Star-viking comments

wallace

The World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2022 (HTML)

Produced by an anti-nuclear organisation, led by someone with no visible scientific qualifications (Mycle Schnider)

Two American reactors are costing $30 billion or $15 billion each. They are the first new reactors built in over three decades.

First-of-a-kind (FOAK) anything costs a significant amount of money. Even more so after decades-long enforced hiatus. The anti-nuclear types crow the costs to the world, and try to add costs by litigation and public protest.

The problem in Japan is the construction of any new reactors other than those started is difficult because of costs and local opposition to having an NPP.

$15 billion for a reactor is very expensive.

Well, FOAK. Even so, the Finns were happy to have their expensive new reactor when Putin was tightening the energy screws.

A plant like Fukushima with 6 reactors could cost $90 billion. The money the power companies do not have.

Fossil fuels cost too. The McKinsey report “Japan’s uncertain energy future in the post-Fukushima era” states these have cost an extra 28 billion dollars per year up to 2015, probably more now.

Also, the learning curve would drop the costs for subsequent reactors, and we have Small-Medium Reactors being designed with more inherent and passive safety to look forward to in the 2030s.

wallace

So the reactors are $15 billion, but they’re also $5.4 billion?

Did you pay no attention to the dates?

The current cost of a reactor is about $15 billion or $8,000 per MWh. As I posted in 2016, the cost was $5.4 billion. Now a three-fold price increase.

Your 2016 date looked like a poorly-formed attempt to provide a reference to your statement. As the reference was incomplete, I ignored it.

The nuclear industry, including Japan, receives mass government subsidies.

Do say?

Unfortunately renewables generally need lots more transmission lines, expensive ones as they have to be able to take the full output power even though many renewables rarely reach that.

I don't think that is quite correct. Most power from a renewable energy source goes to the nearest electric pole. I am a former electrical engineer.

My background is in physics and engineering. Please explain to me how the lines that bring the variable renewable power of wind and solar do not have to be rated for the maximum probable power output.

They need grid reinforcement and other updates to deal with variability, and power storage and peaker plants to jump in and deal with short-term power cut-outs. Long-term is a completely different matter though

None of that is right.

So the grid does not need reinforcement and storage because of the addition of variable renewable energy (VRE)? News to me.

Hydrogen and ammonia turbines are in their infancy, and have almost zero infrastructure support.

Actually if you read up the Japanese American companies are in production but yes still a way to go.

Long way to go, though at least turbines have been run on hydrogen in jets.

Replacing coal-fired plants is a priority.

Tell that to the Green movement.

Which green movement is supporting coal?

Germany’s at least. Oh, they say they want rid of them, but their actions imply the opposite.

Fukushima became a mass taxpayer burden over the next 100 years, probably more than ¥80 trillion without providing a single watt of power.

That’s what once-in-a-thousand year catastrophic events do.

Nuclear energy in Japan was 27%. The target was 50% by 2040. That is now gone to the wind.

Maybe nuclear energy could reach 15% now so the other 85% needs to be generated from other fuels, mostly fossil.

But then there’s the wee problem of climate change…

ableko45

Is it significant that the suspect targeted a western car and also killed the half-white daughter? Of course i don't know the answer.

Racists often see those who associate with other ethnicities as “race traitors”, and think those people should be eliminated too.

Of course, Japan being Japan, the killer will probably say that the victims were disturbing the “wa”, and so had to be eliminated.

wallace

The cost of building new reactors has become very expensive costing about $15 billion or about $8,000 per MWh. 

.Feb 29, 2016

Advanced nuclear reactors are estimated to cost $5,366 for every kilowatt of capacity. That means a large 1-gigawatt reactor would cost around $5.4 billion to build, excluding financing costs.

So the reactors are $15 billion, but they’re also $5.4 billion?

Renewable energy is now about $50 per MWh.

You’re mixing units of energy and power. However, if that was all that was needed, that’d be grand. Amazing what low-cost grants will do.

Unfortunately renewables generally need lots more transmission lines, expensive ones as they have to be able to take the full output power even though many renewables rarely reach that.

They need grid reinforcement and other updates to deal with variability, and power storage and peaker plants to jump in and deal with short-term power cut-outs. Long-term is a completely different matter though

I understand and accept the current renewables cannot replace the energy entirely generated by fossil fuels. Generating an overnight load of 25% is a problem.

Hydrogen and ammonia turbines are good and can be used in existing plants.

Hydrogen and ammonia turbines are in their infancy, and have almost zero infrastructure support.

Replacing coal-fired plants is a priority.

Tell that to the Green movement.

There is also the problem of the Nuclear Liability Law that limits the amount paid by the power companies in a nuclear accident like Fukushima to a maximum of ¥120 billion. Fukushima will cost many tens of trillions.

At some point, countries have to step up and shoulder the liabilities of utilities for rare events. However, there is a side of me that wishes that TEPCO was hit with all the costs by the acclamation of the public, bankrupting them, and leaving Tokyo without power.

Kenta Izumi, leader of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, criticized the nuclear power policy shift, saying the government is not making sufficient efforts to increase the use of renewable energy.

The CDPJ, which aims to raise the proportion of renewables in power generation to 50 percent in 2030, has told the government that initiatives such as the accelerated introduction of renewable energy and the improvement of transmission lines will be enough to ensure stable power supply.

This is the core of the problem here - know-nothing politicians taking their lead from single-minded activist groups.

As Anomymous refers to above - look what that got Germany.

Kenta Izumi has absolutely ZERO science or engineering knowledge, but he aims for renewables to be 50% of power generation in 2030.

He tells the government that “improved transmission lines” will ensure stable power supply.

Germany had 46% renewables in 2021 - does Izumi plan to be guzzling gas and burning coal to back up his plan, just like Germany is doing now? Will he have a change of heart at the last moment, and try desperately to preserve what NPPs are left?

Far better a 50% renewables and 50% nuclear goal, but the CDPJ would have to be open to professional advice, to be able to think, and be willing to sell the plan to their electorate. Of course, it’s easier for them to sell fairy dust to their voters…

Awa no Gaijin

Nuclear fission power plants are not carbon neutral !

None are, but nuclear power plants are among the lowest carbon mainstream power plants.

wallace

guess maybe you don't realise but many of the Japanese NPPs were constructed on earthquake fault lines and is a country with a high number of powerful earthquakes.

I think there’s one or two with disputed fault lines in the plant area. Also, powerful earthquakes are factored into NPP design in Japan.

Everyone who was associated with the Japanese nuclear industry, the power companies, the atomic safety agencies, and the government, believed that a serious nuclear accident like Fukushima could never happen.

Nobody believed a M9+ earthquake and tsunami could occur in Japan.

The cost of building the plant was put before the important safety standards. The cliff face was lowered to accommodate the cooling fans and pumps instead of placing them on the cliff which would have required larger more expensive ones. The emergency generators are located at or below sea level in the basements of the turbine halls with waterproof doors. The reactor buildings were not watertight.

The cliff had to be lowered because the ground the plant was on had to be lowered so the plant could be built on bedrock.

I guess they could have kept the cliff, and drilled through it to place the water pipes - but then we could have been facing a meltdown due to cliff debris damaging the pipes.

Tom SanToday  11:12 am JST

Feelings are facts

And they don’t produce a Watt of power, and are a poor driver of national policy.

Some really crazy answers here.

Let the power go out instead of starting nukes? How many people will die if power goes out over large areas of Japan? What about people in care homes, hospitals, schools, etc?

Geothermal? Are you going to build a load of geothermal plants in a week? Do you know how hit-and-miss geothermal drilling is? You can plan a geothermal plant, drill, and get nothing - all the money goes down the drain. All that power is no good if you can’t access it reliably. And the geothermal plants also can bring up nice things like arsenic to the surface.

And planting trees - not going to make a difference for years.

Japan has dozens of nukes with post-Fukushima updates ready to go. Their electricity would solve the problem a few time over. Get them running

as_the_crow_fliesToday  03:55 pm JST

Playing Devil's advocate here though, it is difficult to compare Fukushima thyroid cancer rates with the rest of Japan, because there had not been extensive screening nationwide before the Fukushima programme, so they lacked data to compare with. But, but, that begs the question of why they didn't set up a mass national screening programme from 2011, to the present, in order to track and compare rates close to and far from the plant?

The environment ministry ran screenings in Nagasaki, Yamanashi, and Aomori in 2012-13. Their rates were higher than Fukushima.

A complete national screening programme would just have resulted in tens of thousands of kids getting their thyroids cut out “just in case”, as modern ultrasound scanners pick up any and all anomalies - even those that are little threat, or even no threat to the kids.

"Would Japan be more secure after doubling its military budget? Most likely not, even though the alliance with the United States might be strengthened," Saaler wrote from Frankfurt, Germany, where he is currently on a sabbatical leave.

As a German, Saaler might be aware of how Belgium and the Netherlands neglected their armed forces in the 1930s - leaving the Nazis free to steamroller over them. I write “might be aware” because I suspect Saaler has no interest in facts which negate his dogmatic views.

Not quite true zichi: the plutonium is NOT weapons-grade, it is in the spent nuclear fuel, mixed in with the remaining uranium fuel and highly radioactive actinides. It would be a gargantuan task to separate the weapons-grade plutonium from all that and produce a viable weapon, if it were possible at all.

If he had a valid reason, he should had communicated it to his employer because he knew the consequences of such an action

Sadly, from personal experience, that is not the way things work here. It would be seen as “trying to bend the rules”, the rules not considering that people have legitimate reasons for crossing prefectural borders, like wanting to return to their family, or care for a loved one.

I don’t suppose anyone has considered why the 20-something worker went to Sendai?

Go back to his home? Many worksites have temporary dorms for workers to sleep in during the working week

Related to that: go back to his family, see his wife and child?

Or: go back to his parents/grandparents and help them out?

Or: go back to see his doctor and/or get a repeat prescription?

It doesn’t just have to be “took off to have a good time”.

I see the myth of Kan standing up to TEPCO is still alive.

> Tepco Executive Vice President Sakae Muto, 60, ordered his subordinates at the head office to craft an evacuation plan, while Fukushima No. 1 chief Masao Yoshida started to secure enough buses. Procedures to send employees to Tepco’s Fukushima No. 2 nuclear plant were also being decided.

Shimizu, Tepco’s 66-year-old president, phoned Kaieda, who had been placed in charge of dealing with the unfolding disaster, and Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano, 46, repeatedly to seek approval for the “evacuation” of workers.

But Shimizu did not communicate clearly that Tepco would maintain a minimum core of employees to monitor the situation and continue to oversee water injection into the three reactors that had suffered core meltdowns.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/09/23/national/tepco-plea-evacuate-enraged-kan/#.XmXD0S-RWfA

Good post Zichi.

I have my suspicions that Greenpeace are doing what they did in their initial "survey" of Fukushima City just after the accident: pushing readings at drains and trees, which funnel a lot of rainwater, and so get a lot of radionuclides coming down to the drain, roots in the case of trees.

They published the research from their Fukushima trip - headlines about "massive readings" in Fukushima City, much higher than the government were reporting. I went though the Excel file, summed the readings and took the average. Looked at the radiation reading for Fukushima City (we had those in the Tohoku newspapers at that time) - exactly the same as the Greenpeace average for Fukushima City. But Greenpeace were not interested in the average, just fear-inducing headlines that drove families apart and made people feel like they were unclean outcasts.

marcelito,

Great news!

@Star viking - What are you taking about? The article says that Tohoku Electric expects to pay 340 billion yen on the countermeasures.

What Im talking about is that TE expects to pay 340 billion , and it pays 35 billion per year in additional fuel replacement cost as the article states ( vis below )....so thats roughly 10 years of the extra fuel costs saved just to recover the countermeasures spending as it is today , that what Im talking about...

Tohoku Electric applied for a safety screening for the No. 2 reactor in December 2013, and its restart would save the utility 35 billion yen annually in fuel costs.

If you check my latest post above, you'll see that Tohoku Electric can be expected to get ¥100 billion per year from Onagawa 2's electricity - probably 70 billion with costs removed (according to Zichi's calcs). So, making 70 billion yen, and saving 35 billion yen in fuel costs is 105 billion yen per year - they could, if they wanted to, pay for the countermeasures in a little over 3 years.

@Don Palmer The underlying paper is from The IZA Institute of Labor Economics in Bonn Germany funded by the Deutsche Post Foundation."

Well....on the first page of the paper you quote it has a disclaimer that states -* Any opinions in this paper are those of the authors and not IZA and IZA takes no institutional policy positions****....so the paper is not IZA official opinion paper but merely as it says "preliminary work circulated to encourage discussion " by the authors ....also containing another nice disclaimer - "citation of such paper should account for its provisional character*** " which of course you conveniently don,t mention.

Tellingly, , the author researchers "*acknowledge support from Ministry of Health ,Labour and Welfare of Japan ***"** in providing figures for the research and also " *acknowledge financial support from Japan Society for the Promotion of Science,** ( a quasi government agency aka amakudari hotbed that used to be under auspices of Ministry of Education,Culture,, Sports , Science and Technology till 2003 and*

*Murata Science Foundation**, ( run by Murata Electronics, a major J-Inc player company ).*

marcelito, this is conspiracy-theory level stuff. The paper has a proper disclaimer, and we will have to wait to see how the final peer-reviewed paper is.

Of course there is support from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare: where do you think the health stats come from.

And as for your animus towards the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, do a Google Scholar search for it, with the words "Grant-in-aid" added: around 129,000 results. All, nasty stuff like:

Physarum solver: A biologically inspired method of road-network navigation

Mutations affecting components of the SWI/SNF complex cause Coffin-Siris syndrome

The use of induced pluripotent stem cells in drug development

The fact is, academic research is supported by a range of organisations, using data from other organisations, with the intent to increase knowledge.

Zichi,

Star-viking

"marcelito, the costs of the extra LNG that Japan has had to buy to cover the shuttered nuclear reactors runs to between 10 and 15 trillion yen per year, 30 to 45 times the total Tohoku Electric will spend."

Compared with the eventual costs of dealing with the nuclear disaster site will be more than ¥100 trillion not including the costs of the nuclear waste storage for tens of thousands of years.

Which has nothing to do with Onagawa.

Or the costs to decommission 24 reactors , ¥60 billion each and again does not include the cost of nuclear waste storage.

Nuclear plant operators do have decommissioning funds that should, at least, offset some of that cost. There is also the increasing use of SAFSTOR to consider: closing the reactor concerned, defuelling it, and then keeping it under observation as the radioactivity of contaminate parts reduces over the 60 years of the programme.

In future, the available reactors can only generate about 15% of total power. About half prior to the 3/11 disasters. Renewable energy could be upped to supply 30% and coal burning replaced by LNG. But the power companies all signed long term contracts for Australia coal. 

Disregarding the fact that we want to end all fossil fuel use to avoid disastrous climate change, there is no guarantee that prices will not rise for LNG.

The No2 reactor became operational in 1995 so in 2011 was 16 years and now technically, 23 years. 825 MW capacity with about 60% for 60% of the time. That means the reactor generates 495MW for 14 months out of the two year reactor cycle. Then shuts for about six months for refuelling.

¥20/kWh. 495000 kWh x ¥20¥-costs =¥6 = ¥14. profits for the cycle = ¥7 million pre tax.

Where you are getting your stats? From the IAEA*, Onagawa 2 has supplied 81.16 TWh over its lifetime, with an availability of 48.6 % - however this includes the shutdown years - at pre-shutdown the availability was 73.9% - 588 MW. Per year that is 5153 GWh, or 5,153,017,440 kWh.

At ¥20/kWh, that's ¥103,060,348,800 - 100 billion yen per year, neglecting costs.

Working with your stats:

495 MW for 14 months is 495,000 kW x 10220 hours - 5,058,900,000 kWh

Multiplying that by ¥20/kWh gives 101,178,000,000 yen - 101 billion yen per year

So, our basic stats match.

3 years and 4 months of Onagawa 2 operating would pay off the costs of the updates - and also reduce fossil fuel costs enormously.

marcellito,

I call BS on that ..20,000 additional deaths in Japan since 2011 due to Japan,s use of extra imported LNG / fossil fuels... who funded the researchers " for this paper? 

Very conspiracy-theoresque response there.

There have been a few papers on the issue of avoidable deaths from knee-jerk government reactions to the Fukushima accident:

"Be Cautious with the Precautionary Principle: Evidence from Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident", Matthew Neidell, Columbia University; University of Chicago; Shinsuke Uchida, Shinshu University; University of Maryland; Marcella Veronesi, University of Verona, Institute of Labor Economics Discussion Paper No. 12687

Summary: Rise in electricity prices after the NPP shutdowns lead to increased mortality during cold weather - they suggest 1,280 extras deaths over the 4 years 2011-2014. Note, this is a preliminary discussion paper.

"Implications of energy and CO2 emission changes in Japan and Germany after the Fukushima accident", Pushker A. Kharecha, Makiko Sato, Columbia University Earth Institute, Energy Policy Vol. 132

Summary: Post-Fukushima CO2 emission rises in Japan and Germany were limited despite major cuts in nuclear power. This was due to record-high renewable power levels and lower/steady total energy use. However large amounts of emissions and deaths were avoidable if coal and gas were reduced instead of nuclear. These avoidable impacts will make it harder to meet near-term national mitigation targets. Major energy users should reduce fossil fuels instead of or before nuclear. 

Bet it was some research tank / university expert with a grant that can be traced to N power interests as usual.

Nope.

marcellito,

But then you are comparing LNG imports for the whole country , not just Tohoku Electric which as the article says spends 35 billion per year...so thats 10 years operation for them. If we were to compare apples with apples we would need the cost of restarts for all the idled plants vs the total cost of Japans imports.....then again as zichi rightly points out, that doesnt even begin to describe the picture of the total clean up fo Daiichi mess, future decomissioning and storage etc....as we all know, the taxpayer will be hit for those.... profits to the power companies and future expenses to the taxpayer...what a sweet deal for the N village.

What are you taking about? The article says that Tohoku Electric expects to pay 340 billion yen on the countermeasures.

Flute,

I see no reference of 1μSv. But perhaps, I missed it. Which line ?

Apologies, I mixed up my millis and micros, so the yearly dose from remaining outside 24 hours a day, 365 days a year would have been about 26 milliSieverts. 8 hours a day would be about 9 mSv (close to dose from radon in Cornwall).

Nippori Nick,

Believe it or not, Japan did not invent the Washlet - they did buy the patent off the US inventor though.

marcelito, the costs of the extra LNG that Japan has had to buy to cover the shuttered nuclear reactors runs to between 10 and 15 trillion yen per year, 30 to 45 times the total Tohoku Electric will spend.

I don't know about the rest of Japan, but in Tohoku many toilet facilities, especially JR ones, lack soap. A major sanitation fail.

Add "setsuden" to the mix, hand dryers blasting cold air, washets squirting freezing water up people's behinds - and you can see that hygene is not really taken seriously in Japan.

Flute

Is that so ?

They talk about 1mSv (the yearly increase according to the Professor) and 3μSv (the Geiger counter reading). There is 0.1μSv/h natural one in Japan according to the author (I preferred the wkipedia for this one : 0.27μSv). Then there is the mathematics one. 

I see no reference of 1μSv. But perhaps, I missed it. Which line ?

It's possible I made an error (for me, posting in the morning ranks with doing mental maths on the spot as being prone to that). I'll check after the weekend and respond.

Zichi,

A comprehensive and informative post, as usual. However, I have to tell you: you don’t have to worry about radiation doses from MRIs - they use magnetic fields, not ionizing radiation.

Ref: https://hps.org/publicinformation/ate/q10731.html

Flute,

Since I do not found where that came from, I choose to ignore it

It comes from the link in the quote at the top of my post.

Alfie,

Well, they tried bringing in malleable propagandists like Prof Geraldine Thomas but her spin was quickly exposed and her notorious BBC piece filmed in Fukushima was actually deleted from the BBC website.

https://nuclear-news.net/2016/03/14/nuclear-propagandist-prog-geraldine-thomas-comfortable-but-incorrect-spin-on-fukushima/

From what I can recall of the video, at most it shows the ill-advisedness of doing mental maths on the spot.

From your link, based on Dr Chris Busby’s piece on Russia Today, let’s look at his maths - not done on the spot, and using a calculator:

“Now anyone with a calculator can easily multiply 3 microSieverts (3 x 10-6 Sv) by 24 hours and 365 days. The answer comes out to be 26 mSv (0.026Sv), not “about 1mSv” as the “leading expert on the health effects of radiation” reported.”

But the problem is, Dr Busby makes this calculation because Professor Thomas says:

“At one point, Rupert pulled out his Geiger counter and read the dose: 3 microSieverts per hour. “How much radiation would it give in a year to people who came back here,” he asked. Thomas replied: “About an extra milliSievert a year, which is not much considering you get 2mSv a year from natural background”.”

So, when Prof Thomas is talking about an extra microSievert on the natural background, Dr Busby takes the total and multiplies it by 24 x 365.

Prof Thomas may have made a mistake in her mental maths, but Dr Busby has made a mistake with something he had much more time to work on.

And to finish off, here’s some maths on Prof Thomas’ point:

1 microSievert x 24 x 365 = 8760 microSieverts = 8.76 milliSieverts extra

Certainly not as striking as 26 milliSieverts extra

Of course, people will not be standing outside for 24 hours every day of the year: in fact, I would hazard a guess that 2 hours in total would be a reasonable number (given that farming is suspended).

That would give 730 microSieverts extra = 0.73 milliSieverts - less than Prof Thomas’ quoted extra dose.

If we go for 3 hours outside, it matches well - just under 1.1 milliSieverts extra dose.

So, if tl/dr: Dr Busby’s maths is much worse than Prof Thomas’ math - and that’s if Prof Thomas’ is bad at all.

Prof Thomas may have made a mistake in her mental maths, but Dr Busby has made a mistake with something he had much more time to work on.

daito_hak,

I am sorry but I don’t think that Yoshino deserves the Nobel. 

I come from the physical sciences side of things, and there would once have been a time that I would have agreed with that statement, though maybe more whimsically (caused by Physical Science vs. Engineering rivalry)

However, seeing how basic research inspires other researchers to devote their time to using that research to benefit society, I certainly can't agree with that viewpoint at all now, and consider Engineering work like Prof. Yoshino's as fully deserving of a Nobel in Chemistry. After all, engineering is applied Science*.

And most universities with which I am familiar with in Japan have their chemistry departments in their engineering faculties.

kurisupisu,

"The biggest contribution to environmental protection is spreading the use of solar and wind power technologies that have an unstable electricity output," he said.

So, why doesn’t Japan have a more aggressive stance on promoting these technologies and not nuclear power?

Because the energy-storage required to replace large sections of the power-generating sector would be astronomical. Most batteries are used to smooth the output of wind and solar power, saving large amount of that power for when the sun doesn't shine nor the wind blow is another ballpark.

A few years before the incident, officials at Fukushima were warned of a tsunami the size of the one that hit, but they ignored the advice because it was too expensive.

No, they did not ignore the warning: they were investigating it, which was a hell of a lot more than anyone else was doing: hence 20,000 tsunami deaths in Tohoku.