Lapses at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant worry public
By Hiroko Tabuchi and Matthew Wald
The New York Times

TOKYO — What passes for normal at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant today would have caused shudders among even the most sanguine of experts before an earthquake and tsunami set off the world's second most serious nuclear crisis after Chernobyl.

Fourteen months after the accident, a pool brimming with used fuel rods and filled with vast quantities of radioactive cesium still sits on the top floor of a heavily damaged building, covered only with plastic.

The public's fears about the pool have grown in recent months as some scientists have warned that it has the most potential for setting off a new catastrophe. The three nuclear reactors that suffered meltdowns are in a more stable state, but frequent quakes continue to rattle the region.

The worries gained traction in recent days after the operator of the plant, Tokyo Electric Power Co., or TEPCO, said it had found a slight bulge in one of the walls of the reactor building, stoking fears over the building's safety.

To try to quell such worries ...

Tomography of the 2011 Iwaki earthquake (M 7.0) and Fukushima nuclear power plant area
[font size="1.5"]P. Tong1,2, D. Zhao1, and D. Yang2 1Department of Geophysics, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8578, Japan
2Department of Mathematical Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
Correspondence to: P. Tong, D. Zhao Published: 14 February 2012
Solid Earth, 3, 43–51, 2012 [/font]

Abstract.
High-resolution tomographic images of the crust and upper mantle in and around the area of the 2011 Iwaki earthquake (M 7.0) and the Fukushima nuclear power plant are determined by inverting a large number of high-quality arrival times with both the finite-frequency and ray tomography methods. The Iwaki earthquake and its aftershocks mainly occurred in a boundary zone with strong variations in seismic velocity and Poisson’s ratio. Prominent low-velocity and high Poisson’s ratio zones are revealed under the Iwaki source area and the Fukushima nuclear power plant, which may reflect fluids released from the dehydration of the subducting Pacific slab under Northeast Japan. The 2011 Tohoku-oki earthquake (Mw 9.0) caused static stress transfer in the overriding Okhotsk plate, resulting in the seismicity in the Iwaki source area that significantly increased immediately following the Tohoku-oki mainshock. Our results suggest that the Iwaki earthquake was triggered by the ascending fluids from the Pacific slab dehydration and the stress variation induced by the Tohoku-oki mainshock. The similar structures under the Iwaki source area and the Fukushima nuclear power plant suggest that the security of the nuclear power plant site should be strengthened to withstand potential large earthquakes in the future.

The energy bill is misleading, manipulative and destructive
Ed Davey has manipulated quotes to support the bill and a clause has been inserted to allow any coal plant to be built


My conversation with Ed Davey began badly. Two weeks ago the Liberal Democrat secretary of state rang me to explain that his energy bill would be the best legislation drafted since the 10 commandments. It happened that earlier that day, Ed Davey's deputy, the Conservative energy minister Charles Hendry, whom it would be inaccurate to describe as petite, had delivered a statement to the House of Commons, after which he had tried to reverse into his seat. But he missed, and instead sat on the secretary of state. I told Davey that I hoped he had recovered, and that it seemed to me symbolic of the Lib Dems' role in the coalition.

To say that he took this in the wrong spirit is to state the case mildly. He insisted that it is "inaccurate and unwarranted to suggest that the Liberal Democrats are being sat on by the Conservatives". Ten minutes later, halfway through a long and riveting disquisition on "feed-in tariffs with contracts for difference", he suddenly and unexpectedly returned to the theme, hotly insisting that his role in government proved that the Liberal Democrats were not in any sense or any manner being sat on. That clears it up then.

Our relationship is about to deteriorate further, as I will use this article to accuse Davey of some of the lowest and most deceitful tactics in the politician's armoury.

On Tuesday, the Guardian published a letter from Davey, in which he claimed that I mistake his "short-term methods" (approving more gas and coal plants) for his "long-term goals" (stopping climate change). It's easy to mix them up, isn't it? Approving more gas and coal plants looks so much like stopping climate change that I'm sure he can understand my confusion.

But the question...

Geothermal energy could meet a fifth of UK's power needs – report
The study found that subsidising geothermal technology initially would help to bring down costs rapidly as UK sites were developed

Fiona Harvey, guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 30 May 2012 13.52 EDT

...the report found that the current subsidy regime does not provide sufficient incentive to develop the technology in the UK - even as Charles Hendry, minister of state at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, flew to Iceland on Wednesday afternoon and signed a Memorandum of Understanding with his Icelandic counterpart Oddný G. Harðardóttir to explore a possible new interconnector that could be used to import geothermal electricity from the country's volcanoes.

Geothermal power stations use water pumped down to hot rocks under the earth that returns to the surface heated, fuelling electricity generation or to be used for space heating.

There are promising sites for geothermal power spread throughout the UK, from Cornwall to the Lake District, East Yorkshire, Northern Ireland and Scotland.

Another plus is that geothermal power, while renewable and low-carbon, can provide baseload electricity. That means it can be used to back up intermittent sources of renewable energy such as wind and sun. The study found geothermal could supply 9.5GW of electricity, about 20% of current demand, but also 100GW of heat, which would be enough for the whole of the UK's space heating needs. The government has struggled to encourage the take-up of renewable forms of heat, such as wood-fired boilers and underground heat pumps.

However, geothermal power receives a relatively low level of subsidy

Nuclear Rubberstamp Commission
Posted: 05/30/2012 5:07 pm

The resignation last week of the chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is another demonstration of the bankrupt basis of the NRC. Gregory Jaczko repeatedly called for the NRC to apply "lessons learned" from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster in Japan. And, for that, the nuclear industry -- quite successfully -- went after him fiercely.

The New York Times, in an editorial over the weekend, said that President Obama's choice to replace Jaczko, Allison Macfarlane, "will need to be as independent and aggressive as Dr. Jaczko."

That misses the institutional point.

The NRC was created in 1974 when Congress abolished the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission after deciding that the AEC's dual missions of promoting and at the same time regulating nuclear power were deemed a conflict of interest. The AEC was replaced by the NRC, which was to regulate nuclear power, and a Department of Energy was later formed to advocate for it.

However, the same extreme pro-nuclear culture of the AEC continued on at the NRC. It has partnered with the DOE in promoting nuclear power.

Indeed, neither the AEC, in its more than 25 years, nor the NRC...

18GW of solar by 2022? That depends on who’s connected

By Giles Parkinson on 31 May 2012

It seems that the greatest barrier to the rapid deployment of solar in Australia will not be about cost or a lack of demand – it will be the ability to get connected.

That has been the common theme from a range of reports from different sources in recent weeks – from the Victorian Competition and Efficiency Commission’s inquiry into feed-in tariff’s in Victoria, the Australian Energy Market Operator’s landmark report on solar this week, the accompanying analysis from Sunwiz and Solar Business Services, and the Australian PV Association’s annual report for 2012, which will be released later today.

The APVA report says most parts of Australia have reached grid parity, which might better be described as “socket parity,” meaning that solar panels now offer a cheaper alternative than power from the grid – a reality that will become increasingly obvious to the public as more solar leasing products and programs are rolled out to consumers.

The APVA notes that in 2011, a total of 837 MW of solar PV was installed in Australia, more than twice the capacity of 2010, taking the total installed capacity in Australia to 1.4 GW. The report noted that 36 per cent of the new electricity capacity installed in Australia in 2011 was rooftop PV – even if it still only accounted for 3 per cent of total electricity capacity and 1 per cent of actual generation.

This is set to grow dramatically in coming years, because...

SunEdison Provides Solar Power to Indian Villages
30 MAY 2012

SunEdison, a worldwide solar energy services provider and subsidiary of MEMC Electronic Materials, today announced a rural electrification program called Eradication of Darkness. Through the program, SunEdison will design, install and manage distributed-generation solar power plants, to provide energy to Indian villages that have never before had access to electricity.

According to the United Nations, one in five people in the world do not have electricity. Over 400,000 of these people live in India. Lack of electricity limits education and economic opportunities and makes populations more vulnerable to sickness and famine. The SunEdison Eradication of Darkness Program aims to address this situation.

The program will be implemented in stages. There are 29 villages in the Guna District that have been identified for the next phase. Appropriate financial and other partners are being sought to electrify these remote communities.

SunEdison has more than 50MW of interconnected solar electricity in India today. The company’s projects range from small rooftop installations to South Asia’s largest solar field in Gujarat. Also in Gujarat, the company recently completed a 1MW project suspended over the Narmada Canal. This project is conserving drinking water while producing clean energy.

SunEdison also ...

Geothermal Power to The People: Forget Iceland, Hot Rocks Are Everywhere
By Mark Halper, Contributor
May 29, 2012

When British geologist Ryan Law lined up to meet the Queen in Exeter, England, earlier this month, he did something not everyone would do: He showed her a drill bit....

The Common Man's Geothermal

The concept is called EGS, which stands for engineered geothermal systems, or, according to preference, enhanced geothermal systems. Some people refer to it as “hot dry rocks,” others as “deep geothermal.”

Perhaps an even better name for it would be geothermal power for the rest of us, because it allows you to build utility-scale geothermal electricity and heat stations almost anywhere. Unlike conventional geothermal places — think Iceland — EGS does not require dramatic, bubbling geology full of volcanoes, fault lines, lava and near-surface heat.
...

Rocks Star

“You can do it almost everywhere,” claims Horst Kreuter, CEO of GeoThermal Engineering GmbH, a Karlsruhe, Germany, consulting company that is not affiliated with Law’s firm. “You can do it in sandstone, you can do it volcanic stone, you can do it in any brittle rock.”

In the U.S., a 2007 study by MIT for the U.S. Department of Energy, entitled The Future of Geothermal Energy, concluded that the country has enough EGS potential to theoretically meet 2,000 times its primary energy needs, and that realistically, EGS could contribute 10 percent of its electricity by 2050...

Germany's renewable energy revolution leaves UK in the shade
The country expects renewables to contribute 35% electricity by 2020 – no matter what the cost


Damian Carrington, Feldheim, Germany
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 30 May 2012 07.37 EDT

The blazing blue skies that Germany baked under last weekend added a fresh gleam to the nation's renewable energy revolution: a new world record for solar power generation, equivalent to 20 nuclear power stations. It is the battle between nuclear, fossil fuels and renewables, and between the big utilities and the community-owned renewables eating into their profits, that has driven Germany's radical energy transformation to the top of its political agenda, with success seen as vital to chancellor Angela Merkel's hopes of re-election in 2013.

"We are still occupied by the four powers," says Werner Frohwitter, standing in the harsh sunlight below an 85-metre tall wind turbine in the flat east German countryside – referring to the four giant energy companies that have carved up the nation. They are RWE, E.ON, Vattenfall and EnBW.

The hamlet of Feldheim, set amid rippling rye fields and foxy-barked forests, rebelled. Its 128 inhabitants now get all their power by tapping into some of the 43 turbines dotting the fields around, some solar panels and a plant that turns farmyard manure into gas-powered electricity. When leasing of the local grid that connects the village's squat, steep-roofed homes was made prohibitively expensive, Frohwitter's company, Energiequelle, built its own.

Germany and UK energy statistics


...

Coal Industry Pays Fake Activists $50 To Wear Pro-Coal Shirts At Public Hearing
By Rebecca Leber on May 25, 2012 at 11:38 am



"Activists" offered $50 to wear pro-coal shirts.



Apparently unable to find real activists, the coal industry paid astroturfers $50 to wear pro-coal t-shirts at an Environmental Protection Agency hearing yesterday.

The EPA hearings, held yesterday in Chicago and Washington, D.C., were focused on the agency’s first-ever carbon standards for new power plants. The industry has adamantly opposed these standards, as well as standards on mercury — a pollutant that even Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) admits is harmful.

This year, coal is throwing around its weight by spending tens of millions of dollars on media advertising and political contributions.

Coal is also engaging in fake advocacy campaigns, known as astroturfing. In a Craigslist ad found by the Environmental Law & Policy Center in Chicago, a coal group promised participants $50 to “wear a t-shirt in support of an energy project.” Upon further digging, the Sierra Club blog pieced together much of the deleted Craigslist ad:

People needed to attend a public meeting (Tinley Park /Chicago)

Reply to: px6mq-3031150602@gigs.craigslist.org (email address no longer valid)

Looking for people THIS THURSDAY, MAY 24 who want to make a couple of dollars for a few hours of your time.

All you need to do is wear a t-shirt in support of an energy project for two hours during the public meeting. We will be departing the Tinely Park convention center at 8:15 am for the meeting and we will be back by 1:30 pm. For your time we will pay you $50 cash and provide you lunch once we return to the convention center.

...