Japan
Pressure inside the reactor’s steel containment is still rising. Tepco increased cooling efforts but has been unable to stop the increasing pressure which unabated threatens to breach the containment structure. In such an event, given the destruction of the reactor building, radioactive steam and air would be released directly into the atmosphere.
Greenpeace International 20th March 2011 more >>
The “Fukushima Fifty,” the group of Japanese workers battling the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986, faced a new setback following a spike in pressure at one of the reactors they are trying to contain. It occurred in a holding vessel around reactor three at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi plant, and forced engineers to consider releasing more radioactive material into the atmosphere. A similar tactic produced explosions during the early days of the crisis. Officials warned that a release of radiation this time would be larger than in previous releases because more nuclear fuel had degraded.
Telegraph (4.22pm) 20th March 2011 more >>
Despite strenuous efforts, there is an increasing danger that large amounts of radioactive material might be released from Unit No. 3, which is loaded with fuel containing plutonium. We are particularly concerned about the people currently within the 20-30 km zone from Fukushima Daiichi, who have been instructed to stay indoors until further notice. These people should be evacuated as quickly as possible far away from the nuclear plant. CNIC has been urging the government to prioritize evacuation of pregnant women, infants and children. We once again strongly urge the government to take these actions.
CNIC 20th March 2011 more >>
As the Fukushima nuclear crisis in Japan entered its second week and levels of radioactive contamination continue to grow, the international environmental organization Greenpeace, along with the Japanese group Citizens Nuclear Information Centre (CNIC), is calling for improved evacuation plans and other protective measures for people still within the 30km exclusion zone, as well as for pregnant women and children in contaminated areas beyond 30km.
Greenpeace International 20th March 2011 more >>
Radiation was detected on fava beans imported from Japan but the amount is well below Taiwan’s legal limits, Taiwan’s Atomic Energy Council said Sunday.
The council said in a press release posted on its website that minute amounts of iodine-131 and cesium-137 were detected on the surface of the beans in tests carried out on Saturday. Japanese government officials said Sunday radiation was detected for the second straight day in spinach and milk produced at farms near the Fukushima Daiichi power station that was crippled by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. Traces of radioactive iodine have been detected in Tokyo and the surrounding Kanto region, Japanese government officials said Saturday.
Kyodo News 20th March 2011 more >>
Implications
Fears are rising that a new oil shock may follow on from Japan’s nuclear crisis and the unrest in Arab nations. Lesley Curwen talks to Dr. Jeremy Leggett, executive chairman of Solar Century, and to Dr. Manouchehr Takin, analyst at the Centre For Global Energy Studies. Dr Leggett thinks a nuclear renaissance is now unlikely, so oil prices will be forced up, but Dr Takin
argues there will be plenty of oil for another twenty years; he rejects the idea of an oil shock.
BBC Business Daily Podcast 18th March 2011 more >>
Wylfa
The idea that we in Ireland are safe from the effects of nuclear accidents if we don’t build stations here seems naive. Wylfa nuclear power plant in Anglesey in Wales is closer to Dublin than is Carrick-on-Shannon. But we are likely to face a terrible energy crisis this century, as fossil fuels are finite resources.
Irish Independent 20th March 2011 more >>
Renewables
The government imposed deep cuts in the level of incentives available to solar photovoltaic installations with over 50kW capacity, in the middle of the ongoing nuclear crisis in Japan, prompting outrage amongst many solar developers, and even the Anaerobic Digestion industry, which was supposed to benefit from the fast track review has slammed the changes. Meanwhile councillors in Pershore want solar panels on their Civic Centre; Eaga has raised £300m finance to install solar panels on more than 30,000 homes; Calderdale is looking at installing panels on 100 public buildings; Stoke city to install 200 panels on civic offices; 3,000 panels to be installed in North Lincolnshire; Scotland has launched a half million loan scheme.
Micro Power News 18th March 2011 more >>
Japan
Traces of radioactive Iodine have been found in Tokyo’s tap water (1.5Bq/kg). While this level does not present a serious risk, and is far below the officially allowed level (200 Bq/kg), it clearly demonstrates that the impacts of this nuclear disaster will be felt well beyond the site of the nuclear power plant itself. More worrying is the levels of contamination founds in milk and spinach. Fifty kilometres away from the Fukushima nuclear facility, levels of radioactive iodine five times higher than officially allowed (1510 Bq/kg) have been found in milk. In an area more thans 100 km away, spinach was discivered to have radioactive iodine seven times higher (15020 Bq/kg) than the permissible levels for food. The Japanese government is considering banning the sale of all food products from the Fukushima Prefecture.
Greenpeace International 19th March 2011 more >>
THE Japanese nuclear disaster has taken on a new and potentially far-reaching dimension after radioactive iodine was found in milk in the area and radiation was detected in Tokyo tap water, 140 miles from the crippled plant. Last night, a ban on the sale of food from the Fukushima region around the complex was being considered by government officials. The first food scare since the crisis was triggered nine days ago by an earthquake and tsunami came as the Japanese government announced that spinach from a neighbouring area had also exceeded safe limits by up to seven times.
Scotland on Sunday 20th March 2011 more >>
Sunday Times 20th March 2011 more >>
The nuclear power plant workers known as the ‘Fukushima Fifty’ have been isolated from their families to prevent news of difficult conditions leaking out. Fukushima workers interviewed by The Sunday Telegraph at a special evacuation centre in the city of Koriyama said they had lost confidence in the management of the plant. It is likely that the site is now so contaminated that it has become difficult for them to work near the reactors for extended periods of time. Industry experts suggest that when dealing with a task in a highly radioactive area of the plant, workers might line up and handle the task only for minutes at a time before passing off to a colleague. Radiation levels in the control room of one of the reactors are said to be so high that staff cannot remain in there for long, so must continually go in and out to carry out tasks.
Telegraph 20th March 2011 more >>
Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), the operator of the Fukushima reactors, is the second energy company within a year to have its reputation damaged by a dramatic accident. The similarities with BP and the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster, although not complete, are obvious. Tepco’s share price has halved and public confidence in its handling of the situation has dived. Tepco’s reputation was already tarnished by past mistakes. It was severely criticised after the 2007 earthquake in the Niigata Chuetsu-Oki area when it was forced to shut down a plant, admitting that it had not been designed to cope with such tremors. That plant has never reopened. Five years earlier, Tepco was found to have falsified nuclear safety data at least 200 times between 1977 and 2002. All 17 of the company’s boiling water reactors were shut down for inspections after the government provided evidence that Tepco had been concealing incidents.
Observer 20th March 2011 more >>
Exhausted engineers attached a power cable to the outside of Japan’s tsunami-crippled nuclear plant on Saturday. The operation raised hopes that it may be possible to restart the pumping of water into the plant’s stricken reactors and cool down its overheated fuel rods before there are more fires and explosions. However, officials said further cabling would have to be completed before they made an attempt to restart the water pumps at the Fukushima plant, 150 miles north of Tokyo.
Observer 20th March 2011 more >>
The “Fukushima 50”, the name given to the emergency team, although they may number as many as 300, are carrying out a pincer movement to cool down the rods and reconnect power to the plant to kick-start the emergency systems.
Express 20th March 2011 more >>
JAPANESE officials battling to prevent a meltdown at the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant said yesterday the crisis appeared to be stabilising but was far from under control. The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog also warned it was unclear whether the plant’s cooling system would still work when power is restored.
Scotland on Sunday 20th March 2011 more >>
The Japanese media is recounting the fear and anger among relatives of those inside the plants. People inside the plant could not sleep well because of aftershocks, said one. Food like biscuits and packs of rice and fish were kept inside the plant for emergencies. But our father said they could hardly eat anything because of their mental agony. Another relative said: We believed the word from the company top brass that it has the worlds highest levels of technology. We assumed that the company had countermeasures against radiation after an accident. Are the government and company going to leave the people at the site to their fates? I am angry, even more so, because I used to trust their goodwill. The question why? will haunt Japan.
Sunday Times 20th March 2011 more >>
The company that runs Japan’s stricken nuclear power station carried out an extensive underwater survey that should have revealed the plant’s vulnerability to a tsunami after an earthquake hit one of its other nuclear power plants four years ago.
Telegraph 20th March 2011 more >>
Army of robots that climb walls sent in to prevent disaster at nuclear plant
Daily Mail 20th March 2011 more >>
Japan made some progress in its race to avert disaster at a tsunami-damaged power plant, though minor radiation leaks underlined perils from the world’s worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl 25 years ago. Three hundred engineers have been battling inside a danger zone to salvage the six-reactor Fukushima plant since it was hit by an earthquake and tsunami.
Reuters 19th March 2011 more >>
Crews fighting to cool reactors at Japan’s stricken nuclear plant struggled Sunday to switch partial power back on. The discovery of radiation in foodstuffs in regions around the plant, and of traces of radioactive iodine in Tokyo tap water well to the southwest, compounded public anxiety but authorities said there was no danger to health.
Yahoo 20th March 2011 more >>
Light easterly winds are forecast for the area around quake-stricken nuclear reactors on the northeast coast of Japan, the weather agency said on Sunday. On Saturday, traces of radiation exceeding national safety standards were found in milk from a farm about 30 km (18 miles) from the plant and in spinach grown in neighbouring Ibaraki prefecture, the first discovery of contaminated food since the disaster. Tiny levels of radioactive iodine have also been found in tap water in Tokyo, one of the world’s largest cities. Many tourists and expatriates have already left and residents are generally staying indoors.
Reuters 20th March 2011 more >>
After the bleakest nine days in its post-war history, Japan will start today with a crumb of optimism amid the first, tentative signs that it could yet avert catastrophe at its stricken nuclear plant. Engineers hoped to restore power to the cooling systems at Fukushima Daiichi’s damaged reactors this morning, if overnight equipment tests proved successful. Their aim is to restart water pumps that have been out of action since the main and back-up power systems failed following the 11 March earthquake and tsunami.
Independent 20th March 2011 more >>
Watching the helicopters try to drop desperately needed water through the wrecked tops of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors to cool the spent fuel pools, a television viewer might wonder why the waste was up there in the first place.
New York Times 19th March 2011 more >>
The Japanese nuclear crisis worsens as Japanese authorities race to cool the overheating reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station. Earlier today, Japan raised the nuclear alert level at the crippled plant from a four to a five, on par with Three Mile Island. This decision has shocked many nuclear experts. “Our experts think that it’s a level 6.5 already, and it’s on the way to a seven, which was Chernobyl,” says Philip White of the Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center in Tokyo. We also speak with Dr. Ira Helfand of Physicians for Social Responsibility about the long-term health effects from radiation exposure from Fukushima.
Democracy Now 18th March 2011 more >>
Is the Japanese Government playing down the accident?
Russia Today 18th March 2011 more >>
Implications
Britain may back away from the use of nuclear energy because of safety fears and a potential rise in costs after the Fukushima disaster, says Chris Huhne, the energy secretary. In an interview with the Observer, Huhne insisted that he would not “rush to judgment” until the implications of the disaster were known and a report into the safety of UK nuclear plants by the chief nuclear officer, Dr Mike Weightman, was complete. The interim findings are due in May.
Guardian 19th March 2011 more >>
Senior executives at energy giant EDF Energy, which is constructing nuclear power stations at Hinkley Point, Somerset, and Sizewell, Suffolk, are confident that the project will proceed virtually on schedule. There had been suggestions that a major safety review of existing and new power plants, due to report in September, would severely delay Britain’s new nuclear programme on which 100,000 jobs depend.
This is Money 19th March 2011 more >>
Daily Mail 19th March 2011 more >>
Our terror of radiation leaking from the Fukushima plant and the potential impact that might have has entirely eclipsed coverage of the tens of thousands of actual deaths from the tsunami. We have turned from viewing this distant disaster on Japanese soil to worrying about what it all means for us, here in the UK.it is entirely legitimate to question what the events in Japan mean for the UK. After all, Germany has already closed down seven nuclear power plants which began operating before 1980 and China has suspended approval for the 27 new nuclear power stations it had planned. EU energy commissioner Gunther Oettinger put it thus: “The unthinkable has occurred. Energy policy faces a fundamental new beginning.”We are told new plants are much safer. I believe that. But that is different from saying they are safe. When the Fukushima plant was built in the early 1970s it was cutting-edge technology. The same was true for the German plants built pre-1980 which have now been temporarily shut. The same was true of Chernobyl. Presumably in 30 years’ time, engineers will launch the next generation of plants and look back at those we are building now and shake their heads. Ah, the government will say in 2040, but this time the plants are really safe. The problem is that we are dealing with an energy source which, if it goes wrong, has the capacity to cause death and misery on a massive scale. Whatever you say about windfarms, tidal power, solar energy or whatever else – none of them has the capacity to positively harm the population they serve.
Scotland on Sunday 20th March 2011 more >>
Fukushima has changed the world’s attitude to civil nuclear programmes, to the extent that people wonder whether they will be largely discarded. Businesses that have staked much of their futures on the growth potential of the nuclear industry are dismayed that the Government’s new-build plans are under such massive scrutiny. Financial commentators and analysts are advising investors to take a punt on the stocks of coal and gas producing companies. The two reactor designs are at the final stages of detailed technical evaluation by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate. Approval for the reactors, known as generic design assessments (GDA), was expected in June. However, the report that Huhne has asked Dr Mike Weightman, the chief nuclear inspector, to write might not be completed for six months. Huhne said: “The tragic events in Japan are still unfolding. We should not rush to judgment.” The civil servant stresses that Huhne is trying to emphasise that any judgements will be “fact-based not emotional”. But Huhne did emphasise that the Government needed to understand the implications of what happened in Fukushima on any new programme in the UK, heartening environmental groups which believe this offers a slight hope that nuclear expansion could be limited, or even canned. What seems clear is that GDA will be delayed, as will a later national nuclear policy statement which will basically give the green light to the whole programme. Huhne will have to be careful in his response to the disaster. The energy industry is largely convinced that nuclear is the only way to meet our mounting energy needs. Huhne is said to be a convert, having opposed the programme before he entered government. He is unlikely to conclude that Japan’s choice to build a plant near a major fault line bears any relation to a facility located on a headland on the west coast of England. At least that’s what British business will be hoping.
Independent 20th March 2011 more >>
Nuclear power will doubtless remain part of a diverse portfolio of energy sources, but the solution to the problem of low-carbon power must ultimately lie in renewables. In the UK, that points to tidal and wave power, to which we are geographically well-suited, alongside carbon capture and storage technology. Britain is currently a leading centre for the innovation of these processes. Their successful development could create huge economic advantages in manufacturing and exports of the technology, alongside the strategic benefits of energy self-sufficiency. We cannot uninvent civil nuclear power. The great danger is not the technology but the possibility that we come to depend on it as much as we now depend on fossil fuels. The environment and our security would not be helped by substituting one toxic addiction for another.
Observer 20th March 2011 more >>
It’s taken the nuclear industry more than three decades to shed its toxic image. If you look back to the accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, it’s quite extraordinary how nuclear power has gone from being seen as dirty and dangerous to being low-carbon and safe. In no time at all, the nuclear lobby has become one of the most powerful industrial complexes on Earth. What has made this conversion so interesting is the way policy-makers, politicians and even green campaigners bought into the re-branding because of our dependency on expensive and limited fossil fuels but also because nuclear power has been seen as the cleanest and quickest way to cut carbon emissions. Whatever your view on the science of nuclear power, the industry will be changed for ever by this crisis, and will certainly be made more expensive. The new EPR plants cost at least £5bn to build and some estimates suggest extra safety will add at least another 10 per cent to that, which in turn will feed through into higher electricity prices. Are these costs which the private sector – which will have to pay for the nuclear programme – can stand or will tolerate in the light of Fukushima? Or will governments have to subsidise construction? Will the public, already nervous in an increasingly nervous world, stand for eight new power stations? It’s not hard to imagine students – facing £80,000 of debt for a degree – starting up their own Greenham Common-style protests. Jeremy Leggett, one of nuclear power’s fiercest critics who also runs one of the fastest growing energy firms, Solar Century, thinks the nuclear sector is dead. What’s more, he predicts a devastating energy crisis unless the Government moves swiftly to build up all energy sources as alternatives to sky-high and volatile Middle Eastern oil and gas supplies.
Independent 20th March 2011 more >>
Japan’s growth in demand for electrical energy led to nuclear power stations being built in potential earthquake zones. The threat now is that countries – such as Britain – will become too afraid of the nuclear risk to build adequate new generating capacity. My real anxiety is Malthusian, that world demand for energy will grow faster than supply. As China and India grow richer, they will consume more energy, but may produce less nuclear power. No one is going to build new nuclear power stations on top of an earthquake fault line again.
Daily Mail 20th March 2011 more >>
The scaremongers were certainly out in force last week, with talk of “meltdown” and claims that the Japanese nuclear power plant emergency threatened a disaster “worse than Chernobyl”. The effects of this unique accident on the renewed drive for the nuclear energy that the world so desperately needs may be seriously damaging. In the forefront of those countries which have now responded by closing down reactors or abandoning plans for new ones is Germany, where Angela Merkel was booed in the Bundestag for suggesting that we should move on to “the age of renewable energy as soon as possible”. At least here in Britain our energy secretary, Chris Huhne, has so far refrained from saying anything so fatuous; although how he is going to persuade our German and French-owned electricity companies to build the nuclear power plants needed to keep Britain’s lights on will be more of a puzzle than ever.
Telegraph 20th March 2011 more >>
Japan has shut down 11 nuclear reactors in four different power plants. With talk of burying the Fukushima plant, it seems likely that at least six of those are lost for good. The question then is, what will replace them? The country has more than 50 nuclear reactors – one in ten of the world’s total – squeezed on to its geologically unstable, densely populated land mass. Drollas says: “Obviously in Japan, there will be a major rethink.” Mark Lewis, head of energy research at Deutsche Bank, says: “The obvious beneficiary of all of this is gas. If you want to build new power stations with relatively low emissions, the advantage of gas is that it’s much cleaner than coal, you can build it within three years, and it is ideal to build in conjunction with renewable capacity.” In the UK final investment decisions have not yet been made. As Deutsche’s Lewis points out: “No-one is close to the stage where they can start pouring concrete into the ground . This is going to push the timeframe back further still.” He says it is inevitable that the cost of nuclear power will go up. “The amount of capital investment required to build a nuclear power station to the level needed for public confidence will be greater. And the perceived risk will go up, so the cost of financing it will go up. On an economic level it makes nuclear less competitive.” Gerard Reid, cleantech research analyst at investment bank Jefferies, says: “From the investor community, the energy funds I am speaking to, not alternative energy funds but funds who have had complete ‘360s’ on this and were pro-nuclear, they have gone anti-nuclear.”
Telegraph 20th March 2011 more >>
Uranium stocks are certainly out of season and deeply discounted. Media coverage has shifted from the destruction of the earthquake to the negative aspects of nuclear energy. Nothing puts fear into the public more than green men in radiation outfits. The media has taken this opportunity to capitalize on the fear of the masses. This has resulted in devastating sell-offs in the uranium mining sector such as in uranium (Global X Uranium ETF (URA)) and nuclear energy ETFs (Market Vectors Uranium+Nuclear Energy ETF (NLR)), which has seen its most severe decline in its short history.
Market Oracle 19th March 2011 more >>
What has happened in Japan should in fact be seen as a massive endorsement of nuclear power. But of course, people being what they are, it will not be. Think about it: despite being faced with a Magnitude 9 Great Earthquake which knocked the whole island of Honshu several feet to the west, a 35ft tsunami and the complete breakdown of the infrastructure, a handful of rather ancient atomic reactors have remained largely intact and have released only tiny amounts of radiation.
Daily Mail 19th March 2011 more >>
I have never lived in fear of nuclear reactors as some of my happiest childhood memories are of swimming in the North Sea in water heated up by cooling the reactor at Sizewell B. What a treat it was to clamber over those sand dunes and swim out through the cold into the balmy waves and gaze at the huge white dome of the plant. No, I don’t glow in the dark. The water itself is not radioactive.
Daily Mail 19th March 2011 more >>
Oldbury
A MASSIVE plume of steam was seen rising from the Oldbury nuclear reactor, frightening residents on both sides of the Severn. It came as three Gloucestershire MPs backed a document calling for investment in the nuclear industry and insisted it is the way forward, despite the Japanese nuclear crisis. A new reactor is being built at Oldbury in South Gloucestershire, but on Thursday, steam billowed from one of the two reactors there, leading concerned residents to fear the worst. Magnox, which runs the site, said steam was released as part of a normal automatic shutdown after an electrical failure.
This is Gloucestershire 19th March 2011 more >>
US
I’m not asking what you think should happen, but rather what you think will happen. How many new nuclear plants will begin construction this decade? Do you think any existing plants will be shut down (or not have their life extended) as a result of the Japan Syndrome? Bonus Question: What are the country’s most unsafe reactors? Here’s a video with a couple contenders.
Climate Progress 19th March 2011 more >>
The problems with Japans nuclear plant are thought to have brought an end to a revival of Americas nuclear power industry. Irwin Stelzer disagrees
Sunday Times 20th March 2011 more >>
India
Nuclear Power Corp. of India is under “no compulsion” to buy reactors from Areva SA (CEI) after two agreements signed in December, the Press Trust of India reported, citing Chairman Shreyans Kumar Jain. The Indian company will evaluate Areva’s 1,650-megawatt reactors and purchase them on technically acceptable terms, Press Trust quoted Jain as saying.
Bloomberg 18th March 2011 more >>
Belarus
Russia has agreed in principle to lend Belarus $6 billion to construct its first nuclear power station. The deal, negotiated of course before the disastrous events in Japan, was given official sanction on 16 March at a meeting between the two country’s leaders Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin and his Belarusian counterpart Mikhail Myasnikovich.
Modern Power Systems 18th March 2011 more >>
