Panel: Nuclear to remain key Japan energy source

[bananas]

Source: Associated Press

Japan should continue to use nuclear power as a key energy source despite the Fukushima power plant disaster, a government panel said Friday in a reversal of a phase-out plan by the previous government.

The draft energy plan issued by the panel underscores Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's push to restart as many nuclear reactors as possible under new, stricter safety requirements that took effect this past summer.

<snip>

The draft plan also urges Japan to continue with its plan to reprocess spent nuclear fuel to extract plutonium despite international concerns about the country's large stockpile of the highly toxic element that can be used to make nuclear weapons.

Japan has 44 tons of plutonium at home and overseas after unsuccessfully pushing to establish a system in which it is extracted from spent fuel rods and then made into hybrid fuel that can be reused. Experts say the stockpile poses a nuclear security threat and raises questions over whether Japan plans to develop nuclear weapons, which the government denies.

<snip>

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_JAPAN_NUCLEAR?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-12-06-11-03-44

---

From March:

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/03/16/national/abe-purges-energy-board-of-antinuclear-experts/

Abe purges energy board of antinuclear experts
6 of 8 panelists who voted to phase out atomic power by 2030s axed
Bloomberg Mar 16, 2013

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government has removed most of the antinuclear researchers appointed to a post-Fukushima energy policy board that was advising the state, it was learned Friday.

After his Liberal Democratic Party won a landslide victory in December’s Lower House election, Abe said the ousted Democratic Party of Japan administration’s policy of abandoning atomic power had to be reconsidered by his own team to help revive the economy.

Six of the eight members who voted for phasing out nuclear power while advising the DPJ have been dropped from the panel. Another 10 were reappointed, including Akio Mimura, an adviser to Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp.

Mimura, now chairman of the panel, which resumed discussions Friday, once headed an energy advisory board under a previous LDP government that promoted nuclear power.

<snip>

Don't be fooled by the name, the "Liberal Democratic Party" is right-wing.

[AAO]

1. The greed is always in control.

[debunkthis]

2. For as long as we choose to allow it

We are many, they are few. When enough of us wake up to this reality there will be change.

[kristopher]

3. Abe's government really worries me.

Not only in this area, but they
- are moving hard in the direction of stripping the pledge to not use war as an instrument of policy from the constitution,
- are moving hard in the direction of becoming a nuclear armed state,
- are moving in the direction of stripping constitutional provisions that severely weaken democracy in Japan,
- yesterday passed a national secrets act that virtually eliminates public access to information on anything any legislator or bureaucrat wants to keep hidden,


From today's news:
Diet enacts controversial state secrets bill
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/12/06/national/secrets-bill-poised-for-passage/

Japan moving to lift arms exports ban
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/politics/AJ201312060062


Everything you'd expect from a government that embraces nuclear power as "good" even after an event like Fukushima.

If anyone hasn't read the piece below it is highly recommended for it's insight into the way energy supply has the potential to shape culture.

Energy Strategy: The Road Not Taken
AUTHOR: Lovins, Amory
DOCUMENT ID: E77-01
YEAR: 1976
DOCUMENT TYPE: Journal or Magazine Article
PUBLISHER: Foreign Affairs

In this landmark piece from 1976, Amory Lovins describes the two energy choices then facing the nation. There is the "hard path" and the "soft path". This path resembles federal policy of the time and is essentially an extrapolation of the recent past. The hard path relies on rapid expansion of centralized high technologies to increase supplies of energy, especially in the form of electricity. The second path combines a prompt and serious commitment to efficient use of energy, rapid development of renewable energy sources matched in scale and in energy quality to end-use needs, and special transitional fossil-fuel technologies. This path diverges radically from incremental past practices to pursue long-term goals. Lovins argues that both paths present difficult—but very different—problems. The first path is convincingly familiar, but the economic and sociopolitical problems then facing the nation loomed large and insuperable. The second path, though it represents a shift in direction, offers many social, economic and geopolitical advantages, including virtual elimination of nuclear proliferation from the world. For Lovins, it is important to recognize that the two paths are mutually exclusive. Because commitments to the first may foreclose the second, Loins argues that we must choose one or the other—before failure to stop nuclear proliferation has foreclosed both.
http://www.rmi.org/Knowledge-Center/Library/E77-01_EnergyStrategyRoadNotTaken

Directly download the paper with this link:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/nacwj7d

BTW, did you know tinyurl has a feature that lets you see where their link goes?

[Art_from_Ark]

6. Here's another thing you can add to your list

In the last election (July 21), electronic/cyber voting was used for the first time. In previous elections, voters would go to the polling places and actually write in the names of their preferred candidates, and the ballots were counted by hand. But now, voting has become "convenient"...

[hunter]

4. Well, let's see. They can burn coal or LNG...

... or they can sit around cold, hungry and unemployed in dark waiting for some kind of solar miracle.

Germany shut their nuclear plants and replaced them with coal and natural gas. Japan could do that too, but coal sucks as bad or worse than nuclear power. A coal mine and power plant belch out many tons of greenhouse gases, carcinogens, toxins, and even radioactivity every day in their normal operation. Germany's solar and wind schemes were essentially greenwash.

Before anyone accuses me of being pro-nuclear again (and again, and again...) remember I advocate something much more radical -- the end of "consumer society" and "economic productivity" as we now know it. Throw away the cars, the big box stores, the highways; increase the density of cities and pull out of suburbs and other low density populated areas that are not suitable for high intensity organic agriculture; create a society where walking becomes the primary mode of transportation, etc., etc.

If that's not the sort of society you want, living and working on farms that look rather Amish, or in a dense urban environment, then you've got to pick your poison: Nuclear, fossil fuels, or expensive and environmentally destructive "alternative energy" schemes.

[kristopher]

5. That's rather remarkable logic you've chosen to use

You say you don't advocate for nuclear, yet you make a false presentation of facts relating to Germany shutting down nuclear plants. And coincidently, the false narrative you weave is the same one promoters of nuclear use.

You say you don't advocate for nuclear, yet you make a false presentation of facts relating to the relative risk of radiation from coal power and nuclear power. Coincidently, this false narrative is also the same one promoters of nuclear use.

You say you don't advocate for nuclear, yet you make a false presentation of facts relating to the options available to the Japanese in their energy choices. Coincidently, the false narrative regarding the inability of renewable energy sources to meet modern Japan's needs is, you guessed it, also the same one promoters of nuclear use.

You say you don't advocate for nuclear, yet you make a false presentation of facts relating to the options available to the everyone in their energy choices. Coincidently, the false narrative regarding the inability of renewable energy sources to meet modern society's needs is, you guessed it, also the same one promoters of nuclear use.

You say you don't advocate for nuclear, yet you make a false presentation of facts relating to the relative economic and environmental cost of "alternative energy" sources. Coincidently, this false narrative is yet again exactly the same one that avid promoters of nuclear use.

You say you don't advocate for nuclear, yet you make a false presentation of facts relating to the relative economic and environmental cost of "alternative energy" sources. Coincidently, this false assertion is yet again exactly the same one that avid promoters of nuclear use.

You say you don't advocate for nuclear, yet you refer to "alternative energy" sources and the plans for their use as "schemes", a word connoting unethical behavior. Coincidently, this type of verbiage regarding efforts to move to renewables is an absolute favorite among avid promoters of nuclear.

All of that taken together has the appearance of not being coincidental at all.

[hunter]

7. I'll put you down for the "Bass-O-Matic" option.

Those expensive and environmentally destructive alternative energy schemes that shred wildlife.

I've made my position very clear over the years. I oppose further expansion of electric power networks or highways, in fact, I'd like to see major contractions of both. I loathe automobiles. I think "alternative energy" developments on undeveloped land, especially the Southwestern deserts of the U.S.A., to be utterly obscene.

In my utopia we are removing highways, dams, and high voltage power lines and restoring the land to its natural state.

Explain to me how I support nuclear power when I don't even support the large regional electric power grids such nuclear power plants require?

[kristopher]

11. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Save it.

You HAVE made your position clear - you promote nuclear energy while pretending you are anti-technology. The glaring contradiction in that obviously escapes you.

[FreakinDJ]

8. socioeconomic status and race/ethnicity

About 30 percent of respondents favored increased reliance on nuclear energy, despite admitting the possibility of a serious accident. About 10 percent favored greater reliance on coal, while acknowledging the fossil fuel’s role in global warming. The strongest correlates of the two groups were socioeconomic status and race/ethnicity. The acknowledged nuclear risk-taker group was affluent, educated white males, and the coal group was relatively poor, less educated African-American and Latino females. The three consistent factors across both groups were older age, trust in those who manage energy facilities and the belief that energy facilities help the local economy.

http://news.rutgers.edu/research-news/energy-debate-coal-vs-nuclear/20110609#.UqN2zebTnVI

I venture a guess of less educated

Human-caused climate change and air pollution remain major global-scale problems and are both due mostly to fossil fuel burning. Mitigation efforts for both of these problems should be undertaken concurrently in order to maximize effectiveness. Such efforts can be accomplished largely with currently available low-carbon and carbon-free alternative energy sources like nuclear power and renewables, as well as energy efficiency improvements.

?1366307300


Figure 1. Cumulative net deaths prevented assuming nuclear power replaces fossil fuels. The top panel (a) shows results for the historical period in our study (1971-2009), with mean values (labeled) and ranges for the baseline historical scenario. The middle (b) and bottom (c) panels show results for the high-end and low-end projections, respectively, of nuclear power supply estimated by the IAEA (ref. 4) for the period 2010-2050. Error bars reflect the ranges for the fossil fuel mortality factors listed in Table 1 of our paper. The larger columns in panels (b) and (c) reflect the all-coal case and are labeled with their mean values, while the smaller columns reflect the all-gas case; values for the latter are not shown because they are all simply a factor of about 10 lower (reflecting the order-of-magnitude difference between the mortality factors for coal and gas). Countries/regions are arranged in descending order of CO2 emissions in recent years. FSU15=15 countries of the Former Soviet Union and OECD=Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

In a recently published paper (ref. 1), we provide an objective, long-term, quantitative analysis of the effects of nuclear power on human health (mortality) and the environment (climate). Several previous scientific papers have quantified global-scale greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions avoided by nuclear power, but to our knowledge, ours is the first to quantify avoided human deaths as well as avoided GHG emissions on global, regional, and national scales.

?1366307431

Figure 2. Mean net deaths prevented annually by nuclear power between 1971-2009 for various countries/regions. Ranges not shown but are a factor of ~4 higher and lower than the mean values.


http://climate.nasa.gov/news/903

[kristopher]

9. Can you locate polling that includes renewables?

The "it's either coal or nuclear" is a favorite fallacy of the nuclear industry where they commit the sin of omission by not including renewables in discussions about what the public prefers.

Here is the abstract from the paper the researchers wrote about their survey.

Energy Choices and Risk Beliefs: Is It Just Global Warming and Fear of a Nuclear Power Plant Accident?
A survey of 3,200 U.S. residents focused on two issues associated with the use of nuclear and coal fuels to produce electrical energy. The first was the association between risk beliefs and preferences for coal and nuclear energy. As expected, concern about nuclear power plant accidents led to decreased support for nuclear power, and those who believed that coal causes global warming preferred less coal use. Yet other risk beliefs about the coal and nuclear energy fuel cycles were stronger or equal correlates of public preferences. The second issue is the existence of what we call acknowledged risk takers, respondents who favored increased reliance on nuclear energy, although also noting that there could be a serious nuclear plant accident, and those who favored greater coal use, despite acknowledging a link to global warming. The pro-nuclear group disproportionately was affluent educated white males, and the pro-coal group was relatively poor less educated African-American and Latino females. Yet both shared four similarities: older age, trust in management, belief that the energy facilities help the local economy, and individualistic personal values. These findings show that there is no single public with regard to energy preferences and risk beliefs. Rather, there are multiple populations with different viewpoints that surely would benefit by hearing a clear and comprehensive national energy life cycle policy from the national government.

"The pro-nuclear group disproportionately was affluent educated white males, and the pro-coal group was relatively poor less educated African-American and Latino females. Yet both shared four similarities: older age, trust in management, belief that the energy facilities help the local economy, and individualistic personal values."

Another way to describe that set of characteristics would be to label the set as part of "traditional values."


Now, here is a much more comprehensive and deeper analysis that looked at a

The Future of Nuclear Power: Value Orientations and Risk Perception
Stephen C. Whitfield,1 Eugene A. Rosa,2 Amy Dan,3 and Thomas Dietz3;

Abstract
Since the turn of the 21st century, there has been a revival of interest in nuclear power. Two decades ago, the expansion of nuclear power in the United States was halted by widespread public opposition as well as rising costs and less than projected increases in demand for electricity. Can the renewed enthusiasm for nuclear power overcome its history of public resistance that has persisted for decades? We propose that attitudes toward nuclear power are a function of perceived risk, and that both attitudes and risk perceptions are a function of values, beliefs, and trust in the institutions that influence nuclear policy. Applying structural equation models to data from a U.S. national survey, we find that increased trust in the nuclear governance institutions reduces perceived risk of nuclear power and together higher trust and lower risk perceptions predict positive attitudes toward nuclear power. Trust in environmental institutions and perceived risks from global environmental problems do not predict attitudes toward nuclear power. Values do predict attitudes: individuals with traditional values have greater support for, while those with altruistic values have greater opposition to, nuclear power. Nuclear attitudes do not vary by gender, age, education, income, or political orientation, though nonwhites are more supportive than whites. These findings are consistent with, and provide an explanation for, a long series of public opinion polls showing public ambivalence toward nuclear power that persists even in the face of renewed interest for nuclear power in policy circles.

Google the title if you'd like a copy of the article, it is available for download.

That can be summarized thus:

1) Attitudes toward nuclear power are a result of perceived risk

2) Attitudes and risk perceptions are determined by previously held values and beliefs that serve to determine the level of trust in the nuclear industry.

3) Increased trust in the nuclear industry reduces perceived risk of nuclear power

4) Therefore, higher trust in the nuclear industry and the consequent lower risk perceptions predict positive attitudes toward nuclear power.

5) Traditional values are defined here as assigning priority to family, patriotism, and stability

6) Altruism is defined as a concern with the welfare of other humans and other species.

7) Neither trust in environmental institutions nor perceived risks from global environmental problems predict a person’s attitudes toward nuclear power.

8) Those with traditional values tend to embrace nuclear power; while those with altruistic values more often reject nuclear power.

9) Altruism is recognized as a dependable predictor of various categories of environmental concern.

10) Traditional values are associated with less concern for the environment and are unlikely to lead to pro-environmental behavioral intentions.

What this comes to is that when surveyed among a group of choices where the respondents can choose as many options as they wish, the same group that support coal, also supports nuclear power, petroleum, natural gas, wind and solar.

However, the numbers for wind and solar will be far higher than those for either coal or nuclear (which are almost identical) as the people with environmental values based on altruism reject both coal and nuclear.

Also, I fiind it interesting how you automatically zoomed in on education as the salient feature of the split, when affluence (and a corresponding investment in the existing power structure of society) is also clearly presented as a factor.

When we look at the broader studies of all energy options we find that the "all of the above group" is strongly (not perfectly) correlated with a conservative or libertarian ideological identity, while the renewable only group is very strongly correlated with progressive ideological identity.

I'll write a separate response to the second piece you've included.

[kristopher]

10. The avoided deaths analysis is valid as far as it goes.

You are familiar with Bjorn Lomborg aren't you? He does a lot of that type of analysis, and his are equally as valid. I doubt you'll be using any of his studies anytime soon, however, because like the one you've posted they are usually designed to create an impression rather than fully inform a wider analysis of a problem.

So the real research question only begins with whether nuclear power saved lives and we can agree on that part - it did.

But next part isn't addressed: what did we give up to save those lives? Put in econ terms, what were the opportunity costs?

Is there a study telling us what the world might have looked at had we continued down the path of renewables begun in the 70s?
What impact did the heavy investment in nuclear, with its massive losses, have on the progress of renewables? We already knew carbon was a serious problem, did the debacle with nuclear investment impact the public's appetite for and willingness to spend on a transition away from carbon?
That leads to the final question once those are answered, how many lives would have been saved between 1980-2100 if we had never made that economic mistake?

And you can craft the same kinds of questions about what would have happened if the roll out of nuclear had not been subject to such great economic failure. If it had gone better and we'd built 400 plants instead of 100, where would we be? Would we perhaps have hosted our own chernobyl-scale event on the outskirts of Chicago? Where would that have left us?

The point is, the Hansen analysis really doesn't tell us a great deal about what we should do today regarding the best solution for climate change.

[kristopher]

12. Ray of hope: "Emperor’s apparent liberal leanings jar with Japan’s right wing"

Emperor’s apparent liberal leanings jar with Japan’s right wing
BY PHILIP BRASOR
DEC 7, 2013

In the media debate about the state secrets bill, much has been said about the public’s right to know. Participants in a democratic society must be informed to make decisions in their interest, and critics of the bill, which ostensibly protects matters of national security, believe it will be used to keep people in the dark about anything the government doesn’t want revealed or discussed openly.

But even before there is a law limiting the dispersal of official information, Japanese citizens operate with a built-in filter that controls what an individual believes he or she has a right to say. According to documentary filmmaker Tatsuya Mori, this self-censorship function is a holdover from the prewar regime’s effort to monitor the hearts and minds of the populace, and its main tool in that effort was emperor worship.

In an interview published in the Asahi Shimbun on Nov. 27, Mori talks about the recent controversy surrounding rookie lawmaker Taro Yamamoto, who handed Emperor Akihito a letter during the annual autumn garden party at the Imperial Palace. The actor-turned-politician wanted to draw the Emperor’s attention to the plight of those affected by the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant, but by personally giving him a note without obtaining prior permission he was violating protocol. The reaction was swift and hard, and came from across the entire political spectrum.

Yamamoto was admonished by the Diet. Mori thinks his action revealed a “lack of common sense,” but he did not break any laws, regardless of what the ruling Liberal Democratic Party implied. Mori asked a group of university students for their opinion of the incident and everyone said Yamamoto had been “rude,” even “blasphemous.” One student seemed deeply offended by the fact that Yamamoto used “only one hand” to present the letter.

What struck Mori ...

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/12/07/national/emperors-apparent-liberal-leanings-jar-with-japans-right-wing/

[kristopher]

13. Ex-PM Hosokawa to run in Tokyo governor race with Koizumi's support

Ex-PM Hosokawa to run in Tokyo governor race with Koizumi's support

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Former Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa said Tuesday he will run in the upcoming Tokyo gubernatorial election after securing the backing of former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi at a meeting in Tokyo.

Hosokawa's camp considered it critical for his gubernatorial campaign to have the full support of Koizumi, a popular leader who has attracted publicity for renouncing his pro-nuclear power stance.

"The nuclear issue is something that is worth working on as a governor," said Hosokawa after meeting with Koizumi at a Tokyo hotel. "I would give my all."

Koizumi, who was prime minister between April 2001 and September 2006, said the biggest reason for his supporting Hosokawa is the fact that they have common views on nuclear policy and added, "We can change the country for sure if we show that Tokyo can live without nuclear power."...

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20140114p2g00m0dm056000c.html

[Art_from_Ark]

14. I actually saw one of the candidates for Tokyo governor yesterday

Last edited Wed Jan 15, 2014, 01:54 AM - Edit history (2)

His name is Kenji Utsunomiya and he's running, unfortunately, on the Communist Party ticket, which means he doesn't have a chance of winning. It is unfortunate that the Communist Party of Japan continues to adhere to that name, since it automatically turns off a lot of voters even though the party's platform is more in line with a European labor/green party. For example, Utsunomiya's platform calls for

1) Making Tokyo the easiest place in the world to live and work

2) Putting greater emphasis on environmental issues and preventing and mitigating disasters

3) Opposition to restarting nuclear facilities and nuclear exports. Using Tokyo as a springboard for creating a non-nuclear society and economy.

4) Making schools places without bullying that instill a joy of learning in children

5) Putting the brakes on the "runaway Abe administration", protecting the Japanese Constitution, and making Tokyo a "transmitter of peace" to the rest of Asia.