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Japan softens commitment to nuclear power in draft growth strategy

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There is nothing about nuclear that is green! The sooner Japan moves away from it the better!

With most rivers already dammed in Japan anyway they should put hydro at the top of the list as a green alternative for baseload power.

-1 ( +3 / -4 )

zichi - The power companies are decommissioning 23 reactors.

Yea! Because they are all out of date and unsafe. However, they are still trying to squeeze a few more decades out the other aging plants built with 1970’s technology.

6 ( +6 / -0 )

Nuclear energy can run an aircraft carrier with 5000+ USA soldiers on board for 3 decades without refueling. No other form of renewable energy even comes close! ! !

Japan is an island nation with limit resources, we need all options on the table!

-Lets remember that Fukushima reactor was old. 1967 was built.

-Nuclear reactors evolve, get better, safer with time, smaller in size.

-If you compare the number of deaths from nuclear reactors with other forms of energy Nuclear is the safest by a big margin.

China building Nuclear Reactors by the dozen each year.

USA working on Small Modular Reactors or SMR. New generation of smaller size, safer reactors.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

There will be another nuclear disaster in Japan even though Fukushima Daiichi is totally out of control with technology available to solve this immense problem.

when the next one happens, and it will, Japanese government will say, “its beyond our imagination”.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

I’m all for renewables, but let’s be realistic. They aren’t reliable due to weather etc, and to compensate you need huge batteries, the manufacturing of which is awful for the environment. Nuclear can provide a stable, relatively clean supply of carbon-free power that can be supplemented by renewables.

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

Nuclear energy can run an aircraft carrier with 5000+ USA soldiers on board for 3 decades without refueling. 

Naval reactors use highly enriched bomb grade uranium and the cores last about 25 years, not 30. If they used the same grade of uranium used in commercial reactors they would have to refuel far more often. The other benefit of high enriched uranium is power density. It takes a lot of power to move a 100,000 ton carrier at the kind of speeds a Nimitz class can attain. A power plant using low enriched uranium would have to be physically larger and heavier to achieve the same shaft horsepower. The space and weight saved is available for carrying more ordnance and fuel for the air wing, and more armor for the reactor area. Using such high enriched uranium however requires a lot more care than with low enriched uranium used in civil reactors.

I think the eventual solution for civil power will be molten salt reactors. They may turn up on merchant ships combined with a generator as replaceable power packs, with the ships themselves driven by electric motors in Azipods. There is serious discussion of this in the maritime community now.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

It's a funny thing but dam failures have killed many thousands of people over the years yet we do not see the sorts of inchoate, knee jerk fear of dams that one sees of nuclear power. The public approaches dam projects in a more rational frame of mind. Should they? A big dam failing can obliterate a town or even a whole city. It has happened in the past. The greatest loss of life in one disaster in California was the failure of the San Francisquito Dam above LA. Over 450 dead in a couple of hours. Huge damage, towns washed away, major highways cut or buried. Worse happened with the Malpasset Dam blew out in France or when the Vajont Dam was overtopped by a 100 meter tall wave as a reservoir induced landslide, the very same thing that took out the San Francisquito Dam, displaced most of the reservoir and sent a wall of water over top of the dam killing 1910 people. The South Fork Dam failure in 1889 killed over 2200 and leveled towns in what is now called the Johnstown Flood. Over 171,000 were killed in 1975 when the Banqiao Dam failed during a typhoon in China. 171K dead. What a breathtaking number for one mishap. That is on the order of the number killed in both nuclear attacks in WWII (the range of figures for the number dead runs from a low of 129K to over 220K). Another thousand or more were killed when the Panshet Dam on the Ambi River near Pune failed circa 1961. Nuclear mishaps killed haven't anything close to the number of people killed by dam failures so which is more dangerous?

0 ( +2 / -2 )

It can happen. Of Japan’s damn failures over the last years, the one that stands out the most is Fujinuma Dam:

“ On 11 March 11, 2011, the dam failed 20-25 min after the Tōhoku earthquake as the nearly full reservoir overtopped the dam's crest. The flood washed away five houses while damaging others, disabling a bridge and blocked roads with debris. Eight people were reported missing yet only four bodies have been recovered.” -

Not a power generating dam, it was primarily for irrigation at just 18.5 metres. However, there are major concerns Japan’s overall infrastructure is increasingly deteriorating and they don’t don’t have the sufficient labour or resources to maintain the majority of it.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

SanjinosebleedToday 07:42 am JST

There is nothing about nuclear that is green! The sooner Japan moves away from it the better!

Green energy in Japan = destruction of forests to build solar energy plants, and setup of wind farms on top of mountains, where trees have to be cut and roads bull for access.

Go to Chiba prefecture and you will see all that solar plants replacing trees. And that impacts all the wildlife.

Nuclear must be kept.

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

Extending NPP after 40 years is like eating smelly rotten sashimi.

At your choice.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

with radiation levels putting them off-limits forever.

Are you sure? People live in Hiroshima and Nagasaki today.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

No way we go carbon neutral without nuclear. At least with current tech and even with feasible improvements to current green tech

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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