Saturday, March 31, 2012
Former Japan Prime Minister Naoto Kan, other DPJ members to launch group to seek exit from nuclear power
Kan, other DPJ members to launch group to seek exit from nuclear power
(Mainichi Japan) March 29, 2012
TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Former Prime Minister Naoto Kan and some other ruling Democratic Party of Japan lawmakers on Wednesday decided to start a group as early as next week that seeks to create a road map for ending the country's reliance on nuclear power.
''Thinking about the future of Japan...why don't we seek a society that does not rely on nuclear power? This group is intended to properly discuss the time frame for realizing that goal,'' Kan, who was the Japanese leader when the nuclear crisis erupted at the Fukushima Daiichi complex last March, told reporters after a gathering to prepare for the group's launch.
http://www.facebook.com/nuclearfree
http://www.facebook.com/nukefree
The anti-nuclear activities led by Kan, whose efforts to end Japan's use of nuclear power date back to when he was still in office, come as the government moves closer to a decision on whether to allow the restart of some of the country's idled reactors, despite concerns among the public over their safety.
The reactors have passed safety checks that were newly introduced following the devastating nuclear accident.
Former Justice Minister Hideo Hiraoka, who also joined the gathering, told reporters, ''Edging toward restarting reactors is unacceptable to the public.''
Kan said he hopes to officially launch the group as early as next week, adding that it will try to make its views reflected in government policy.
Around 25 lawmakers, mainly those close to Kan such as former Justice Minister Satsuki Eda, attended the gathering.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Ex-officials Battle Plan to Build Nuclear Project
Ex-officials Battle Plan to Build Nuclear Project
By staff reporter Cui Zheng
3/09/2012
Caixin
Four retired minor officials concerned about Fukushima repeat vigorously battle a plan to build nuclear plant
Work on China's nuclear power plants has begun to pick up again a year after the Fukushima disaster in Japan. But the meltdown on March 11, 2011, is still fresh on the minds of four retired cadres in Province's Wangjiang County.
They petitioned against the Pengze nuclear power project in neighboring Jiangxi Province and ultimately convinced their local government to oppose the plan. This kind of official opposition to a nuclear undertaking is almost unheard of in China.
The Pengze plant would be China's first inland nuclear power facility. It is north of the Yangtze River, and only ten kilometers from the center of Wangjiang County. The nearest Wangjiang village is only three kilometers away.
Two months after the Fukushima mess, former Wangjiang County Party Committee deputy secretary Wang Jinzhou , former county people's court chief justice Fang Guangwen, former county people's congress deputy director Tao Guoxiang, and former urban-rural construction bureau director Wang Jize began collecting public materials on the Pengze plant. They then checked this information against national construction standards and regulations.
http://www.facebook.com/nuclearfree
http://www.facebook.com/nukefree
In July 2011, they completed an 11-page petition that called for the project to be halted and sent it to the State Council, the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the Anhui provincial government and the county government. The petition said the population data in application materials related to the Pengze facility was falsified, seismic data was unreliable and gifts were used to bribe villagers during a survey of public opinion.
The group first sent its petition to the county government. But it took no position until two organizations leading the project – the Jiangxi National Defense Science and Industry Office and China Power Investment Jiangxi – arrived in Wangjiang in August 2011 to undertake safety research and ask the county to provide geographic data. Fang said that it was at this juncture that the county for the first time expressed its opposition to building the plant in its vicinity. The county refused to provide the data.
Then, the Wangjiang government researched the plant more, and on November 15, 2011, it completed a report that requested the project be called off. The county government gave its report to the Anhui Energy Bureau. But several months later, the county government had not received a response. Only when the document was linked to on a microblog, causing widespread concern, did the bureau say the county's report had been forwarded to National Development and Reform Commission, the nation's top economic planner. The NDRC has not commented.
Wang speculated that the delay was connected to the development of nuclear power in the province. "Anhui is preparing four of its own nuclear power projects," he said.
The projects he referred to are the Wuhu Fanchang, Chizhou Jiyang, Anqing Congyang and Xuancheng nuclear power plants along the Yangtze River. The Jiyang site is less than 50 kilometers from the Pengze plant and less than 15 kilometers from a small town in Wangjiang County.
Before the Fukushima disaster, these projects met little resistance. The Chizhou prefectural government said in 2009 on its website that the public had input into the environmental impact assessment and a forum was held where 41 representatives of the public voiced their support for the project.
China temporarily slowed the pace of such construction following Fukushima. For instance, there have been no updated news releases about the projects in Anhui or the several dozen nationwide.
However, China is still determined to develop nuclear power. In November 2011, Anhui's latest energy development plan stated: "In accordance with the national strategic layout for nuclear power, at the same time as continuing to ensure work at the Wuhu and Chizhou nuclear power plant sites and the Anqing high-temperature gas-cooled reactor nuclear power project site, steadily push forward the preparatory work for nuclear power projects."
And in mid-February 2012, Li Ganjie, director of the National Nuclear Safety Administration, visited the Sanmen nuclear facility in coastal Zhejiang Province and said the nation should be confident about the development of nuclear power.
On February 23, 2012, the Hongyan River nuclear power plant in coastal Dalian, Liaoning Province, passed a preparatory safety assessment organized by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The plant's unit number one was the first Chinese nuclear power facility to apply for the installation of nuclear fuel since the Fukushima disaster.
As the pace of work on China's nuclear power projects picks up, there are differing attitudes toward the retiree's petition and the opposition by the Wangjiang County government.
He Zuoxiu, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences who has long opposed inland nuclear plants, said the petition was "quite right" and would try to forward it to national leaders.
In a letter, the Yangtze River Water Resources Protection Bureau said that the Pengze project has yet to conduct necessary procedures relating to water assessments, intake permits and sewage discharge.
However, Zheng Mingguang, president of the official Shanghai Nuclear Engineering Research and Design Institute, told China National Radio that the institute had recently conducted a second review of the Pengze site selection report and concluded that there were no environmental problems.
Feng Youcai, the Ministry of Environmental Protection's safety management division official in charge of overseeing the Pengze plant, said that "no problems were found" in the project's documents. However, he pointed out that the project had only passed the site selection phase of the environmental impact assessment and it had many more hurdles to overcome.
Many proponents of nuclear power say critics hold many misconceptions and communication needs to be enhanced. But many of the companies building nuclear power plants and the government have not held honest discussions with stakeholders and are unwilling to provide adequate information. The Ministry of Environmental Protection rejected Caixin's application for more information on documents related to the Pengze plant's environmental assessment.
The four retired officials in Wangjiang plan to continue opposing the Pengze plant and inland nuclear projects in general. Wang said that the discussion over whether to stop work on the Pengze facility was a referendum on inland plants.
Fang said that "Shanghai media have had the most intense reaction and they have sent the most reporters because building nuclear power plants on the Yangtze affects them the most," but almost no reporters from provinces with inland nuclear power programs have interviewed the men.
As might be expected, the four retired officials have a clear game plan for their opposition. "Our actions are divided into three phases: official, media and litigation," Wang said. Petitioning the government was the first step, and using the media to attract attention the second. "If this still doesn't work, we can only move to litigation. In the next step, we'll sue whichever departments approved construction of the Pengze nuclear plant, and we'll sue to the end."
By staff reporter Cui Zheng
3/09/2012
Caixin
Four retired minor officials concerned about Fukushima repeat vigorously battle a plan to build nuclear plant
Work on China's nuclear power plants has begun to pick up again a year after the Fukushima disaster in Japan. But the meltdown on March 11, 2011, is still fresh on the minds of four retired cadres in Province's Wangjiang County.
They petitioned against the Pengze nuclear power project in neighboring Jiangxi Province and ultimately convinced their local government to oppose the plan. This kind of official opposition to a nuclear undertaking is almost unheard of in China.
The Pengze plant would be China's first inland nuclear power facility. It is north of the Yangtze River, and only ten kilometers from the center of Wangjiang County. The nearest Wangjiang village is only three kilometers away.
Two months after the Fukushima mess, former Wangjiang County Party Committee deputy secretary Wang Jinzhou , former county people's court chief justice Fang Guangwen, former county people's congress deputy director Tao Guoxiang, and former urban-rural construction bureau director Wang Jize began collecting public materials on the Pengze plant. They then checked this information against national construction standards and regulations.
http://www.facebook.com/nuclearfree
http://www.facebook.com/nukefree
In July 2011, they completed an 11-page petition that called for the project to be halted and sent it to the State Council, the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the Anhui provincial government and the county government. The petition said the population data in application materials related to the Pengze facility was falsified, seismic data was unreliable and gifts were used to bribe villagers during a survey of public opinion.
The group first sent its petition to the county government. But it took no position until two organizations leading the project – the Jiangxi National Defense Science and Industry Office and China Power Investment Jiangxi – arrived in Wangjiang in August 2011 to undertake safety research and ask the county to provide geographic data. Fang said that it was at this juncture that the county for the first time expressed its opposition to building the plant in its vicinity. The county refused to provide the data.
Then, the Wangjiang government researched the plant more, and on November 15, 2011, it completed a report that requested the project be called off. The county government gave its report to the Anhui Energy Bureau. But several months later, the county government had not received a response. Only when the document was linked to on a microblog, causing widespread concern, did the bureau say the county's report had been forwarded to National Development and Reform Commission, the nation's top economic planner. The NDRC has not commented.
Wang speculated that the delay was connected to the development of nuclear power in the province. "Anhui is preparing four of its own nuclear power projects," he said.
The projects he referred to are the Wuhu Fanchang, Chizhou Jiyang, Anqing Congyang and Xuancheng nuclear power plants along the Yangtze River. The Jiyang site is less than 50 kilometers from the Pengze plant and less than 15 kilometers from a small town in Wangjiang County.
Before the Fukushima disaster, these projects met little resistance. The Chizhou prefectural government said in 2009 on its website that the public had input into the environmental impact assessment and a forum was held where 41 representatives of the public voiced their support for the project.
China temporarily slowed the pace of such construction following Fukushima. For instance, there have been no updated news releases about the projects in Anhui or the several dozen nationwide.
However, China is still determined to develop nuclear power. In November 2011, Anhui's latest energy development plan stated: "In accordance with the national strategic layout for nuclear power, at the same time as continuing to ensure work at the Wuhu and Chizhou nuclear power plant sites and the Anqing high-temperature gas-cooled reactor nuclear power project site, steadily push forward the preparatory work for nuclear power projects."
And in mid-February 2012, Li Ganjie, director of the National Nuclear Safety Administration, visited the Sanmen nuclear facility in coastal Zhejiang Province and said the nation should be confident about the development of nuclear power.
On February 23, 2012, the Hongyan River nuclear power plant in coastal Dalian, Liaoning Province, passed a preparatory safety assessment organized by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The plant's unit number one was the first Chinese nuclear power facility to apply for the installation of nuclear fuel since the Fukushima disaster.
As the pace of work on China's nuclear power projects picks up, there are differing attitudes toward the retiree's petition and the opposition by the Wangjiang County government.
He Zuoxiu, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences who has long opposed inland nuclear plants, said the petition was "quite right" and would try to forward it to national leaders.
In a letter, the Yangtze River Water Resources Protection Bureau said that the Pengze project has yet to conduct necessary procedures relating to water assessments, intake permits and sewage discharge.
However, Zheng Mingguang, president of the official Shanghai Nuclear Engineering Research and Design Institute, told China National Radio that the institute had recently conducted a second review of the Pengze site selection report and concluded that there were no environmental problems.
Feng Youcai, the Ministry of Environmental Protection's safety management division official in charge of overseeing the Pengze plant, said that "no problems were found" in the project's documents. However, he pointed out that the project had only passed the site selection phase of the environmental impact assessment and it had many more hurdles to overcome.
Many proponents of nuclear power say critics hold many misconceptions and communication needs to be enhanced. But many of the companies building nuclear power plants and the government have not held honest discussions with stakeholders and are unwilling to provide adequate information. The Ministry of Environmental Protection rejected Caixin's application for more information on documents related to the Pengze plant's environmental assessment.
The four retired officials in Wangjiang plan to continue opposing the Pengze plant and inland nuclear projects in general. Wang said that the discussion over whether to stop work on the Pengze facility was a referendum on inland plants.
Fang said that "Shanghai media have had the most intense reaction and they have sent the most reporters because building nuclear power plants on the Yangtze affects them the most," but almost no reporters from provinces with inland nuclear power programs have interviewed the men.
As might be expected, the four retired officials have a clear game plan for their opposition. "Our actions are divided into three phases: official, media and litigation," Wang said. Petitioning the government was the first step, and using the media to attract attention the second. "If this still doesn't work, we can only move to litigation. In the next step, we'll sue whichever departments approved construction of the Pengze nuclear plant, and we'll sue to the end."
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Devangshu Datta: Why push nuclear power?
Devangshu Datta: Why push nuclear power?
New Delhi
March 24, 2012
Business Standard
The Kudankulam row encapsulates the tragicomedy of Indian governance. On one side, there’s the establishment determined to push through a nuclear agenda. On the other, there’s a bunch of activists determined to oppose it. To a dispassionate observer, it’s a huge misdirection of energy.
The nuclear power industry accounts for two to three per cent of India’s electricity generation with about 4,800 Mw in installed capacity. Even if opposition magically evaporates and the 2,000 Mw Kudankulam project goes ahead, it will not make a material difference to power shortages, for the next three years.
Instead of trying to bulldoze through the stalled project, the establishment’s energies could be more efficiently deployed in targeting other sectoral problems. There are many lower-hanging fruit visible.
http://easss.com/nuclear
For example, national transmission and distribution (T&D) losses are close to 30 per cent. China has a gross eight per cent T&D loss; the European Union averages around seven per cent.
If India cut T&D losses to, say, 10-15 per cent, it would be the equivalent of instantly adding five or six times nuclear capacity, while incurring zero environmental costs and risks.
There would be no protests about implementing improved T&D practices.
Many other issues can also be tackled with a little common sense and some managerial skill.
For example, Coal India’s lackadaisical performance results in significant fuel shortages and lower plant load factors. State power companies’ losses lead to unpaid bills for fuel suppliers and central utilities. The national grid is incomplete. Open access norms have been legislated but not adopted.
The above issues are long-standing. They have never been dealt with adequately. They mostly involve government-run organisations. There would be no protests if they were faced head-on. The pay-offs, for the sector and downstream for the entire economy, would be huge.
Also, there are more politically sensitive issues at hand in the country’s conventional sector. But even these are less explosive than nuclear and they offer larger pay-offs for viable solutions.
Captive coal blocks are allocated non-transparently, thus leading to scandals. Environmental clearances for projects are delayed and arbitrary. Captive blocks are awarded (never mind how), and then the environmental boffins point out that these blocks are in no-go areas. Would it hurt for “Power” to talk to “Coal” and “Environment” and work out transparent formulae for block awards, with clear timelines for clearances?
The focus on ramming through nuclear power is, therefore, misplaced. Long-term nuclear plans project a ramp-up to 45,000 Mw by 2020 (around nine per cent of 2020 capacity) and to 63,000 Mw by 2032.
It’s unlikely that those deadlines will be met, given the vehemence of protests at Jaitapur and Kudankulam.
Nuclear power has been centre stage since 2008, when the Indo-US rapprochement occurred during the first term of the United Progressive Alliance. It was the last time India’s prime minister displayed a spine. In theory, that cleared the way for the import of technology and fuel supply.
However, Fukushima put the nuclear industry on the back foot. It triggered a wave of NIMBY (not-in-my-back-yard) protests by locals at proposed plant locations.
Nuclear plants have to be near water sources and that makes them vulnerable to cyclones, tidal waves, floods, etc.
It’s a moot point if Indian plants will be designed, operated and maintained with such high standards as to allay fears of disaster. Even more troubling, the methods of disposal of spent fuel don’t inspire confidence.
Everyone who is anyone, from A P J Abdul Kalam to Jairam Ramesh, concurs that India will have to develop a nuclear power industry in the long run.
However, it would be far more efficient in terms of both time and pay-off to do simpler, less politically explosive things first, and thus put the conventional power industry on a more stable footing. But then, instead of beating up activists in Kudankulam, the establishment would need to take a long hard look in the mirror and get its own act together.
New Delhi
March 24, 2012
Business Standard
The Kudankulam row encapsulates the tragicomedy of Indian governance. On one side, there’s the establishment determined to push through a nuclear agenda. On the other, there’s a bunch of activists determined to oppose it. To a dispassionate observer, it’s a huge misdirection of energy.
The nuclear power industry accounts for two to three per cent of India’s electricity generation with about 4,800 Mw in installed capacity. Even if opposition magically evaporates and the 2,000 Mw Kudankulam project goes ahead, it will not make a material difference to power shortages, for the next three years.
Instead of trying to bulldoze through the stalled project, the establishment’s energies could be more efficiently deployed in targeting other sectoral problems. There are many lower-hanging fruit visible.
http://easss.com/nuclear
For example, national transmission and distribution (T&D) losses are close to 30 per cent. China has a gross eight per cent T&D loss; the European Union averages around seven per cent.
If India cut T&D losses to, say, 10-15 per cent, it would be the equivalent of instantly adding five or six times nuclear capacity, while incurring zero environmental costs and risks.
There would be no protests about implementing improved T&D practices.
Many other issues can also be tackled with a little common sense and some managerial skill.
For example, Coal India’s lackadaisical performance results in significant fuel shortages and lower plant load factors. State power companies’ losses lead to unpaid bills for fuel suppliers and central utilities. The national grid is incomplete. Open access norms have been legislated but not adopted.
The above issues are long-standing. They have never been dealt with adequately. They mostly involve government-run organisations. There would be no protests if they were faced head-on. The pay-offs, for the sector and downstream for the entire economy, would be huge.
Also, there are more politically sensitive issues at hand in the country’s conventional sector. But even these are less explosive than nuclear and they offer larger pay-offs for viable solutions.
Captive coal blocks are allocated non-transparently, thus leading to scandals. Environmental clearances for projects are delayed and arbitrary. Captive blocks are awarded (never mind how), and then the environmental boffins point out that these blocks are in no-go areas. Would it hurt for “Power” to talk to “Coal” and “Environment” and work out transparent formulae for block awards, with clear timelines for clearances?
The focus on ramming through nuclear power is, therefore, misplaced. Long-term nuclear plans project a ramp-up to 45,000 Mw by 2020 (around nine per cent of 2020 capacity) and to 63,000 Mw by 2032.
It’s unlikely that those deadlines will be met, given the vehemence of protests at Jaitapur and Kudankulam.
Nuclear power has been centre stage since 2008, when the Indo-US rapprochement occurred during the first term of the United Progressive Alliance. It was the last time India’s prime minister displayed a spine. In theory, that cleared the way for the import of technology and fuel supply.
However, Fukushima put the nuclear industry on the back foot. It triggered a wave of NIMBY (not-in-my-back-yard) protests by locals at proposed plant locations.
Nuclear plants have to be near water sources and that makes them vulnerable to cyclones, tidal waves, floods, etc.
It’s a moot point if Indian plants will be designed, operated and maintained with such high standards as to allay fears of disaster. Even more troubling, the methods of disposal of spent fuel don’t inspire confidence.
Everyone who is anyone, from A P J Abdul Kalam to Jairam Ramesh, concurs that India will have to develop a nuclear power industry in the long run.
However, it would be far more efficient in terms of both time and pay-off to do simpler, less politically explosive things first, and thus put the conventional power industry on a more stable footing. But then, instead of beating up activists in Kudankulam, the establishment would need to take a long hard look in the mirror and get its own act together.
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