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Freezing out Fukushima’s radioactive water

TEPCO is preparing to freeze the soil around the damaged reactor buildings to prevent water contamination [TEPCO] Tokyo, Japan – It’s been more than three-and-a-half years since the earthquake and tsunami that rocked northern Japan in March 2011, crippling the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, a disaster that continues to unfold to this day. Engineers at the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), which owns the plant, still have a mammoth task in front of them: How to deal with millions of litres of water full of radiation resulting from the catastrophe. The plant site, badly damaged by hydrogen explosions and reactor core meltdowns after the earthquake and tsunami, is glutted with steel storage tanks filled to capacity with contaminated water pumped out of the reactor facilities. More than 1,000 tanks clog the site, and empty ones are being filled daily. As of September 23, the total volume of water […]

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Fukushima risk of 26-meter tsunami

Fukushima risk of 26-meter tsunami Tokyo Electric Power Co. has warned its stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant could be hit by tsunami as high as 26.3 meters. The deluge would likely cause seawater to mingle with the radiation-tainted water accumulating in the basements of the reactor buildings at the six-unit plant, allowing 100 trillion becquerels of cesium to escape, according to an estimate that Tepco revealed Friday at a meeting of the Nuclear Regulation Authority. Tepco said a tsunami of that size occurs once every 10,000 to 100,000 years. The Fukushima No. 1 plant, more than 40 years old, was crippled by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami after waves as high as 15.5 meters inundated the facility, knocking out all power and disabling the vital backup cooling systems for reactors 1 to 4, triggering three core meltdowns. Tepco also said the nearby Fukushima No. 2 nuclear plant, […]

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Volcanoes May Be Next Hurdle for Nuclear Restarts in Japan

The volcanic eruption of Japan’s Mt. Ontake over the weekend may strengthen the argument of activists campaigning to keep the country’s 48 reactors shut. Japan’s atomic plants are off-line for safety checks as a result of the earthquake and tsunami that caused the meltdown of three reactors in Fukushima more than three years ago. The Nuclear Regulation Authority has said two reactors at a plant run by Kyushu Electric Power Co. (9508) in southern Japan meet new safety standards, indicating they are closest to restarting. Kyushu Electric’s plant, known as Sendai, is about 50 kilometers (31 miles) from another active volcano called Sakurajima. It’s also not far from a cluster of calderas, volcanic craters caused by past eruptions. “The NRA has been criticized for not taking the elevated risk of volcanic eruption into account,” Stephen Church, a Tokyo-based partner at equity researcher JI Asia, said in a note yesterday. […]

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Nuclear Plants Across Emerging Nations Defy Japan Concern

Three years after Japan closed all of its nuclear plants in the wake of the Fukushima meltdown and Germany decided to shut its industry, developing countries are leading the biggest construction boom in more than two decades. Almost two-thirds of the 70 reactors currently under construction worldwide, the most since 1989, are located in China , India , and the rest of the Asia-Pacific region. Countries including Egypt , Bangladesh , Jordan and Vietnam are considering plans to build their first nuclear plants, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance in London . Developed countries are building nine plants, 13 percent of the total. Power is needed as the economies of China and India grow more than twice as fast as the U.S. Electricity output from reactors amounted to 2,461 terawatt-hours last year, or 11 percent of all global power generation, according to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation […]

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Japan’s Idled Reactors, Weak Yen Drive Deficit on Energy

Few are as eager as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to see Japan ’s idled nuclear reactors brought back into operation. Since the country flicked off the switch to its nuclear energy program a little more than a year ago, expensive energy imports, particularly of liquefied natural gas, have worsened trade deficits. That’s placed an extra burden on an economy that contracted at an annualized rate of 7.1 percent in the second quarter, its worst showing since 2009, Bloomberg Businessweek reports in its Sept. 22 issue. Abe’s push to restore Japan’s 48 functioning reactors faces deep opposition from a public that can’t forget the radiation leaks from the Fukushima Dai-Ichi reactor complex following an earthquake and tsunami in 2011. Revelations of the regulatory lapses that led to the leaks galvanized local governments to keep Japan’s other reactors idle after they were shut down for scheduled maintenance. By September 2013 the country was without […]

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Japan Takes Another Step Toward Restarting Nuclear Power Plants

Japan ’s atomic regulator today approved a safety report for two reactors owned by Kyushu Electric Power Co., another step toward restarting plants shut after the Fukushima nuclear disaster more than three years ago. The report was approved by the regulator’s commissioners at a meeting in Tokyo today. The reactors must still clear two more steps in the stricter safety approval process set up by the Nuclear Regulation Authority after the meltdown of three reactors at the Fukushima plant north of Tokyo in 2011. The two units are unlikely to restart before the first quarter of 2015, Hidetoshi Shioda, a Tokyo-based analyst at SMBC Nikko Securities Inc., said last month in a report. With all Japan’s 48 operational nuclear plants shut for safety reviews, the country will have functioned without nuclear power for one year on Sept. 15. Kyushu Electric is among 10 utilities that have applied for safety […]

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Power Plants Heading Out to Sea in Post-Fukushima Japan

One of the biggest hurdles to building new power plants in Japan is finding a place that’s safe from earthquakes and tsunamis. That place may turn out to be 30 miles at sea. Sevan Marine ASA (SEVAN) , a Norwegian builder of offshore oil-drilling vessels, is proposing a $1.5 billion natural gas-fired power plant that will float on a cylindrical platform bigger than a football field moored off the Japanese coast. It’s one of several innovative efforts Japan is considering for generating electricity after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011 prompted widespread public concern over how the country will produce electricity — and where. Already, plans are being made to dot the coast off Fukushima with some of the largest floating wind turbines in the world. “We are now focusing on mainly floating offshore wind, but we want to push various types of technical development and research” for floating […]

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Nuclear outage heightens UK energy supply fears

Heysham 1 and Heysham 2 nuclear power stations are seen near Lancaster, northern England…The Heysham 1 and Heysham 2 nuclear power stations are seen near Lancaster, northern England, July 11, 2006. Britain must build new nuclear power stations, generate more electricity from wind and waves and curb domestic demand in the battle against global warming, Trade Secretary Alistair Darling said on Tuesday. REUTERS/Phil Noble (BRITAIN) Heysham 1 and Heysham 2 nuclear power stations in Lancashire, northwest England Britain’s energy capacity shortage deepened on Thursday when EDF Energy warned that four nuclear reactors it had shut down for safety reasons might be out of action until the end of the year, two and a half months longer than expected. National Grid said on Tuesday it was seeking emergency electricity supplies because of shortages triggered partly by the shutdown of the nuclear plants. EDF said in August it had found a […]

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In Britain, Nuclear Reactors to Be Shut Down in Fault Investigation

LONDON — EDF Energy, the British subsidiary of the French state-controlled utility, said on Monday that it was shutting down three nuclear reactors and that a reactor with a fault that has been shut down since June would remain so. The facilities, which are being investigated as a precaution, generate nearly a quarter of nuclear capacity in Britain. The British Office for Nuclear Regulation said that there had been no release of radioactive material and no injuries. Industry experts did not anticipate much effect on electricity supplies or prices in the short term. EDF said that over the next few days it would idle a second reactor at the facility where the fault was found last year, Heysham 1, in northwest England. The company said it would also shut down two other reactors of similar design at Hartlepool in northeast England to investigate whether they had the same flaws. […]

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Russia, China to work on floating nuclear plants

A subsidiary of Russian state nuclear energy company Rosatom said Tuesday it signed an agreement to build floating nuclear power plants with China. "The potential use of floating nuclear power plants is significant," Dzhomart Aliev, chief executive officer at Rusatom Overseas, said in a statement . "The design provides for two options — self-propelled or barge-mounted floating nuclear power plants." The company signed a memorandum of intent to develop floating nuclear power plants with its Chinese counterparts, CNNC New Energy. The signing came as Chinese delegates spent a week touring St. Petersburg and Moscow. Russian interests have pivoted to the East, where Asian economic performance translates to greater demand for the energy products supporting the Russian economy. In May, Russian President Vladimir Putin and special envoy to the Far East Yuri Trutnev said they expected the region would attract as much as $65 billion in new investments. Aliev said […]

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