German nuclear dispute sharpened by Japan mishap

Cached:  http://www.newstimes.com/business/article/German-nuclear-dispute-sharpened-by-Japan-mishap-1094048.php

GEIR MOULSON, Associated Press

Updated 06:05 p.m., Saturday, March 12, 2011

 

Participants of an anti nuclear demonstration form a human chain in Neckarwestheim, southern Germany Satuday March 12, 2011. Thousands of people have demonstrated against plans to extend the life of Germany's nuclear power stations as an explosion at a Japanese plant gives new fuel to a long-running squabble over the technology's future. Photo: Michael Latz / dapd

BERLIN (AP) — Thousands of people demonstrated on Saturday against plans to extend the life of Germany’s nuclear power stations, as an explosion at a Japanese nuclear power plant sharpened a long-running dispute over the technology’s future in this country.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said that Germany would examine whether it needs to draw lessons from Japan for its own plants and that officials would be asked to check safety at German nuclear power stations. However, she stressed that the country’s standards are high.

At the protest in southwestern Germany, demonstrators formed a human chain between the Neckarwestheim nuclear plant and the city of Stuttgart, which are 28 miles (45 kilometers) apart. Some waved yellow flags with the slogan “Nuclear power — no thanks.” Police said several tens of thousands attended; organizers put the number at 60,000.

The demonstration was planned long before the post-earthquake blast at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, but the fears of possible disaster gave an added focus to opponents of the technology in Germany.

Germany’s government last year moved to extend the life of its 17 nuclear plans for an average 12 extra years. A decade ago, a previous government decided to shut them by 2021.

While Germany — unlike some of its European Union partners — has no plans to build any new plants, the extension was divisive.

The mishap in Japan came two weeks before a closely fought state election in the region where Saturday’s protest was held. It prompted new opposition criticism.

Events at Fukushima “show that, even in a high-tech country like Japan that is equipped for all eventualities, nuclear power is an uncontrollable, highly dangerous, risky technology,” the leadership of the opposition Greens said in a statement.

Matthias Miersch, a lawmaker with the main opposition Social Democrats, urged the government to scrap immediately the decision to extend German nuclear plants’ lives.

After discussing the aftermath of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami with key ministers, Merkel said she understood people who worried whether a nuclear plant at home could get into similar difficulties.

“We know how safe our nuclear power plants are; we know that we are threatened neither by such severe earthquakes nor such massive flood waves,” Merkel said. “All the same — what we can learn from events in Japan, we will learn.”

She added that, given that the problems in Japan arose despite very high safety standards, “then the whole world … cannot simply go back to business as usual.”

Nuclear energy has been unpopular in Germany since an explosion at a nuclear reactor at Chernobyl, Ukraine, in 1986, sent a cloud of radiation over much of Europe.

But Merkel insists Germany needs to keep it until it has developed more renewable power sources. “I believe the peaceful use of nuclear energy as a bridging technology is responsible and justifiable,” she said Saturday.

Merkel and Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle pushed aside questions about any effects on the government’s future nuclear policy.

With thousands likely dead or missing in Japan, “Germany’s first answer can’t be that … a political argument breaks out here because there are state election campaigns going on,” Westerwelle said.

Merkel’s center-right coalition faces a tight battle to keep control of the regional government in Baden-Wuerttemberg on March 27, and two other votes also are looming.

In Italy, where voters rejected nuclear power in a 1987 referendum, the Japanese accident fed opposition to the current government’s plans to build nuclear reactors to reduce dependence on energy imports.

An opposition leader, Antonio Di Pietro, called for a new referendum. Greens leader Angelo Bonelli said Japan’s emergency should prompt another look at whether nuclear power is safe.

___

Frances D’Emilio contributed from Rome.

Huge blast at Japan nuclear power plant

 

Cached:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12723092

 

By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News

Police are trying to clear residents from the evacuation zone around the Fukushima plant

The word “meltdown” goes to the heart of the big nuclear question – is nuclear power safe?

The term is associated in the public mind with the two most notorious accidents in recent memory – Three Mile Island, in the US, in 1979, and Chernobyl, in Ukraine, seven years later.

You can think of the core of a Boiling Water Reactor (BWR), such as the ones at Fukushima Daiichi, as a massive version of the electrical element you may have in your kettle.

It sits there, immersed in water, getting very hot.

The water cools it, and also carries the heat away – usually as steam – so it can be used to turn turbines and generate electricity.

If the water stops flowing, there is a problem. The core overheats and more of the water turns to steam.

The steam generates huge pressures inside the reactor vessel – a big, sealed container – and if the largely metal core gets too hot, it will just melt, with some components perhaps catching fire.

In the worst-case scenario, the core melts through the bottom of the reactor vessel and falls onto the floor of the containment vessel – an outer sealed unit.

This is designed to prevent the molten reactor from penetrating any further. Local damage in this case will be serious, but in principle there should be no leakage of radioactive material into the outside world.

But the term “in principle” is the difficult one.

“The job of keeping dangerous materials sealed in falls to the containment vessel inside.”

Reactors are designed to have “multiply redundant” safety features: if one fails, another should contain the problem.

However, the fact that this does not always work is shown at Fukushima Daiichi.

The earthquake meant the three functioning reactors shut down. But it also removed the power that kept the vital water pumps running, sending cooling water around the hot core.

Diesel generators were installed to provide power in such a situation. They did cut in – but then they cut out again an hour later, for reasons that have not yet been revealed.

In this case, redundancy did not work. And the big fear within the anti-nuclear movement, as used in the film The China Syndrome, is that the multiple containment of a molten core might not work either, allowing highly radioactive and toxic metals to burrow into the ground, with serious and long-lasting environmental impacts – total meltdown.

However, the counter-argument from nuclear proponents is that the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island did not cause any serious effects.

Yes, the core melted, but the containment systems held.

And at Chernobyl – a reactor design regarded in the West as inherently unsafe, and which would not have been sanctioned in any non-Soviet bloc nation – the environmental impacts occurred through explosive release of material into the air, not from a melting reactor core.

To keep things in perspective, no nuclear accident has caused anything approaching the 1,000 fatalities stemming from Friday’s earthquake and tsunami.

‘Subcritical’ reactors

Whether a partial meltdown is under way at Fukushima Daiichi is not yet clear.

The most important factor is summed up in a bulletin from the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) that owns the facility: “Control rods are fully inserted (reactor is in subcritical status).”

Control rods shut off the nuclear reaction. Heat continues to be produced at that stage through the decay of radioactive nuclei – but that process in turn will begin to tail off.

Intriguingly, Ryohei Shiomi, an official at Japan’s Nuclear Safety Commission, is widely quoted as having said a meltdown was possible and that officials were checking.

Meanwhile, a visually dramatic explosion in one of the reactor buildings has at least severely damaged the external walls.

In principle, this should not cause leakage of radioactive material because the building is just an outside shell; the job of keeping dangerous materials sealed in falls to the the metal containment vessel inside.

Chief cabinet secretary Chief Yukio Edano confirmed this was the case, saying: “The concrete building collapsed. We found out that the reactor container inside didn’t explode.”

He attributed the explosion to a build-up of hydrogen, related in turn to the cooling problem.

Under pressure

The only release of any radioactive material that we know about so far concerns venting of the containment vessel.

When steam pressure builds up in the reactor vessel, it stops some of the emergency cooling systems working, and so some of the steam is released into the containment vessel.

“The whole incident so far contains more questions than answers”

However, according to World Nuclear News, an industry newsletter, this caused pressure in the containment vessel to rise to twice the intended operating level, so the decision was taken to vent some of this into the atmosphere.

In principle, this should contain only short-lived radioactive isotopes such as nitrogen-16 produced through the water’s exposure to the core. Venting this would be likely to produce short-lived gamma-ray activity – which has, reportedly, been detected.

One factor that has yet to be explained is the apparent detection of radioactive isotopes of caesium.

This is produced during the nuclear reaction, and should be confined within the reactor core.

If it has been detected outside the plant, that could imply that the core has begun to disintegrate.

“If any of the fuel rods have been compromised, there would be evidence of a small amount of radioisotopes in the atmosphere [such as] radio-caesium and radio-iodine,” says Paddy Regan, professor of nuclear physics at the UK’s University of Surrey.

“The amount that you measure would tell you to what degree the fuel rods have been compromised.”

It is an important question – but as yet, unanswered.

Cover-ups and questions

In fact, the whole incident so far contains more questions than answers.

Parallels with Three Mile Island and Chernobyl suggest that while some answers will materialise soon, it may takes months, even years, for the full picture to emerge.

How that happens depends in large part on the approach taken by Tepco and Japan’s nuclear authorities.

A large explosion was seen at the plant with debris blow out from the building

As with its counterparts in many other countries, Japan’s nuclear industry has not exactly been renowned for openness and transparency.

Tepco itself has been implicated in a series of cover-ups down the years.

In 2002, the chairman and four other executives resigned, suspected of having falsified safety records at Tepco power stations.

Further examples of falsification were identified in 2006 and 2007.

In the longer term, Fukushima Daiichi raises several more very big questions, inside and outside Japan.

Given that this is not the first time a Japanese nuclear station has been hit by earthquake damage, is it wise to build such stations along the east coast, given that such a seismically active zone lies just offshore?

And given that Three Mile Island effectively shut down the construction of civilian nuclear reactors in the US for 30 years, what impact is Fukushima Daiichi likely to have in an era when many countries, not least the UK, are looking to re-enter the nuclear industry?

 

Horror continues in Japan; radiation leaks from N-Reactor

–

Cached:  http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/current-affairs/horror-continuesjapan-radiation-leaksn-reactor_529123.html

Japan confirms explosion, leakage at nuke plant

Published on Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 16:12   |  Updated at Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 16:38   |  Source : Reuters

Radiation leaked from an unstable Japanese nuclear reactor north of Tokyo on Saturday, the government said, after an explosion blew the roof off the facility in the wake of a massive earthquake.

The developments raised fears of a disastrous meltdown at the plant, which was damaged by Friday’s 8.9-magnitude earthquake, the strongest ever recorded in Japan.

“We are looking into the cause and the situation and we’ll make that public when we have further information,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said.

Click here to read about quake toll so far

Edano said an evacuation radius of 10 km (6 miles) from the stricken 40-year-old Daiichi 1 reactor plant in Fukushima prefecture was adequate. TV footage showed vapour rising from the plant, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo.

The quake sent a 10-metre (33-foot) tsunami ripping through towns and cities across the northeast coast. Japanese media estimate that at least 1,300 people were killed.

The blast came as plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) worked desperately to reduce pressures in the core of the reactor.

“An unchecked rise in temperature could cause the core to essentially turn into a molten mass that could burn through the reactor vessel,” risk information service Stratfor said in a report before the explosion. “This may lead to a release of an unchecked amount of radiation into the containment building that surrounds the reactor.”

NHK television and Jiji said the outer structure of the building that houses the reactor appeared to have blown off, which could suggest the containment building had already been breached.

Earlier the operator released what it said was a tiny amount of radioactive steam to reduce the pressure and the danger was minimal because tens of thousands of people had already been evacuated from the vicinity.

Reuters journalists were in Fukushima prefecture, about 70 km (40 miles) from the plant. Other media have reported police roadblocks in the area to prevent people getting closer.

Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology said the earth’s axis shifted 25 cm as a result of the quake and the US Geological Survey said the main island of Japan had shifted 2.4 metres.

Friday’s tremor was so huge that thousands fled their homes from coastlines around the Pacific Rim, as far away as North and South America, fearful of a tsunami.

Most appeared to have been spared anything more serious than some high waves, unlike Japan’s northeast coastline which was hammered by the huge tsunami that turned houses and ships into floating debris as it surged into cities and villages, sweeping aside everything in its path.

“I thought I was going to die,” said Wataru Fujimura, a 38-year-old sales representative in Koriyama, Fukushima, north of Tokyo and close to the area worst hit by the quake.

“Our furniture and shelves had all fallen over and there were cracks in the apartment building, so we spent the whole night in the car … Now we’re back home trying to clean.”

The unfolding natural disaster, which has been followed by dozens of aftershocks, prompted offers of search and rescue help from 50 countries.

The central bank said it would cut short a two-day policy review scheduled for next week to one day on Monday and promised to do its utmost to ensure financial market stability.

The disaster struck as the world’s third-largest economy had been showing signs of reviving from an economic contraction in the final quarter of last year. It raised the prospect of major disruptions for many key businesses and a massive repair bill running into tens of billions of dollars.

In one of the worst-hit residential areas, people buried under rubble could be heard calling out for rescue, Kyodo news agency reported. TV footage showed staff at one hospital waving banners with the words “FOOD” and “HELP” from a rooftop.

The airport in coastal city Sendai, home to one million people, was on fire, Japanese media said.

TV footage from Friday showed a black torrent of water carrying cars and wrecked homes at high speed across farmland near Sendai, 300 km (180 miles) northeast of Tokyo. Ships had been flung onto a harbour wharf, where they lay helplessly.

The earthquake was the fifth most powerful to hit the world in the past century. It surpassed the Great Kant quake of September 1, 1923, which had a magnitude of 7.9 and killed more than 140,000 people in the Tokyo area.

The 1995 Kobe quake caused USD 100 billion in damage and was the most expensive natural disaster in history.

Click here to view the unfolding devastation in Japan

World sends disaster relief teams to Japan

Cached:  http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/12/us-japan-quake-aid-idUSTRE72B1DM20110312

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA | Sat Mar 12, 2011 8:25am EST

(Reuters) – The international community started to send disaster relief teams on Saturday to help Japan after it suffered a massive earthquake and tsunami, with the United Nations sending a group to help co-ordinate work.

“We are in the process of deploying 9 experts who are among the most experienced we have for dealing with catastrophes. They will help evaluate needs and coordinate assistance with Japanese authorities,” Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told Reuters.

The team of U.N. disaster relief officials includes several Japanese speakers and an environmental expert, she said.

An explosion blew the roof off an unstable nuclear reactor north of Tokyo on Saturday, raising fears of a disastrous meltdown.

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said there had been a radiation leak at Tokyo Electric Power Co’s (TEPCO) Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

The 8.9-magnitude earthquake — the strongest recorded in Japan — sent a 10-meter (33-foot) high tsunami ripping through towns and cities across the northeast coast on Friday. Japanese media estimate that at least 1,300 people were killed.

The U.N. announced late on Friday that four foreign search and rescue teams (Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and the United States) were on their way after Japan requested help.

Singapore is also deploying an urban search and rescue team in Japan, Byrs told Reuters on Saturday as Switzerland announced it was sending a team of some 25 rescue and medical experts accompanied by nine sniffer dogs. Britain also said it was sending help, after receiving a request form Japan.

The Swiss team will be charged with searching for victims underneath the debris of the tsunami, Toni Frisch, head of the Swiss Humanitarian Aid Unit said on Swiss radio.

The Swiss unit is a militia corps with a pool of at least 700 people ready for duty whose skills range from engineering, seismology, telecommunications and war surgery.

Britain said it would be flying out 63 British search and rescue personnel and two dogs to Japan later on Saturday in response to a request from Tokyo.

The team will take up to 11 tonnes of equipment including heavy lifting and cutting equipment.

“People will have seen the scale of it, it’s truly devastating, so we will need a really big coordinated international response and Britain is playing a full part in that,” Foreign Office minister Jeremy Browne told Sky News.

He also said Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague had spoken to his counterpart in Japan and offered help if necessary following the explosion at the Japanese nuclear reactor

“On the nuclear issue, the Japanese are taking the lead on that,” Browne said.

“But the foreign secretary said that if they needed any assistance in terms of nuclear physicists in terms of expertise from the United Kingdom, we would be very willing to provide that assistance.”

Britain recently sent disaster search and rescue teams to New Zealand to assist after last month’s earthquake in Christchurch which killed at least 166 people.

(Additional reporting by Michael Holden in London; Editing by Matthew Jones)

Construction starts for Sekaman 1 hydro power project in Laos

(Sourced from Vietnam News Service)

Cached:  http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/Industries/209059/Work-starts-on-Laos-hydropower-plant.html

ATTAPEU — Construction of the Sekaman 1 hydro-power project kicked off in Laos’s southern Attapeu Province yesterday as part of the Viet Nam-Lao energy co-operation programme.

The US$441 million project has a designed capacity of 322MW to produce 1.22 billion KWh per year, twenty per cent of which will be consumed in Laos while the remainder will be transmitted back to Viet Nam.

The project, located about 80km from the Viet Nam-Laos border on the Sekaman River, is scheduled for completion by Viet Nam’s Song Da Corporation in late 2014.

In his address at the groundbreaking ceremony, Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai stressed that the project was one of Viet Nam’s biggest overseas investment projects and was considered a symbol of co-operation between the two countries.

It was the biggest project in the energy exchange programme between the two countries, he said, adding that Viet Nam would co-operate with Laos to invest in building more hydropower plants in the near future.

Lao Permanent Deputy Prime Minister Somsavat Lengsavat said the project played an important role in the socio-economic development of his country and would contribute to the traditional relations, comprehensive co-operation and special friendship between the two countries.

He said the project would pave the way for many other projects and contribute to helping the two countries’ electricity co-operation strategy to reach 5,000MW by 2020.

Apart from the Sekaman 1 project, the Song Da Corporation has carried out research to implement six other hydropower projects in southern Laos with a total designed capacity of 1,400MW to produce around 5.4 billion KWh per year. Of which, the Sekaman 3 project is scheduled to be put into operation by late this year and construction of the Sekaman 4 and Sekong projects are expected to start in late 2011 or early 2012.

Construction begins

Construction of the Cong Thanh coal-fuelled power plant kicked off on Saturday at Industrial Park No 2 in the Nghi Son Economic Zone in northern central Thanh Hoa Province.

The plant was designed with two turbine groups for a total capacity of 600MW. It will use coal from Hon Gai and Cam Pha mines in the northern province of Quang Ninh.

The VND13 trillion ($619 million) plant is expected to put its first turbine group into operation in the first quarter of 2014 and the second in the third quarter of the same year.

Speaking at the ground-breaking ceremony, Deputy PM Hai emphasised the importance of the power plant, which is expected to supply electricity to the entire northern central region, especially Thanh Hoa, and contribute to reducing the transmission costs from the national grid.

He asked the Cong Thanh Thermal Power Joint Stock Company, the project investor, to pay due attention to environmental protection, and ensure the pace of construction and effectiveness of the project.

He also praised the residents of Hai Yen Commune, Tinh Gia District for their co-ordination in site clearance for the project. — VNS