The Viability of Germany’s Energiewende: Mark Jacobson Answers 3 Questions

[kristopher]

10. Wonder why Japan didn't follow that path?

Last edited Wed Oct 9, 2013, 06:40 PM - Edit history (1)

I mean, they've spent a huge amount of money and more than 20 years trying to solve their nuclear waste problem with recycling/reprocessing technologies.

If the claims of Dr. Till and "Dr.Greg" are accurate, why didn't Japan pursue it?

Monju (もんじゅ?) is a Japanese sodium-cooled fast reactor, located in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture. Construction started in 1986 and the reactor achieved criticality for the first time in April 1994. Its name is a reference to Manjusri.

Monju is a sodium cooled, MOX-fueled, loop-type reactor with three primary coolant loops, producing 280 MWe from 714 MWt. It has a breeding ratio of approximately 1.2.

An accident in December 1995, in which a sodium leak caused a major fire, forced a shutdown. A subsequent scandal involving a cover-up of the scope of the accident delayed its restart until May 6, 2010, with renewed criticality reached on May 8, 2010. In August 2010 another accident, involving dropped machinery, shut down the reactor again. As of June 2011, the reactor has only generated electricity for one hour since its first testing two decades prior. As of the end of 2010, total funds spent on the reactor amounted to ¥1.08 trillion. An estimated ¥160-170 billion would be needed to continue to operate the reactor for another 10 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monju_Nuclear_Power_Plant

And how about their new reprocessing and fuel manufacturing facility that is more than 300% over budget and still not online?

Rokkasho: nuclear white elephant or yen sucking black hole?
BY JEFF KINGSTON
SPECIAL TO THE JAPAN TIMES SEP 21, 2013
As one approaches Rokkasho, a small town of 11,000 on the remote, windswept coast of Aomori Prefecture at the very north of Japan’s main island, Honshu, one sees dozens of power-generating windmills spinning away. Aside from this ambitious renewable energy project, Rokkasho also is the site for a national petroleum reserve, but it is most infamous for something that is not yet operating.

Two decades and $21 billion after construction commenced, Japan’s nuclear reprocessing and waste storage facility at Rokkasho may finally start operating in 2014, but probably later. There have been numerous delays and large cost overruns, but the operator, Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd. (JNFL), is hopeful because Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has revived prospects for restarting nuclear reactors. The Japan Atomic Energy Commission and JNFL want to get the facility running as soon as possible, but the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) is busy reviewing applications to restart 12 reactors based on the new safety guidelines issued in July 2013.

The NRA has also drafted tighter regulation standards, which take effect in December 2013 for facilities like Rokkasho that deal with nuclear fuel and is expected to conduct an in-depth geological survey of the site to determine if it is located on top of active fault-lines. Thus the timing of Rokkasho’s commissioning remains uncertain.

A report issued recently by the Princeton, New Jersey-based International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM), compiled by independent nuclear experts, gives a failing grade to Japan’s nuclear fuel recycling policy and urges reconsideration because it is, “dysfunctional, dangerous and costly” and because “Japan is undermining the non-proliferation regime.” The IPFM recommends, inter alia, a government takeover of spent fuel management, air-cooled dry-cask storage of spent fuel at nuclear power plants, continuation of local subsidies to offset axing the reprocessing project and deep burial of Japan’s 44 tons of separated plutonium....

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2013/09/21/commentary/rokkasho-nuclear-white-elephant-or-yen-sucking-black-hole/#.UlXJxygyHdk

So again, if Till's Integral Fast Reactor is, in fact, such a superior design that has been around for such a long time ...

It begs the question of why countries like Japan, India, South Africa, and Korea have made a deliberate and considered choice to invest their tens of billions of dollars in other technologies?

And then we have this - as a guest of the Nuclear Industry in Japan former Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi went to Finland to take a tour of their waste disposal program. On his return to Japan, his experiences in Japan and now Finland led him to take a position calling for a rapid shutdown of all nuclear in Japan. This was an unthinkable act as it is in direct opposition to that of the current Prime Minister and leader of Koizumi's party.

Former Japanese PM And Current Environment Minister Speak Out Against Nuclear Power
BY ARI PHILLIPS ON OCTOBER 3, 2013 AT 10:32 AM

CREDIT: ASSOCIATED PRESS
This week both Japan’s environment minister, Nobuteru Ishihara, and former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, a popular national figure, spoke out against nuclear power.

Ishihara said the country’s target to cut greenhouse gas emissions should be based on a scenario with no nuclear power generation.

Previously in January Ishihara had said that Japan will set a new emissions target, including how much nuclear power generation should account for, by November after reviewing the previous government’s goal to reduce emissions by 25 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels.

Meanwhile, in a speech to a pro-nuclear audience of business executives, Koizuma went against the grain by saying that Japan should “should rid itself of its atomic plants and switch to renewable energy sources like solar power.”

Koizuma went on to say that “there is nothing more costly than nuclear power. Japan should ...

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/10/03/2722531/japan-nuclear-power-leaks/


Now why would he do that if a viable alternative actually existed? Cutting that question with Occam's Razor leads directly to the conclusion that you and Dr. Till are engaged in hyping a product - presenting a rose colored scenario that omits any and all negatives that make your chosen technology more problematic than alternatives that we know are VERY problematic to implement.