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Japan To Restart Nuclear Power Tomorrow After Energy Prices Soar
An anonymous reader writes: After the Fukushima meltdown, all of Japan's nuclear power plants were shut down, the last in late 2013. This week the government plans on starting up reactor No.1 at the Sendai nuclear power plant. Energy prices have risen 30% since 2011, and it is hoped that the plant will soon be producing a surplus of electricity. Not everyone is happy about the plant restarting. This weekend, about 2,000 protesters marched around the plant and voiced their opposition. "Past arguments that nuclear plants were safe and nuclear energy was cheap were all shown to be lies," said writer Satoshi Kamata, one of the demonstration organizers. "Kyushu Electric is not qualified to resume operations because it has not completed an anti-quake structure to oversee a possible accident as well as a venting facility."
Japan's newest reactors are indeed of a modern design, but the specific plant whose restart is discussed in this article, Sendai, is still a 2nd-generation plant. It's a newer one than Fukushima (1984 vs. 1971), but not a 3rd-generation plant.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Hydro? Are you insane?
In 1975, an 18GB hydro-electric dam system in China failed, killing at least 170,000 people. And 11 million made homeless.
Far more in one incident than from Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.
Do you really want to take that risk?
And don't get me started on coal ...