Natural Resources Defense Council: Indian Point Nuclear Plant Can be Replaced with Cleaner, Safer Energy -Human and Financial Cost of Nuclear Crisis in New York Could Exceed Japan’s Fukushima Disaster

http://www.nrdc.org/media/2011/111017a.asp

A wide range of safer, cleaner energy options is available to replace Indian Point Energy Center if the nuclear plant is not relicensed in 2015, according to an independent analysis commissioned by the Natural Resources Defense Council and Riverkeeper. Thanks to an energy generation surplus it can be done at no impact to the reliability of the region’s electricity supply and at modest cost. A related new NRDC analysis of the costs and consequences of an accident at Indian Point also reveals it could cause a catastrophe far worse than the Fukushima disaster in Japan.

 

“The world watched the nuclear crisis in Japan with fear and heavy hearts; no one wants to see a repeat here in one of the most densely populated regions of the country,” said NRDC President Frances Beinecke. “Fortunately, we have a wealth of safer energy sources ready to go that can fully replace the power from Indian Point. When we consider the human and economic costs of a nuclear crisis in New York, and the host of benefits from investing in clean energy, the solution is common sense.”

 

NRDC’s new risk analysis compares the human and financial costs of the Fukushima disaster to the potential risks of a nuclear crisis at Indian Point, and reveals that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) still underestimates the danger posed to Indian Point from seismic activity. An accident at one of Indian Point’s reactors on the scale of the recent catastrophe in Japan could send a fallout plume south to the New York City metropolitan area, require the sheltering or evacuation of millions of people, and cost 10 to 100 times more than Fukushima’s disaster. 

 

Fortunately, a wide range of alternative energy options are available today that can replace the full electricity capacity provided by Indian Point Energy Center. Findings show that energy efficiency and renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, alone could meet energy demand in the region. And there is additional capacity available through new transmission projects and by making existing natural gas power plants much more efficient. 

 

Safer Energy Alternatives – Available and Ready to Go 

A new report prepared for NRDC and Riverkeeper by economics consulting firm Synapse Energy Economics examines energy alternatives to Indian Point. The report finds that there is currently a surplus of electricity capacity in the regions near Indian Point, including New York City, and that even if the Indian Point units were closed when their current operating licenses expire by 2015, there would be no need for new electric capacity to meet reliability requirements until 2020. The replacement options identified in the report are either already underway or can be implemented well before then.

The report, Indian Point Energy Center Nuclear Plant Retirement Analysis; Replacement Options, Reliability Issues and Economic Effects, identifies the following conservative estimates of alternative energy sources that are available to replace Indian Point’s 2,000 MW of electric capacity by 2020:

• About 1,550 MW in savings from new energy efficiency resources in the Indian Point region, beyond those that are already planned. Additional savings are available in the rest of the state.
• Nearly 600 MW of renewable energy capacity to meet peak electricity demand (and up to 3,000 MW total capacity) by 2015. In total, more than 6,000 MW of renewable energy projects like wind and solar are already in the planning process in the state. 
• 8,000 MW from proposed new transmission lines to bring power to New York City from upstate New York and other regions, including the already approved 660 MW Hudson Transmission Line, and nearly 2,000 MW of lines are already well along in the approval process.
• More than 1,000 MW from increased efficiency at existing, outdated natural gas plants in New York City, which involves updating their technology to increase power output and reduce air emissions and other pollution.

Replacing Indian Point’s capacity can be done on time and without significant cost increases to consumers. Many of the projects and initiatives are already underway, and will be built whether Indian Point closes down or not. Our report estimates that this transition will likely add about $1 to $3 per month to consumers’ bills on the low end, or $4 to $5 per month on the high end. The more reliance on energy efficiency, the lower the costs will be, and customers who participate in new energy efficiency programs will be able to lower their bills.

“The more you learn about Indian Point, the more you know it must close,” said Robert Kennedy Jr., Chief Prosecuting Attorney for Riverkeeper and Senior Attorney at NRDC. “It’s too old, near too many people, and too vulnerable to fire, earthquake, outside attack and a host of other potential disasters. What’s more, we simply don’t need Indian Point’s dirty, dangerous power: current surpluses are sufficient to consign Indian Point to the scrap heap when its licenses expire if not sooner. By the time we start to need more power – in 2020 – we’ll have at least another 4,500 megawatts in replacement energy and efficiency savings in place. New York is safer, more secure and simply better off without Indian Point.” 

Risk and Consequence of a Severe Accident at Indian Point
Indian Point Energy Center is located on the Hudson River in Buchanan, N.Y., in Westchester County, just 34 miles north of the center of Manhattan.

NRDC’s report is the first to compare the human and financial costs of the Fukushima disaster to the potential risks of a nuclear catastrophe at Indian Point. It provides new information about the risk and consequences of an accident at this facility, including maps of radiation plumes.

Of the 104 operating U.S. nuclear reactors, it finds that Indian Point’s two reactors present extraordinary  risks for three reasons: First, the Indian Point units are located in a seismically active area without sufficient protection against losing electricity during earthquakes or other natural disasters like flooding, hurricanes or tornadoes. Second, very large populations could be exposed to radiation in the event of a major accident. And third, owners Entergy Nuclear Northeast have applied to the federal government for permission to continue to operate these units for another 20 years beyond their engineered 40-year lifespan.

An accident at only one of Indian Point’s reactors on the scale of the recent catastrophe in Japan could require the sheltering or evacuation of up to 5.6 million people in the metro area, putting them at increased risk for cancer and genetic damage due to radiation exposure. The plume could contaminate a swath of land to uninhabitable levels of radiation down to the George Washington Bridge.

An accident nearly 10 times worse than Japan’s – where there is a meltdown at only one of Indian Point’s reactors, releasing radiation on the scale of Chernobyl – could put New York city residents at risk of 25 times higher radiation doses than a Fukushima-sized accident, requiring the administration of stable iodine tablets to 10 million people. In the aftermath of an accident on this scale, if Manhattan were downwind from the reactor, it would become too radioactively contaminated to live in. This more severe accident could also put thousands at risk for potentially fatal radiation sickness in the Hudson Valley.

Finally, the estimated cost alone for cleanup and compensation for the crisis at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plants is at about $60 billion and counting, and NRDC estimates that an accident at Indian Point could cost 10 to 100 times more. The costs of a severe accident at Indian Point would be significantly higher here because of the value of real estate and economic activity that would be lost in its wake. 

Related NRDC Document: Report: Indian Point Nuclear Plant Study

Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)  www.nrdc.org
Press Release dated October 17, 2011

Seven-point plan for Japan’s energy strategy post-Fukushima

http://bnef.com/PressReleases/view/154
The crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors, and sudden gap in Japan’s power capacity, should prompt the country to adopt a bold, seven-point plan for its future energy mix. Research by Bloomberg New Energy Finance shows that Japan has much better options available than increasing its reliance on fossil-fuel generation.

The Fukushima disaster caused Japan at a stroke the country to lose 20% of its nuclear electricity supply. Nuclear produced 300TWh of power in 2010, and before the March tsunami, the plan was for this to increase by nearly 50% to 447TWh by 2019. Japan had made aggressive commitments to reduce carbon emissions, and despite broad targets for renewable energy, the reality was that these depended largely on plans for new nuclear power stations – plans which, in May, Prime Minister Naoto Kan announced would be scrapped entirely. So Japan finds itself not just dealing with a supply crunch, but having to develop an entire new energy policy on the fly, from the ground up.

“Our analysts have put together a seven-point plan for Japan’s future energy strategy,” said Michael Liebreich, chief executive of Bloomberg New Energy Finance. “We believe the plan would contribute to a reinvigoration of Japan’s economy, as well as allowing it to meet energy needs and hit its carbon emission targets.”

In brief, these are the seven: 

1. Target world leadership in energy efficiency
Japan responded aggressively to the threat posed by last century’s oil shocks. As a result, by 1990 it was the world leader in several key clean energy technologies, including batteries, heat pumps, fuel cells, mass transportation and solar power. Since 2000 Japan’s leadership has been overtaken by Germany, Denmark, Spain, China, even in some cases the US.

Japan should now embark on a crash programme of energy efficiency, in industrial, commercial and residential applications. Creating large pools of demand for LEDs, building automation systems, smart grids and other efficiency technologies should be accompanied by programmes to support the supply side, so that Japanese companies can become export powerhouses to help fund the investment. In particular, technologies for “peak shaving” – shifting demand to eliminate the need to build new power stations – should be given the highest priority, and Japan should aim to be the first G20 country with universal connection to a truly smart grid. 

2. Get hold of accurate cost data
It is absolutely vital that the authors of Japan’s new energy strategy base it on real current costs of clean energy solutions, and their likely evolution. It is not well-recognised that solar PV today is competitive with retail electricity prices in a number of markets, and will be competitive in a lot more by 2015. This year’s best new wind farms will be producing power at $68/MWh without subsidies, competitive with new coal plants, once the coal plants have to cover their capital costs and pay for proper pollution control. The old certainties of centralised power stations, baseload requirements, redundant grids, and high-cost renewables need to be set aside. 

3. Pass a feed-in tariff
In Japan today, there is a need for speed. Restoring the country’s electricity supply is urgent. A feed-in tariff should be the policy-maker’s weapon of choice in giving momentum to a clean energy roll-out. Supported by a residential-scale PV buy-back programme and installation subsides, Japan’s annual installation doubled last year. However last year Germany installed 7.5GW of PV, against a bit shy of 1GW in Japan. There is a feed-in tariff bill already on the floor of the Diet (parliament); the bill covers, beyond residential-scale PV, biomass, small hydro, geothermal, commercial-scale PV and wind. Ideally, the bill would have a grandfather clause so it falls away in two years, and/or a cap on volume, or an auction for the rights to qualify for certain tariffs. But the overriding priority is for action, without delay. 

4. Eliminate barriers to clean energy roll-out
Not nearly enough attention is paid to removing barriers to the quick roll-out of clean energy – reduce the risks, eliminate legislative and planning bottlenecks, create markets quickly through public sector procurement. The planning process in Japan is extremely tortuous, holding back the geothermal and wind sectors in particular. Now would be a good time to reform it. Wherever the costs of clean energy technologies are higher in Japan than elsewhere, wherever projects are harder to implement, find out why and bring together the stakeholders to sort out the problem. The huge potential of Japan’s geothermal sector, and the obstacles facing it, are examined in a Bloomberg New Energy Finance insight note published to clients on 2 June, entitled Could The Answer to Japan’s Energy Gap Lie Right Under Its Feet? 

5. Restructure power markets
Despite much debate about liberalisation, Japan’s power markets are more rigid than in almost any other divided up into 10 regional near-monopolies. Given the extremity of the challenge, the priorities must be innovation, flexibilityand rewards for problem-solving, but the system is biased towards protecting the status quo. In particular, with Tepco, one of the world’s largest privately-owned utilities with 24m customers, bearing massive liability and needing full support from the national government, now would be a good time to advance a broader reform agenda on energy. This would have knock-on effects on Japanese industrial and economic dynamism: think deregulation of supply, incentives to bring in new participants, net metering, funding support for use of new technologies, support for micro-grids and off-grid living, creative mechanisms to reward demand management and large volumes of local renewable power resources. 

6. Start to rebuild trust in nuclear power
It will be hard to erase those images of Japanese toddlers being checked for radiation by masked inspectors. From an engineering standpoint, however, there is no reason why nuclear power cannot meet a significant and even growing part of Japan’s energy needs. The nuclear industry practically invented the science of risk management, and has at its disposal techniques to understand and manage risk with clinical thoroughness. What is required is a root-and-branch overhaul of the Japanese nuclear industry’s safety culture. Out must go the clubby atmosphere, the links with politicians, the tolerance for sloppiness, prevarication, incompetence and cover-ups. In must come independence, transparency, whistle-blowing, ruined careers and even prosecutions. 

7. Fire up gas generation to bridge some of the gap
Inevitably, ramping up renewables and, especially, rebuilding trust in nuclear power will take years. In the short term, Japan needs quickly to increase its ability to import natural gas and increase gas-fired power capacity, beyond 2010’s figure of just over 60GW. From the point of view of its carbon emission targets, additional gas-fired generation makes more sense for Japan as a stop-gap than increased coal- or oil-fired output.

Bloomberg New Energy Finance www.BNEF.com
Press Release dated June 9, 2011

How Merkel Decided to End Nuclear Power - NYTimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/13/world/europe/13iht-germany.html 
How did Germany, Europe’s economic powerhouse, turn its back on nuclear energy?

Most directly, the decision belonged to Chancellor Angela Merkel. Unlike other world leaders, she is a trained scientist, with a Ph.D. in physics.

She reached the momentous decision to phase out nuclear power by 2022 after discussing it one night over red wine with her husband, Joachim Sauer, a physicist and university professor, at their apartment in central Berlin.
...
Mrs. Merkel, her allies say, is ready to lead Germany into a new era in which wind and solar energy, along with enhanced efficiency, can be developed fast enough to replace the lost power from nuclear plants.
...
Ranged against this optimism are Germany’s big four power suppliers, a host of doubting analysts and economists who say that the government has failed to calculate the cost....

Economics Minister Philipp Rösler says switching off nuclear power will increase the cost of a kilowatt hour of electricity by just one euro cent. Mr. Röttgen calculates the cost per household during the transition as roughly one extra cup of coffee latte — €2.50 to €3, or about $3.50 to $4.25 — per month.

But the nuclear industry, led by E.ON, Vattenfall, RWE and EnBW, says that it will be the private sector, particularly energy companies, that will have to pay for the switch to renewables and other energy sources, like natural gas and even a dozen or so new coal plants. “We are not talking about peanuts here, but hundreds of billions of euros,” said Jürgen Grossmann, the chief executive of RWE.

On the other side of the equation, the government will no longer pay for nuclear subsidies, which, according to Greenpeace, have totaled about €200 billion, or about $285 billion, since West Germany began research and development of nuclear power in the 1950s. Subsidies last year totaled €4.1 billion, according to a recent study by Green Budget Germany (Forum Ökologisch-Soziale Marktwirtschaft), an independent environmental research organization.

Another factor is the likelihood that Germany, which already gets more than one third of its natural gas from Russia, will grow more dependent. Mrs. Merkel, however, disputed this point.... Germany imports nearly 60 percent of its energy, according to the International Energy Agency.

Renewable sources like wind and solar power currently make up only 17 percent of the power mix. The government envisions that amount roughly doubling by 2020 and reaching 80 percent by 2050.

It also plans vast expansion of the national grid to move electricity from the north coast, where wind is plentiful, and the south, where solar energy is more abundant, to the key industrial areas where it is most in demand. According to the German Energy Agency, 1,500 kilometers to 3,600 kilometers, or 930 miles to 2,200 miles, of new extra-high voltage power lines will have to be built by 2020, financed by grid operators.
Cost estimates vary widely, depending on the technology used, but the agency estimated basic overhead lines with standard transmission would cost €950 million a year over seven years. High voltage direct current transmission cost more than twice that.

Some big businesses are worried. Industrial production, which is generally energy intensive, accounts for 28 percent of the German economy, compared with 22 percent in the United States. The world’s leading chemicals company, BASF, uses as much natural gas in its factories as the entire city of Berlin. Germany already has high energy costs compared with elsewhere around the world, said Michael Grabicki, spokesman for BASF. “German industry,” he said, “has to remain competitive.”

By contrast, many of the Mittelstand, the small and medium family-owned companies that form the backbone of Germany’s economy, are excited at the prospect of developing new technology and perhaps breaking the monopoly of the four big energy companies.
...
The big energy companies are not taking the change lying down. In April, RWE filed a lawsuit against Mrs. Merkel’s interim decision to close seven of the oldest nuclear plants immediately.  Mr. Grossmann, the RWE chief, said Mrs. Merkel’s move would leave a shortfall of more than 100 terawatt hours of electricity, roughly 17 percent of the total consumption. He said that would have to be made up through imports from places like France and the Czech Republic, and by building new coal- or gas-fired plants, which, in contrast to nuclear power, produce global warming gases.

Claudia Kemfert, energy expert at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin) and professor of energy and sustainability at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin, said coal already accounted for 42 percent of Germany’s electricity needs....

The government acknowledges that natural gas and coal-fired power plants will continue to play a big role. They are, after all, able to provide large chunks of power at any time — unlike solar or wind energy, at least with current storage technology. The government, through the state-supported bank KfW, has set up a special €5 billion fund to support construction of offshore wind farms. It also intends to build storage facilities for renewable energy — yet another expense.

At the same time, German companies and households are being urged to increase efforts to save energy. Subsidies are planned over the next three years to help modernize housing stock and to wean the automobile industry... away from petroleum and to develop electric cars. 

Part of a series on Germany’s changing role in Europe and the world.
by Judy Dempsey
FOR FULL STORY GO TO:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/13/world/europe/13iht-germany.html
The New York Times www.NYTimes.com
August 13, 2011

PSC rejects financial risk plan for Ga. nuke plant

http://www.rdmag.com/News/FeedsAP/2011/08/energy-psc-rejects-financial-risk-plan-for-ga-nuke-plant/
Utility regulators unanimously rejected a plan ... that would have trimmed the profits of the Southern Co. if it breaks its budget while building what may become the first brand-new nuclear plant in a generation.

The elected members of the state Public Service Commission voted 5-0 to approve a compromise negotiated between its staff and Southern Co. subsidiary Georgia Power that shelved a proposal meant to pressure the utility into controlling construction costs while building two Westinghouse Electric Co. AP1000 reactors at Plant Vogtle near Augusta. The cost of building the existing reactors at the site jumped from $660 million to nearly $9 billion by the time they started producing power in the late 1980s.

Under state law, Georgia Power's 2.4 million customers will ultimately reimburse the state-regulated monopoly for the flagship plant as they pay their monthly electricity bills. President Barack Obama's administration had awarded the project $8 billion in federal loan guarantees as it seeks to increase the country's use of nuclear power. Georgia Power, which has a 46 percent stake in the new reactors, has been authorized to spend $6.1 billion on its share of construction costs.

As part of the agreement, Georgia Power says it will not legally challenge the power of utility regulators to ban the company from passing along "imprudent" construction costs even after those expenses are disclosed as part of semi-annual reviews. Company officials had earlier argued that regulators could not revisit construction spending after a review was complete.
...
The debate over how to split financial risk between Georgia Power and its customers — an issue potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars — has simmered for years.
...
PSC staffers who represent customers presented a plan in December that took a carrot-and-stick approach.

If Georgia Power went $300 million over its approved construction budget, the PSC would trim the utility's profit from the new plant. If the power company built the project for $300 million under its target, it could receive a boost in earnings. Staffers later watered down that proposal during negotiations.

Georgia Power had argued that a risk-sharing plan was illegal and unnecessary. The company also said trimming its profits would make it more difficult to get investors to buy its stock, making it more expensive to raise money for big projects.
...
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials are still considering whether to approve the design of the AP1000 reactor that would run the expanded nuclear plant. Until that reactor design is approved, federal safety regulators cannot issue a license to start plant construction....

While Southern Co. officials say the project remains on budget, a nuclear engineer hired by the state to monitor construction costs has warned that change orders and delays in getting key approvals from the NRC could drive up costs.

by Ray Henry
FOR FULL STORY GO TO:
http://www.rdmag.com/News/FeedsAP/2011/08/energy-psc-rejects-financial-risk-plan-for-ga-nuke-plant/ 

R&D Magazine www.RdMag.com
August 2, 2011

On the contribution of external cost calculations to energy system governance: The case of a potential large-scale nuclear accident

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421511002990
Abstract: The contribution of nuclear power to a sustainable energy future is a contested issue. This paper presents a critical review of an attempt to objectify this debate through the calculation of the external costs of a potential large-scale nuclear accident in the ExternE project. A careful dissection of the ExternE approach resulted in a list of 30 calculation steps and assumptions, from which the 6 most contentious ones were selected through a stakeholder internet survey. The policy robustness and relevance of these key assumptions were then assessed in a workshop using the concept of a ‘pedigree of knowledge’. Overall, the workshop outcomes revealed the stakeholder and expert panel's scepticism about the assumptions made: generally these were considered not very plausible, subjected to disagreement, and to a large extent inspired by contextual factors. Such criticism indicates a limited validity and useability of the calculated nuclear accident externality as a trustworthy sustainability indicator. Furthermore, it is our contention that the ExternE project could benefit greatly – in terms of gaining public trust – from employing highly visible procedures of extended peer review such as the pedigree assessment applied to our specific case of the external costs of a potential large-scale nuclear accident.

by Erik Laes 1, Gaston Meskens 2 and Jeroen P. van der Sluijs 3
1. Flemish Institute for Technological Research (VITO), Boeretang 200, 2400 Mol, Belgium
2. Belgian Nuclear Research Centre (SCK-CEN), Boeretang 200, 2400 Mol, Belgium
3. Copernicus Institute, Department of Science Technology and Society, Utrecht University, Budapestlaan 6, 584 CD Utrecht, The Netherlands
Energy Policy via Elsevier Science Direct www.ScienceDirect.com
Article in Press, Corrected Proof; Available online 14 June 2011.
Keywords: External cost; Nuclear power; Pedigree assessment

In Japan, a Culture That Promotes Nuclear Dependency

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/31/world/asia/31japan.html
According to Martin Fackler and Norimitsu Onish writing in the May 30, 2011 New York Times:

When the Shimane nuclear plant was first proposed here more than 40 years ago, this rural port town put up such fierce resistance that the plant’s would-be operator, Chugoku Electric, almost scrapped the project. Angry fishermen vowed to defend areas where they had fished and harvested seaweed for generations.

Two decades later, when Chugoku Electric was considering whether to expand the plant with a third reactor, Kashima once again swung into action: this time, to rally in favor. Prodded by the local fishing cooperative, the town assembly voted 15 to 2 to make a public appeal for construction of the $4 billion reactor.

Kashima’s reversal is a common story in Japan, and one that helps explain what is, so far, this nation’s unwavering pursuit of nuclear power: a lack of widespread grass-roots opposition in the communities around its 54 nuclear reactors. This has held true even after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami generated a nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi station.... So far, it has spurred only muted public questioning in towns like this.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan has, at least temporarily, shelved plans to expand Japan’s use of nuclear power — plans promoted by the country’s powerful nuclear establishment. Communities appear willing to fight fiercely for nuclear power, despite concerns about safety that many residents refrain from voicing publicly.

To understand Kashima’s about-face, one need look no further than the Fukada Sports Park, which serves the 7,500 mostly older residents here with a baseball diamond, lighted tennis courts, a soccer field and a $35 million gymnasium with indoor pool and Olympic-size volleyball arena. The gym is just one of several big public works projects paid for with the hundreds of millions of dollars this community is receiving for accepting the No. 3 reactor, which is still under construction.

... In 2009 alone, Tokyo gave $1.15 billion for public works projects to communities that have electric plants, according to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Experts say the majority of that money goes to communities near nuclear plants.

And that is just the tip of the iceberg, experts say, as the communities also receive a host of subsidies, property and income tax revenues, compensation to individuals and even “anonymous” donations to local treasuries that are widely believed to come from plant operators.

... The aid has enriched rural communities that were rapidly losing jobs and people to the cities.
...
In a process that critics have likened to drug addiction, the flow of easy money and higher-paying jobs quickly replaces the communities’ original economic basis, usually farming or fishing.
...
Tsuneyoshi Adachi, a 63-year-old fisherman, joined the huge protests in the 1970s and 1980s against the plant’s No. 2 reactor. He said many fishermen were angry then because chlorine from the pumps of the plant’s No. 1 reactor, which began operating in 1974, was killing seaweed and fish in local fishing grounds.

However, Mr. Adachi said, once compensation payments from the No. 2 reactor began to flow in, neighbors began to give him cold looks and then ignore him. By the time the No. 3 reactor was proposed in the early 1990s, no one, including Mr. Adachi, was willing to speak out against the plant.
...
The No. 3 reactor alone brought the town some $90 million in public works money, and the promise of another $690 million in property tax revenues spread over more than 15 years once the reactor becomes operational next year.

In the 1990s, property taxes from the No. 2 reactor supplied as much as three-quarters of town tax revenues. The fact that the revenues were going to decline eventually was one factor that drove the town to seek the No. 3 reactor, said the mayor at the time, Zentaro Aoyama.

Mr. Aoyama admitted that the Fukushima accident had frightened many people here. Even so, he said, the community had no regrets about accepting the Shimane plant, which he said had raised living standards and prevented the depopulation that has hollowed out much of rural Japan.
...
While the plants provide power mostly to distant urban areas, they were built in isolated, impoverished rural areas.

Kazuyoshi Nakamura, 84, recalls how difficult life was as a child in Kataku, a tiny fishing hamlet ...

At first local fishermen adamantly refused to give up rights to the seaweed and fishing grounds near the plant.... They eventually accepted compensation payments that have totaled up to $600,000 for each fisherman.

Today, the dirt-floor huts of Mr. Nakamura’s childhood have been replaced by oversize homes with driveways, and a tunnel has made central Kashima a five-minute drive away.... Only about 30 aging residents still make a living from fishing.
...
Much of this flow of cash was the product of the Three Power Source Development Laws, a sophisticated system of government subsidies created in 1974....

The law required all Japanese power consumers to pay, as part of their utility bills, a tax that was funneled to communities with nuclear plants.
...
Critics point to the case of Futaba, the town that includes Fukushima Daiichi’s No. 5 and No. 6 reactors, which began operating in 1978 and 1979, respectively.

According to Professor Shimizu of Fukushima University, Fukushima Daiichi and the nearby Fukushima Daini plants directly or indirectly employed some 11,000 people in communities that include Futaba — or about one person in every two households. Since 1974, communities in Fukushima Prefecture have received about $3.3 billion in subsidies for its electrical plants, most of it for the two nuclear power facilities, Mr. Shimizu said.

Despite these huge subsidies, most given in the 1970s, Futaba recently began to experience budget problems. As they did in Kashima, the subsidies dwindled along with other revenues related to the nuclear plant, including property taxes. By 2007, Futaba was one of the most fiscally troubled towns in Japan and nearly went bankrupt. Town officials blamed the upkeep costs of the public facilities built in the early days of flush subsidies and poor management stemming from the belief that the subsidies would remain generous.
...
The peninsula’s first reactor went online in 2005, two are under construction, and two more are still being planned. Japan is also building massive nuclear waste disposal and reprocessing facilities there....

By MARTIN FACKLER and NORIMITSU ONISHI
The New York Times www.NYTimes.com
May 30, 2011
FOR FULL STORY GO TO:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/31/world/asia/31japan.html

Learning From Japan's Nuclear Disaster

http://blog.rmi.org/LearningFromJapansNuclearDisaster















by Amory B. Lovins

As heroic workers and soldiers strive to save stricken Japan from a new horror—radioactive fallout—some truths known for 40 years bear repeating.

An earthquake-and-tsunami zone crowded with 127 million people is an unwise place for 54 reactors. The 1960s design of five Fukushima-I reactors has the smallest safety margin and probably can't contain 90 percent of meltdowns. The U.S. has six identical and 17 very similar plants.

Every currently operating light-water reactor, if deprived of power and cooling water, can melt down. Fukushima had eight-hour battery reserves, but fuel has melted in three reactors. Most U.S. reactors get in trouble after four hours. Some have had shorter blackouts. Much longer ones could happen.

Overheated fuel risks hydrogen or steam explosions that damage equipment and contaminate the whole site--so clustering many reactors together (to save money) can make failure at one reactor cascade to the rest.

Nuclear power is uniquely unforgiving: as Swedish Nobel physicist Hannes Alfvén said, "No acts of God can be permitted." Fallible people have created its half-century history of a few calamities, a steady stream of worrying incidents, and many near-misses. America has been lucky so far. Had Three Mile Island's containment dome not been built double-strength because it was under an airport landing path, it may not have withstood the 1979 accident's hydrogen explosion. In 2002, Ohio's Davis-Besse reactor was luckily caught just before its massive pressure-vessel lid rusted through.

Regulators haven't resolved these or other key safety issues, such as terrorist threats to reactors, lest they disrupt a powerful industry. U.S. regulation is not clearly better than Japanese regulation, nor more transparent: industry-friendly rules bar the American public from meaningful participation. Many presidents' nuclear boosterism also discourages inquiry and dissent.

Nuclear-promoting regulators inspire even less confidence. The International Atomic Energy Agency's 2005 estimate of about 4,000 Chernobyl deaths contrasts with a rigorous 2009 review of 5,000 mainly Slavic-language scientific papers the IAEA overlooked. It found deaths approaching a million through 2004, nearly 170,000 of them in North America. The total toll now exceeds a million, plus a half-trillion dollars' economic damage. The fallout reached four continents, just as the jet stream could swiftly carry Fukushima fallout.

Fukushima I-4's spent fuel alone, while in the reactor, had produced (over years, not in an instant) more than a hundred times more fission energy and hence radioactivity than both 1945 atomic bombs. If that already-damaged fuel keeps overheating, it may melt or burn, releasing into the air things like cesium-137 and strontium-90, which take several centuries to decay a millionfold. Unit 3's fuel is spiked with plutonium, which takes 482,000 years.

Nuclear power is the only energy source where mishap or malice can kill so many people so far away; the only one whose ingredients can help make and hide nuclear bombs; the only climate solution that substitutes proliferation, accident, and high-level radioactive waste dangers. Indeed, nuclear plants are so slow and costly to build that they reduce and retard climate protection.

Here's how. Each dollar spent on a new reactor buys about two to ten times less carbon savings and is 20 to 40 times slower, than spending that dollar on the cheaper, faster, safer solutions that make nuclear power unnecessary and uneconomic: efficient use of electricity, making heat and power together in factories or buildings ("cogeneration"), and renewable energy. The last two made 18 percent of the world's 2009 electricity (while nuclear made 13 percent, reversing their 2000 shares)—and made over 90 percent of the 2007 to 2008 increase in global electricity production.

Those smarter choices are sweeping the global energy market. Half the world's new generating capacity in 2008 and 2009 was renewable. In 2010, renewables, excluding big hydro dams, won $151 billion of private investment and added over 50 billion watts (70 percent the total capacity of all 23 Fukushima-style U.S. reactors) while nuclear got zero private investment and kept losing capacity. Supposedly unreliable windpower made 43 percent to 52 percent of four German states' total 2010 electricity. Non-nuclear Denmark, 21 percent windpowered, plans to get entirely off fossil fuels. Hawai'i plans 70 percent renewables by 2025.

In contrast, of the 66 nuclear units worldwide officially listed as "under construction" at the end of 2010, 12 had been so listed for over 20 years, 45 had no official startup date, half were late, all 66 were in centrally planned power systems—50 of those in just four (China, India, Russia, South Korea)—and zero were free-market purchases. Since 2007, nuclear growth has added less annual output than just the costliest renewable—solar power—and will probably never catch up. While inherently safe renewable competitors are walloping both nuclear and coal plants in the marketplace and keep getting dramatically cheaper, nuclear costs keep soaring, and with greater safety precautions would go even higher. Tokyo Electric Co., just recovering from $10-20 billion in 2007 earthquake costs at its other big nuclear complex, now faces an even more ruinous Fukushima bill.

Since 2005, new U.S. reactors (if any) have been 100 percent-plus subsidized—yet they couldn't raise a cent of private capital, because they have no business case. They cost 2-3 times as much as new windpower, and by the time you could build a reactor, it couldn't even beat solar power. Competitive renewables, cogeneration, and efficient use can displace all U.S. coal power more than 23 times over—leaving ample room to replace nuclear power's half-as-big-as-coal contribution too—but we need to do it just once. Yet the nuclear industry demands ever more lavish subsidies, and its lobbyists hold all other energy efforts hostage for tens of billions in added ransom, with no limit.

Japan, for its size, is even richer than America in benign, ample, but long-neglected energy choices. Perhaps this tragedy will call Japan to global leadership into a post-nuclear world. And before America suffers its own Fukushima, it too should ask, not whether unfinanceably costly new reactors are safe, but why build any more, and why keep running unsafe ones. China has suspended reactor approvals. Germany just shut down the oldest 41 percent of its nuclear capacity for study. America's nuclear lobby says it can't happen here, so pile on lavish new subsidies.

A durable myth claims Three Mile Island halted U.S. nuclear orders. Actually they stopped over a year before—dead of an incurable attack of market forces. No doubt when nuclear power's collapse in the global marketplace, already years old, is finally acknowledged, it will be blamed on Fukushima. While we pray for the best in Japan today, let us hope its people's sacrifice will help speed the world to a safer, more competitive energy future.

by Amory Lovins 
Rocky Mountain Institute www.rmi.org
March 18, 2011

Critically weighing the costs and benefits of a nuclear renaissance

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all?content=10.1080/1943815X.2010.485618

This article was submitted as a runner up and introduction to the Journal of Integrative Environmental Sciences Volume 7, Issue 3, a special issue on the policy, science and dilemmas of nuclear energy in the 21st century. It provides an overview of some of the key challenges surrounding the so-called nuclear renaissance. It provides a broad context for the more specific concerns with the social and political aspects of radioactive waste which will be considered in the next issue. What are the likely consequences of a global nuclear power renaissance? This article answers that question by exploring six categories of costs and benefits associated with modern nuclear power plants: capital and production costs, safety and reliability, fuel costs, land degradation, water use, and greenhouse gas emissions. After weighing arguments on both sides, when costs and benefits are normalized across studies and different reactor types, the article finds that the typical nuclear power plant has 8.6 cents of damages attached to every kilowatt-hour of electricity it produces, and the industry as a whole has $223.7 billion worth of net damages every year. These costs are so large (and unavoidable) that in most countries investments in nuclear power do not occur, and they raise doubts as to whether a nuclear renaissance will produce net benefits to society.

by Benjamin K. Sovacool

Journal of Integrative Environmental Sciences via Taylor and Francis Routledge Informaworld http://www.informaworld.com
Volume 7, Number 2; 2010; pages 105-123
doi:10.1080/1943815X.2010.485618