kristopher
kristopher's JournalThree-quarters of Japanese firms oppose nuclear power
By Tetsushi Kajimoto and Izumi Nakagawa
TOKYO | Fri May 25, 2012 1:40am EDT
(Reuters) - Nearly three-quarters of Japanese companies support abandoning nuclear power after last year's Fukushima disaster, although a majority set the condition that alternative energy resources must be secured, a Reuters poll showed on Friday.
The poll offers fresh evidence of the deep public distrust of nuclear power, the role of which the government is reconsidering after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that wrecked the Fukushima nuclear plant, triggering a radiation crisis that caused mass evacuations and widespread contamination.
All of the country's 50 nuclear reactors are now off-line, with those halted for maintenance checks since Fukushima prevented from restarting as a result of public safety fears, and shortfalls in power supply are being met by the use of costly fossil fuels and energy-saving steps.
The government is struggling to finalize a revamp of Japan's energy program, which previously called for an increase in the use of nuclear power to meet 50 percent of the nation's electricity needs. The figure stood at about 30 percent before the crisis, and options in the revised policy are seen ranging from zero to 35 percent by 2030.
"Companies are already coping with the situation ...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/25/us-japan-nuclear-poll-idUSBRE84O08J20120525
Here is another - this study explains why we need to be concerned
[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.
Download study here: http://www.solid-earth.net/3/43/2012/se-3-43-2012.pdf
Also, some claim that aftershocks of 3-11-11 in "nearby" Hamadori demonstrate that the structure of Building 4, housing fresh fuel containing plutonium, is proof that there is no need to worry. This is the Iwaki earth event referred to in the paper above. Clearly the authors of this paper disagree with the assessment of "some".
It is worth downloading the paper for the graphics if nothing else.
At the link below is another interesting map (topographic) showing the stresses from the quake.
WWF - Positive Energy: how renewable electricity can transform the UK by 2030
The UK has an opportunity to become a world leader in clean, renewable energy. But choices made in the coming months and years could lead to continued dominance of high carbon fossil fuel power generation. Or to greater dependence on risky nuclear power.
This report shows that renewable sources can meet 60% or more of the UK’s electricity demand by 2030. By using this amount of renewable energy, we can decarbonise the power sector without resorting to new nuclear power. We will also be able to maintain system security – that is, provide enough electricity at all times to make sure there’s never a risk of the ‘lights going out’.
Around a quarter of the UK’s ageing power generation capacity is due to close over the coming decade. To ensure system security, we need significant investment in new electricity generation capacity and to reduce demand for electricity. The government must also rise to the challenge of climate change, making sure the power sector plays
its full part in meeting the requirements of the Climate Change Act.
The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) has made it clear that UK power generation must be essentially carbon-free by 2030. The government needs solid, ambitious commitments and targets to drive investment in sustainable low carbon power generation and avoid locking the UK into a new generation of high emission unabated fossil fuel plants.
WWF believes that the UK must decarbonise its power sector in an environmentally sustainable way. For this reason we would prefer to avoid new nuclear due to the unacceptable risk of a catastrophic accident and the legacy of dangerous radioactive waste for which there’s no effective long-term storage solution.
In this context, this report aims to answer the key question:
Can the UK achieve a secure, sustainable and decarbonised power sector by 2030 by shifting away from polluting fossil fuels and nuclear power to an energy efficient system built around clean and inexhaustible renewable energy?
Download the PDF at: http://assets.wwf.org.uk/downloads/positive_energy_final_designed.pdf
Thank you. That seems a good source.
- For purposes of this discussion I wan't worried about finding a definitive source, and the main reference, which I was comfortable using, was the table Selected Indicators and Top 5 Countries p.15 from
REN21. 2011. Renewables 2011 Global Status Report
http://www.ren21.net/REN21Activities/Publications/GlobalStatusReport/tabid/5434/Default.aspx
- The chart I posted was a rendering that was selected because it was 1) conservative, 2) logarithmic and 3) available from Wiki commons.
- I used GW because it was there and I couldn't readily find current data for generation output.
- If you look you'll see that since I didn't know what was correct and what wasn't I've made no claims about production numbers for 2010. When GG wrote that he plugged in some 2009 numbers but failed to give either the numbers or a source, you'll see question marks in my summary of our discussion in post #29. I presumed he used valid data but since I had nothing to compare it with and since GG was focused on production, I established a ratio from the WEO projections to use in determining a production value for the 2020 projection the wiki chart pointed to. If the 2010 and 2020 ratios from the WEO are, in fact substantially in error, that error is theirs, not mine; a point supporting my view of the IEA/EIA quality when it comes to renewable forecasts. It certainly can't be seen as contradicting my belief.
- The second thing I felt it was important to draw out in the discussion was the curve associated with renewable growth. It is obvious that there are fundamental differences in the way the long term projections are calculated but insisting that the sharp ramp-up of renewables over the period covered by the WEO forecast isn't relevant simply isn't a credible position.
From your Observer source:
And then there is this - the significant undercount of both installed renewable capacity and renewable production that this table from REN21 reveals. What is your opinion of the way solar hot water is never counted?
You ask when I think CO2 emissions will peak and where. I don't know, no one does.
We are decades away from fully eliminating anthropogenic GHG emissions certainly, but I believe we are much closer to the point where the global rate starts declining than most people realize.
In return I'd like to know is how that is really relevant to the discussion at hand? I don't understand the incessant pressure to limit discussion to defeatism and alarm bordering on hysteria. It is a problem we all here accept as urgent. You don't have a lock on the concept of worry or the understanding of the stakes involved. I simply cannot empathize with those who insist on that while hectoring those who want legitimate investigation of the solutions and how we can implement them. In my view of life, that smacks of the faceless crowds that are willing to stand around watching an accident victim bleed out instead of getting to work and at least trying to help. It simply isn't the way I'm built to continue to shout about the problem when the ONLY task at hand is moving us a solution.
Thank you for the courtesy of a civil response, BTW.
I was waiting for your unruly 'children' to go to bed
In my initial post demonstrating the problem with EIA/IEA methods, I compared the projection of the WEO to the actual performance of wind and solar.
I added nothing, I speculated on nothing.
The only thing not controlled for was the content of what was being compared. For the WEO it was "other renewables"; a category poorly defined that appears to include not only solar PV and wind but also solar thermal, geothermal, and whatever else they saw on the horizon.
The achieved numbers reflect solar and wind only, are measured, and span 20 years with 20 individual evenly spaced data points.
Therefore the exercise I presented erred on the side of being conservative in regard to the point being made; which was that the forecasts from the EIA and the IEA are, in relation to the performance of renewable energy, invalid.
**********************
Here is your description of what you'd done:
Post 12
Extending the curves out another 20 years to 2040, renewables make a respectable showing, adding 1250 TWh. The problem is that fossil fuels add over 20,000 TWh - 16 times as much. And in that case hydro doesn't help - fossil fuels still add 9 times as much electricity as hydro and renewables combined.
Going by this table, fossil fuels go from generating 70.5% of the world's electricity today, to 81% in 2020, to 85% in 2040.[/font]
To create your slopes you used the WEO data from a summary table, which means you covered 49 years with 4 points of data - 2 real and 2 hypothetical. (That's 49 years with 4 data points vs 20 years with 20 data points)
The gap between the 1st/2nd point was 24 years, between the 2nd/3rd was 15 years;and between the 3rd/4th was 10 years.
This means you were trying to establish a complex set of trend lines only two real data points.
With this you make the point (I suppose you saw it as a point anyway) that the relative share of renewables is not adequate to be meaningful.
Your errors are clear.
Your sample size was small and the period you extrapolated to was large.
You used 4 points - 2 real and 2 hypothetical - over a 69 year period. Essentially giving you only a straight line between those first 2 measured points from which to derive the slope of the next 45 years from the remaining data (that you knew to be compromised at least in the area of renewables).
**************************
You obviously realized there were problems so you then did this in post 15:
So for the following graph I used the 2009 actuals in place of the estimated 2010 values. I also boosted the 2020 estimate for non-hydro renewables from 239 TWh to 600 TWh.[/font]
What that amounts to is that you:
a) removed hypothetical 3rd data points to use the actual numbers and;
b) addressed your error in using known false renewable data through inflation of the final renewable data point by 250%.
While a) is commendable it still leaves you with extremely poor granularity for your slopes and, more importantly there is a problem with your assumption about the amount of renewable generation in 2020.
We don't need to wing it, we can make the fit more accurate by recognizing the firmly established trend that is pretty created by the performance of solar and wind between 1992 and 20012.
The numbers below are year, capacity and amount generated for renewables from the WEO table:
1971 - 0
1995 - cap 13 gen 49
2010 - cap 43 gen 154
2020 - cap 79 gen 239
You changed it to:
1971 - 0
1995 - cap 13 gen 49
2009 - cap ?? gen ??
2020 - cap 79 gen 600
The slope established by the 20 data points predicts that instead achieving 79GW of installed renewable capacity by 2020 we are on track to hit 1200GW of solar and wind by 2020.
That suggests the WEO projection for 2020 is <6.5% of what we might expect given the limits of out modeling here.
In other words you have flattened your renewable curve by using a number the data does not support. You recognize that 239TWh is ruled out, but 600TWh is hardly better.
As the installed capacity numbers show, accurately plotting the trend line over the last 7 years gives us a lot of confidence that the 600TWh 2020 projection is woefully inadequate.
Since we don't have the latest globally aggregated production numbers, we can use the ratio WEO has established for us between cap/gen and carry it forward as a point of departure. Remember, the 1200GW is only solar and wind, thus we have some degree of buffering as the mix changes and small scale hydro , geothermal, storage etc. increase their effect on the overall capacity factor. (We'll leave out the recent crash in solar costs that is expanding the unsubsidized solar PV market to between 600 - 1000GW by 2020.)
That would make your final projected data point for renewables about 3676TWh, wouldn't it?
79/1200 = .065
239/.065 =3,676
What this argues for is that in reviews like this the optimistic trajectories, which DO focus on what happens when there is an evolution in the system, are more likely correct than those that are shackled to EIA type assumptions about the future value of the present infrastructure.
IPCC on Renewable Energy
Close to 80 percent of the world‘s energy supply could be met by
renewables by mid-century if backed by the right enabling public policies a new report shows.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/112715489
Orlando Sentinel Slams The ‘Nuclear Tax’ Ratepayers Must Pay Progress Energy
By Joe Romm on May 23, 2012 at 12:20 pm
Joke is on Progress customers stuck paying nuclear tax
Stop me if you’ve heard this one.
You and Progress Energy walk into a bar. Progress says it’s going to order $24 billion worth of drinks, but they won’t arrive until 2024. Oh, and you have to pick up the tab — even if the server drops the tray and the drinks never arrive at all.
So begins a devastating Orlando Sentinel column on Progress Energy’s planned twin nuclear plants.
I wrote about these nukes three years ago – see “What do you get when you buy a nuke? You get a lot of delays and rate increases”:
When we last left Progress Energy in 2008, it had said the twin 1,100-megawatt plants it intends to build would cost $14 billion, which “triples estimates the utility offered little more than a year ago.” And that didn’t even count the 200-mile $3 billion transmission system utility needs, which brings the price up to a staggering $7,700 a kilowatt.
Under Florida law, to pay for these nuclear power plants, Progress Energy can raise the rates of its customers a $100 a year for years and years and years before they even get one kilowatt-hour from these plants. Sweet deal, no?
But as we know, “nuclear power appears to have a negative learning curve.” Heck, three years ago, French nuclear giant Areva “acknowledged that the cost of a new reactor today would be as much as … double the price offered to the Finns.”
So the 2009 Progress Energy price is just a distant memory — as was its original 2016 completion date....
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/05/23/483173/orlando-sentinel-slams-nuclear-tax-ratepayers-must-pay-progress-energy/
Maybe this will work
If she is eager to learn, she can probably work out enough on her own to get a decent idea of way the problem is analyzed. The source doesn't include external costs like risk transfer or a full accounting of the environmental consequences across the full fuel cycle; it is strictly the work of an accountant working out a comprehensive estimate of the range of probably costs associated with nuclear new build in the US.
It would also be good to explain what is behind references to how inexpensive energy from the present nuclear fleet is. Those electricity costs could be likened to the use you get out of a car after it is paid off - and it comes with the same sort of increased probability of failure.
The paper is: ' Business Risks and Costs of New Nuclear Power' by raig A. Severance, a practicing CPA with relevant expertise in the energy area.
A write up and link to download the paper is here:
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2009/01/05/202859/study-cost-risks-new-nuclear-power-plants/
Key points are here, with the rest of the paper functioning to explain and put these items in perspective.
Building a fuel cell car sounds like a pretty ambitious project given the costs involved but it is certainly a commendable goal.
The use of hydrogen for transportation does, however, provide a point of entry for a discussion on the overall approach to energy use and the roll of energy efficiency not only at the point of end use consumption, but also in the way the larger 'energy to work' system is designed. In this case, there is a substantial penalty efficiency penalty associated with H2 for personal transportation that, given present technologies, would require at least 60% more noncarbon energy generating infrastructure to be built than would battery electric. There are, of course, offsetting advantages for fuel cells, but from a system perspective the technology we choose makes a very significant difference; and that is true in many areas.
Hope this helps.
Here is part of that discussion from the Japanese perspective
And as a point of reference, Japan was providing for 17% of its total energy needs with nuclear, meaning the nation's carbon footprint would be expected to rise a maximum of 17%.
Sampling of per capita carbon emissions and global rankings (2008 in metric tons of CO2)
1. Qatar - 53.5
7. Kuwait - 26.3
12. US - 17.5
27. Finland - 10.7
37. Germany - 9.6
38. Japan - 9.5
90. Jamaica - 4.5
TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Japan can reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 11 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels without relying on nuclear power through the promotion of renewables and energy-saving efforts, estimates by a national institute showed Wednesday.
Calculations conducted by the National Institute for Environmental Studies also indicate that Tokyo can achieve a 15 percent reduction if the country's nuclear reactors are decommissioned 40 years after the start of their operations.
The institute had earlier projected it is possible for Japan to trim its carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gas emissions by 25 percent by 2030 from 1990 levels without nuclear power, which emits substantially fewer amounts of CO2 than thermal power in generating electricity.
If Japan purchases emissions credits from abroad to realize a 10 percent cut from 1990 levels, the country can slash by 2020 its greenhouse gas emissions causing global warming by 20 percent in total even when all of its nuclear reactors are scrapped and by 25 percent when those reactors are decommissioned after 40-year operations, the institute said.
Tokyo has pledged internationally...
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20120523p2g00m0bu157000c.html
...Last June, a report released by the Cabinet's Reconstruction Design Council in response to the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami warned of a return to rice bin worries -- economic over safety concerns -- after the meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant. However, it must be said that "nuclear safety" itself is a dubious proposition.
One major news item last week was the hearings held by the Diet's nuclear disaster investigation committee. One of the issues raised was whether or not Fukushima plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) had requested government permission to abandon the power station after the hydrogen explosions at the No. 1 and 3 reactor buildings and the cooling failure at the No. 2 reactor. Banri Kaieda, minister of economy, trade and industry in those tense days in March 2011, stated that he did indeed receive a call asking permission to evacuate the plant. TEPCO Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata, however, continues to insist that "this is not true."
The hearings were not the first time differences in government and TEPCO accounts of the disaster have been revealed. Naoto Kan and Yukio Edano, the prime minister and chief Cabinet secretary at the time, respectively, have made the same claim as Kaieda at other investigative committees. TEPCO executives have also maintained that the request was only to evacuate "some of the plant workers, not all."
What surprises the most is not the discrepancy itself, but that the truth about what actually happened at this turning point in the crisis -- when abandoning the plant may very well have meant evacuating all of eastern Japan -- remains obscured.
In Terada's book of essays...
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/perspectives/news/20120521p2a00m0na020000c.html
Researchers warn of destructive power of triple Nankai tremors on Osaka, Tokyo
The University of Tokyo is considered the top of the pyramid for Japanese universities.
You probably know that Fukushima involved the area NE of Tokyo, but you might still want to visit the last link's 3D map.
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20120522p2a00m0na025000c.html
The Nankai Trough, stretching from Suruga Bay to waters off the Shikoku region. (Mainichi)拡大写真
CHIBA -- If three earthquakes simultaneously occurred along the Nankai Trough located in the seabed off central to western Japan, high-rise buildings in Osaka would be shaken by long-period ground motion five times stronger than that in the Great East Japan Earthquake, researchers have predicted.
A group of researchers with the University of Tokyo made the announcement on May 21 at the Japan Geoscience Union Meeting, currently under way in Chiba. The group also speculates that, if the three temblors -- the Tokai, Tonankai and Nankai quakes -- took place together, high-rise buildings in Tokyo would be shaken by long-period ground motion twice to three times stronger than that in the Great East Japan Earthquake, which struck northeast Japan on March 11, 2011.
The long-period ground motion will be stronger in the Tokai-Tonankai-Nankai earthquake because seismic tremors will be amplified by soft rock and stone deposited along the plate boundaries in the Nankai Trough, according to the researchers. The announcement is expected to prompt authorities to step up measures to minimize possible effects on urban areas, which host skyscrapers.
In their study, the group predicted the intensity of long-period ground motion in the event that magnitude-8.7 triple earthquakes took place along the Nankai Trough simultaneously. In case of seismic movements with a cycle of six seconds, the seismic velocity would be 250 centimeters per second in Osaka's bay area -- five times that in the Great East Japan Earthquake -- and 110 to 165 centimeters per second in central Tokyo. The tremors in both cities would also last at least twice as long as the March 11 quake, according to the researchers.
In the Great East Japan Earthquake ...
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20120522p2a00m0na025000c.html
This is a great rendering of earthquake activity in Japan:
http://www.japanquakemap.com/
Pallets of PV: Communities Purchase Solar and Drive Down Costs Together
By Karlynn Cory, NREL
May 15, 2012
Think of it like Costco or Sam's Club for purchasing solar photovolatics (PV). Some savvy folks in Oregon thought it would be a great idea to buy PV in bulk for their neighborhood to get a big volume discount and share the savings with neighbors.
So they created the Solarize campaign, which over the last three years has helped Portland add "[more than] 1.7 MW of distributed PV and [establish] a strong, steady solar installation economy." In fact, so successful was the Portland model that several other communities started their own Solarize campaigns, including Washington State; Massachusetts; Vermont; San Diego, California; and multi-city campaigns from One Block Off the Grid and GroupEnergy.
All of the great details, including how to set up your own program, are laid out in "The Solarize Guidebook: A Community Guide to Collective Purchasing of Residential PV Systems," released in May 2012. This roadmap is for state and local governments and community leaders wanting to create a program to buy PV in bulk. It describes how Solarize Portland executed its program, explains how other neighborhoods across the United States are building off their efforts, and describes the steps needed to have a successful campaign in six months or less. This report is an update to a previous version published in January 2011 and includes new info on lessons learned not only in Portland, but across the other 1,960 Solarize installations.
The key to Solarize's success is that it directly tackles three major market barriers: (1) high upfront cost, (2) complex solar purchasing options, and (3) customer inertia (i.e., it is easier to do nothing than do something). Some of the key success elements include: (1) competitive contractor selection led by the community, (2) community-led outreach and education, and (3) making it a limited time offer (so you have to act now!). And how well did the bulk purchasing work? Solarize Portland drove solar market costs down by 30 percent - 35 percent as compared to before the program.
By offering system financing to participants...
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2012/05/pallets-of-pv-communities-purchase-solar-and-drive-down-costs-together?cmpid=SolarNL-Thursday-May17-2012
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