nuclear dependency". LDP was specifically responsible for industrializing Japan, uplifting it to its current level of wealth from poor post war state. Calling this "bad" is nothing short of treason against humanity.

Reality is, Japan has a grand two options for sufficient base power generation. Burning coal/carbohydrates or nuclear. It has unsuitable geography for hydro, geothermal could increase earthquake risk even further which is a far greater risk to human health than nuclear and other options are too marginal in terms of power produced. And right now, with nuclear being off the table because of hysteria, they're stuck with coal. A lot of which is older coal plants that emit significant SO2 and NOx, which is far more dangerous to human health in short term than Fukushima. Not to even speak of long term greenhouse gas CO2 consequences.

Re:LDP setting stage to restart reactors

[AmiMoJo]

Japan has enough off-shore wind to power the entire country at all times, if enough turbines were build. Of course no-one is suggesting that as there would be other issues, but off-shore wind is a massive resource for Japan. In case you were wondering, the Kamisu offshore wind farm was not damaged by the tsunami despite being hit by it directly.

Offshore wind can provide base load. As long as it is distributed over a wide geographical area you can guarantee a certain amount of generation at any time.

Japan doubled its solar output this year alone. There is a vast amount of untapped energy there, and increasingly it is being paired with battery packs so that the energy can be used at night.

Energy efficiency is also a big deal. There are lots of new technologies, like LED lights that automatically set their brightness to maintain a constant ambient level in an office. Blinds that automatically rotate their blades to reflect as much light and heat into the building as possible are also becoming more common.

the plant designed for magnitude 7 took a hit from magnitude 9 which is a hundred times stronger and still survived it with no problems.

Actually no, it was damaged by the earthquake which was considerably weaker than magnitude 9 by the time it reached Fukushima. It wasn't known at the time due to the tsunami damage and radioactive leaks making inspection impossible, but some of the emergency cooling systems were damaged by the earthquake and wouldn't have worked even if the tsunami hadn't arrived. How well the plant could have survived that damage depends on what the operators did, so not good odds.

Fault lines have been discovered right under some reactors using new technology to locate them which was not available when the plants were first built. It is doubtful that any design could safely survive so much lateral force or ground liquification.

Re:LDP setting stage to restart reactors

[nojayuk]

A few corrections:

Fukushima Daiichi took a magnitude 7+ Richter hit from the Great Tohoku earthquake, it was magnitude 9 at the epicentre out at sea. The plant's buildings got through that shock pretty well though (there may have been some damage to some internal equipment in the reactor buildings, it's too difficult to inspect them properly at the moment). The reactors at Onagawa further up the coast and closer to the epicentre rode out the earthquake and tsunami safely with no problems.

The tsunami killed about 20,000 people, not 30,000. Nearly all of them died because the towns and cities along the Tohoku coast weren't as well protected from the tsunami as the Fukushima Daiichi plant and other nuclear plants like Onagawa were.

Japan is currently burning mostly natural gas for its electricity generating needs. It has to import all of its fossil fuels and NG is as easy to transport and handle as coal and burns a lot cleaner. It's still releasing a lot of CO2 and causing an increase in smog and air pollution. Efforts are being made to bring about a dozen reactors back online this winter, whether that happens or not is in the lap of the gods.

Re:LDP setting stage to restart reactors

[Shakrai]

It has to import all of its fossil fuels and NG is as easy to transport and handle as coal and burns a lot cleaner

Easy to transport? Sure, when it's produced domestically, or imported from countries you share a land border with. Neither applies for Japan though, she has to import all of her NG as LNG, which is a royal PITA to put it mildly. You don't need hyper-specialized port facilities (and huge investments in security) to import coal.

Not saying that coal is a better energy choice, just that it's a lot easier to handle when being exported/imported across oceans.

Re:Ah, the nuclear boogeyman rears its ugly head.

[thej1nx]

Get off your high-horse!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions#List_of_countries_by_2012_emissions_estimates

Why exactly have US and China managed to stay on top of the list continuously for past few years, without managing to act the least bit "responsible"? Mod me troll or flamebait if you want to, but Japan even on per-capita basis is lower on list than most other countries. If US and Chinese politicians are willing to sit on their asses and screw the world, why this special onus of "responsibility" on Japan? USA could have done better, and should have so long ago. But US government was more busy trying to convince everyone that global-warming was a "myth" and attempting to argue that it was better to kill the planet than "harm the economy". When we go painting Japan as "one of the world's top polluters", let us remember to name and shame the top two or three as well.

Re:Ah, the nuclear boogeyman rears its ugly head.

[LWATCDR]

Actually per capita the US is like number 3 and China is much lower. How come Australia never gets the guilt trip?

Re:Ah, the nuclear boogeyman rears its ugly head.

[flyneye]

No flamebait.
+1 cutely devoid of history and social studies credits.
Why questions are fruitless and can produce any answer the respondent feels like, not to mention it deals with motive, which is never a clear answer except to a first party. However, If you will note which countries produce the worlds goods and find a history of how they came into this, you will have answered your own initial question and can extrapolate the rest for yourself effortlessly.

Reliance on nuclear power increases emissions

[mdsolar]

There are a couple of big ways in which nuclear power does a bad job on greenhouse gas emissions. First, it is expensive and slow. So much so that its opportunity cost is bloated and when effort is ill spent on nuclear power, alternatives which are faster, cheaper and better are hindered. http://www.rmi.org/Knowledge-Center/Library/E09-01_NuclearPowerClimateFixOrFolly

Second, as we are seeing here, one accident can lead to a massive pullback from nuclear power, both in the affected country and around the world. Even France has announced a planned pullback. When the pullback is rapid, then relic fossil fuel plants rather than new clean energy replacements are pulled into service to make up the difference in generation. This makes nuclear power not just a slow response to climate change, but a retrograde response since these bad accidents are inevitable.

There are other ways it has a bad influence as well, such as pretending to be a silver bullet to the adolescent mind for example, so much time is wasted on fantasy scenarios. But these two big ones are bad enough.

Re:Nuclear as it stands is horrible

[MrKaos]

When we estimate that, due to human negligence we may have to evacuate whole countries due to one meager nuclear power plant

Which isn't much of a standard since a number of countries are no bigger than small cities and human negligence hasn't been responsible for a big nuclear accident in almost 30 years.

I refer you (again) to the official report of The Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission prepared for the The National Parliment (Diet) of Japan, which says;

Although triggered by these cataclysmic events, the subsequent accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant cannot be regarded as a natural disaster. It was a profoundly manmade disaster – that could and should have been foreseen and prevented.

So it would seem that the official findings differ from your opinion.

Re:Ah, the nuclear boogeyman rears its ugly head.

[Creepy]

The simple answer - both China and the US depend far too much on coal for electricity, and there is currently almost no control over CO2 emissions from these plants.

  45% of US electricity is coal and about 23% after that the 1/3 less polluting natural gas (which can be derived from coal, but isn't), after that is 20% nuclear and the rest mostly "green" energy. The EPA has proposed forcing new coal plants to adopt carbon capture technology, but Republicans (and yes, I call out Republicans, some of this info is from their coddling "news" site) oppose it for various reasons, usually citing it is experimental, expensive, and poses safety risks. What they don't say is it is about 1/3 less efficient in generating electricity and therefore impacts their constituent's profits, since their constituents can't regulate their own rate hikes (such is the life of a regulated monopoly). Thus the EPA has to focus on the other 55%, much of which has already taken place (automobile emissions standards, industrial emission standards, etc).

I don't know Chinese numbers, but the fact that they mine almost 4x what the US does suggests they are far more dependent on coal.

Re:Slashdotters are smarter than TEPCO.

[khallow]

We should send all those fucking smart-arse slashdotters over to work on the dangerous reactor cleanup.

You know, it'd probably be interesting short term work - as long as the rest of the supersmart Slashdot population isn't there.