Japan down to one nuclear reactor after Niigata shutdown

One giant step towards safe Japan!

Simply just dont turn any of them back on, If we can still function at the moment with out them then we can function in the future without them too.

We Don't Need or Want Nuclear Power To Live.

Now time to shutdown Tepco!

This is a sad day for the nuclear industry.

I don't understand what's happening. Is Japan waking up after a nuclear disaster and realizes that they need to run their NPPs properly at the first place by employing decently paid competent staff and introducing costly safety measures, and now are taking the pain to make them safer, or getting sulky and peevish and give up the whole NPP business if they have to play fair.

The uninformed and uneducated do not understand the consequences of the anti-nuclear position. Extremely hot offices, building, subways as well as homes and hotels. The closing of the facilities is an over reaction to the Fukushima event. The complaints will fill the pages in July and August.

noriyosan: "Extremely hot offices, building, subways as well as homes and hotels."

And how on earth did the world survive as long with all that... ummm... how long has humanity been in existence vs. the time NPPs were created and 'needed'? The uninformed and uneducated may well not understand the consequences of no nukes, but the educated understand the nukes are actually not needed, and are extremely unsafe and expensive.

noriyosa The people that used to have homes and lives in the disaster area are becoming pretty well informed and are receiving an education and great understanding of the consequences of believing in the pro-nuclear position. I find it hard to understand, that after seeing the destruction and harm brought on by the Reactor failure that anyone would chose to continue pushing for NPG. Japan can and will be able to put enough power online, Nuclear isn't the only option, there's plenty of other,more safer options than nuclear power generation.

Great! Too bad this did not happen a year ago before the worst possible event occurred. This is like turning off all the dangerous old power outlets after the house has already burned down.

smithinjapan

noriyosan: "Extremely hot offices, building, subways as well as homes and hotels."

And how on earth did the world survive as long with all that... ummm... how long has humanity been in existence vs. the time NPPs were created and 'needed'? The uninformed and uneducated may well not understand the consequences of no nukes, but the educated understand the nukes are actually not needed, and are extremely unsafe and expensive.

Well for most of humanity's existence we have not been corralled into built-up areas that get unbearably hot in the summer.

Steve Mcgrew Mar. 26, 2012 - 02:35PM JST

Japan can and will be able to put enough power online, Nuclear isn't the only option, there's plenty of other,more safer options than nuclear power generation.

And these options, for this summer are?

Hey, I don't hear the government asking us to pull out the plugs these days. So I guess we can all get by with just one nuclear plant. Or...maybe none at all.

nuclear power in and of itself is not a bad thing per se, but what is bad is how Tepco effed up the management of it.

I am already feeling the effects of a higher electricity bill and dread looking forward to summer when, as noriyosan said, things will become nasty this summer from the heat and lack of electricity. Time to escape Tokyo if you can.

Great! Too bad this did not happen a year ago before the worst possible event occurred. This is like turning off all the dangerous old power outlets after the house has already burned down.

Are you positing from some kind of apocalyptic alternate reality where 'the worst possible event' actually occurred? In this reality, that description's a bit of an overstatement. To be expected from the anti-nuclear brigade of course.

I am afraid ssway is just trying his pathetic decision to run away from Japan. That in itself is fine of course, everybody has the right to doo as they wish. However, his comments on this forum since he left are quite frankly appalling and reek of someone desperate for the world to accept what they have done. It is of course NOT 'the worst possible event'. Bad as it was, it could have been much worse. TEPCO are course complete idiots but a line does need to be drawn under this at some point. This is not the end of nuclear power in Japan, it will be back, maybe in a smaller way, certainly in a safer way. The sensible people here know that we are still a way off from providing enough energy for Japan in a truly clean sense. We know who the tree huggers are here - if they didn't have this to whinge about, they'd be complaining about about the pollution the coal/oil power stations were causing.

Hello? Are we in collective denial about what happened a year ago? How soon we forget. They were considering evacuating the entire city of Tokyo. If that doesn't sound like an apocalyptic event, I'm not sure what is. Read this:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-06/japan-s-nuclear-mobsters-escape-tsunami-pain-commentary-by-william-pesek.html

Yes, But they didn't.

Star-Viking: "Well for most of humanity's existence we have not been corralled into built-up areas that get unbearably hot in the summer."

What was the population of Tokyo before air-conditioning? And isn't air-conditioning part of the problem to begin with? NPPs are not needed, clearly. The same people crying about how they'll be a shortage in summer were doing so not six months back about winter, and we're doing just fine. Never turned on my air-con ONCE since the 3/11 disasters and while I sweat a lot for it in the summer, and was cold in winter, I got by pretty well. Somehow, though, the energy bill was not a lot cheaper.

Now what are we going to do when a angel attacks us and the Evangelions can't destroy it?

Haha, we sure showed them by increasing our output of burning fossil fuels...Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

The J-gov, better known as Clowns Inc., needs to stop all the ridiculous paranoia and re-start the nuclear reactors. Or do they wanna be forever dependent on Middle Estern oil and make the rich richer, while Japan suffers?? Nuclear technology is proven safe and as clean s it gets if managed properly. Do you see France or Russia stopping their Nuclear programs?? Of course not!! Nuclear power is the only way for a country without any energy resources while they develop green technologies for the future!!

"Nuclear technology is proven safe and clean"

I'm afraid not. It's been proven to be inherently dangerous and destructive as hell. Has there ever been a case of a 20 kilometer radius around a non-nuclear power plant being evacuated?

Now Japan is TALKING. I wonder if this is just propaganda. But if it's for real... Banzai Japan.

Beautiful. NO more nuclear, it is anything BUT unclear, sense prevails. NHK 7 o'clock news, just slotted in halfway through, matter-of-factly: TEPCO stated today there is 60 cm level of water in the containment vessel at No 2 (How apt!). Still they refer to it as a meltdown... it's a melt THROUGH. The fat lady is no where NEAR to singing. Nuclear is stupid.

It seems to me that most people have missed the point that even if these reactors are no longer producing power. There is, and wiil be for a LONG time, fuel rods in all the reactors and spent fuel pools at all the reactors including Fukushima. I have not heard of any plans to dispose of all the fuel rods that are in fukushima alone, not to mention all those at the other reactors. Even if these facilities are not producing power, they can still have an accident as bad as Fukushima. So at this point, Japan has 40+ reactors not producing power yet still just as dangerous. Hmmmm...... what's wrong with this picture?

One left huh? Well convert that one to thorium so I can feel safe please.

Here again throughout this article and the comments: "nuclear" power - a misnomer! They mean Uranium fissioning reactors! Thorium fissioning reactors exist and are so up and running in China - they have a CANDU reactor there fuelled with Thorium, a "nuclear " reactor to be sure, but not fissioning Uranium - this is the great difference! Thorium reactors do nor breed huge amounts of highly radioactive wastes - as do the American styled uranium fissioning reactors or any reactor that fissions Uranium. Do your science! Correct your English. Don't jump to wild, baseless, assumptions. Canada can sell you copious amounts of Thorium at very good prices, so can India - the ball is in your park, time now for Japan's world renowned scientists to work hard on safer thorium fuelled reactors for a safer, cheaper, heat source for the world. Love all mankind. Do no harm. Japan about to embark on free trade with Canada! Welcome to the bigger world.

The government needs to come up with another campaign for this summer. Encourage men to go to the office wearing only fundoshi and hachimaki. Call it "Sweaty Biz."

noriyosan73Mar. 26, 2012 - 01:39PM JST

The uninformed and uneducated do not understand the consequences of the anti-nuclear position. Extremely hot offices, building, subways as well as homes and hotels. The closing of the facilities is an over reaction to the Fukushima event. The complaints will fill the pages in July and August.

Deep Lake Water Cooling in Toronto uses the ambient water temperature as air conditioning and the idea scaled multiple times around Japan would work perfectly for an island nation where large cities are near the shore. Call it hydro-thermal.

Going to bed at night, and waking up during sunlight would reduce loads at night.

Geothermal, onsen and solar thermal easily covers heating.

Wind energy that stores water for reliable electricity production. Japan has a lot of these things called mountains. Would work well there

Insulation would save losses in buildings and homes. Better building design would not point buildings into the summer sun but the winter sun instead. Know your environment. Pay attention when an awning is more useful in the summer than bad building design and air conditioning.

Solar thermal using salt can be 24/7 since the molten salt stores the solar energy at 500 C. There's a plant in Spain where this works 8 months of the year. It would be a non-zero effect and offset a lot.

Lots of jobs and redesign needed to get off the sauce. Japan has plenty of engineers and technicians and unemployed who would enjoy helping their country get off nuclear power. This would bring a new optimism to the country and be the best legacy of the 311.

I didn't even mention solar panels.

But hey, I guess I'm uninformed

Actually since you still need the high heat steam boilers to make the solar thermal Spain-style reactors, the nuclear reactors need not be dismantled, merely repurposed to a large solar array and a solar thermal tower. That would save major money by using similar equipment

Pull the plug on the last reactor. I'm tired of being sick.

Yes let's shut down the economy and turn up CO2. Now let's get rid of those dang motor cars and bring back horse.

@TheBigPicture: Could you please elaborate on your comment or have you misplaced your comment on the 'I'm looking for a Doctor page'?

I hope IAEA gets a peek at the ongiong case regarding a Tomari safety check:

Setsuo Fujiwara, who used to design reactors, said he clashed with supervisors over an inspection audit he conducted in March 2009 at the Tomari nuclear plant in Japan. Fujiwara refused to approve a routine test by the plant's operator, Hokkaido Electric Power, saying the test was flawed. A week later, he was summoned by his supervisor, who ordered him to correct his written report to indicate that the test had been done properly. After Fujiwara refused, his employment contract was not renewed. "They told me my job was just to approve reactors, not to raise doubts about them", said Fujiwara, 62, who is now suing the nuclear safety organization to get rehired.