Japan disaster zone hit by new powerful quake (AFP)

Japan disaster zone hit by new powerful quake

TOKYO (AFP) – A powerful 7.1-magnitude earthquake late on Thursday hit the same area of Japan that was ravaged by disaster a month ago, seismologists said, prompting a local tsunami alert.

Power was cut to parts of the northeast of the country, much of which is still struggling with the effects of the monster tsunami that roared ashore four weeks ago.

The new quake caused a handful of injuries, national broadcaster NHK said, but there were no reported deaths. The tsunami alert was later cancelled after no deadly wave materialised.

Workers battling to control the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant on the northeast coast were temporarily ordered to evacuate, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) said.

The evacuation order came less than 24 hours after they began pumping nitrogen, an inert gas, into reactor No. 1, where engineers were concerned a build-up of hydrogen might react with oxygen to cause an explosion.

Work at the plant was remotely controlled and was continuing, the company said.

A TEPCO spokesman told a press conference there was "no information immediately indicating any abnormality at Fukushima Daiichi plant."

A nuclear safety agency official told reporters: "There are no abnormal readings at the Fukushima Daiichi's monitoring posts", adding: "We have not seen any problem… with regard to the injection of nitrogen."

The official said some external power sources used to cool reactor cores had been lost at plants in Onagawa in Miyagi prefecture and at Rokkasho and Higashidori in Aomori prefecture, but at least one emergency source remained operational at each.

The loss of external power sources at Fukushima Daiichi in the March 11 tsunami left reactor cores heating up uncontrollably, resulting in the world's worst nuclear emergency since Chernobyl.

There was no indication that Thursday's loss of power was causing a problem at any of the nuclear plants.

The tremor hit at 11:32 pm local time (1432 GMT) with an offshore epicentre 66 kilometres (40 miles) east of Sendai, a city severely impacted by the March 11 quake and tsunami, according to the US Geological Survey.

Japan's Meteorological Agency promptly issued a tsunami alert for the Pacific coast, saying waves of up to two metres (six feet) could hit the shoreline, but the alert was cancelled 83 minutes after the quake.

Footage from broadcaster NHK showed power was off in parts of Sendai, a regional commercial hub badly shaken last month's double disaster.

An AFP photographer in Kitakami city in Iwate prefecture reported that power had gone off following Thursday's quake.

Jiji Press news agency said shortly after midnight there were five fires and 13 gas leaks in Sendai city, according to the Miyagi prefectural office.

In Iwate prefecture, local authorities ordered some 500 households to evacuate, NHK said. The broadcaster also reported three fires in Iwate and Miyagi prefectures.

The quake had a depth of 49 kilometres, the USGS said. Although the epicentre was 330 kilometres from Tokyo, it shook buildings in the Japanese capital.

A Meteorological Agency official said the tremor was an aftershock of the Match 11 tremor, and data on the organisation's website showed that it was one of the most powerful.

Around 400 strong aftershocks have rocked Japan since the 9.0 magnitude quake last month and the tsunami it spawned, which killed 12,500 people and left around 15,000 unaccounted for.

Before the tremor chief government spokesman Yukio Edano indicated Tokyo was considering widening the 20-kilometre (12-mile) evacuation zone around the stricken plant, a week after a UN nuclear watchdog said it should be increased.

"The existing safety standards for local residents are that an evacuation order is issued if there is a possibility that they might receive radiation 50 millisieverts or above," he said.

"The standard assumed that a high level of radiation is emitted temporarily. We are discussing how best to issue evacuation orders based on data and standards for accumulative radiation," Edano said.

Around 3,400 people are unaccounted for along the 40-kilometre stretch of coast covered by the exclusion zone and on Thursday, around 300 police began searching for bodies in the the outer 10-kilometre band of the zone.

Television pictures showed officers in full body suits entering the area, while a police spokesman said all officers were armed with radiation meters.

The Bank of Japan on Thursday warned of pressures as a result of the triple disaster and bolstered funding for quake-hit areas, unveiling a 1.0 trillion yen ($11.7 billion) scheme to keep banks in affected areas liquid.

The BoJ also downgraded its view of the economy due to last month's disasters.

Japan’s TEPCO: no decision yet on sale of KDDI shares (Reuters)

TOKYO (Reuters) – Troubled Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501.T) said on Monday it is considering the sale of assets in equities and real estate, but said he has not yet decided 's it offload its shares in Japan's No. 2 mobile network KDDI Corp. (9433.T)

"A decision has been made for the moment," the utility said in a statement.

The Electric Company, commonly known as TEPCO plans to sell its shares to KDDI compensation claims from the disaster at its Fukushima Daiichi to pay nuclear power plant, the Nikkei business daily reported Sunday.

JP Morgan said TEPCO would 2000000000000 ¥ (24 billion U.S. dollars) as compensation for loss of face this fiscal year, while Bank of America-Merrill Lynch said the bill could reach 130 billion U.S. dollars if the crisis continues.

(Reporting by Tim Kelly, edited by Joseph Radford)

Japan to dump 11,500 tons of radioactive water at sea (AFP)

Japan to dump 11 500 tonnes of radioactive water at sea

TOKYO (AFP) – Japan plans to dump 11 500 tonnes of radioactive water at sea to free up storage space at its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant for more limping heavily polluted water, says the manager Monday.

A spokesman for Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) said that the water company intends to reduce emissions in the Pacific Ocean is only weakly radioactive and must be removed to make room for more water to the radioactive waste.

"High-level waste water was formed in the turbine building of the Fukushima Daiichi, especially in the Unit 2 reactor," the official reporters.

"There is a need to already stored water to release extra water to accept."

About 10,000 tons of radioactive waste currently stored at a plant in Fukushima, will be released in the ocean with 1,500 tons of water from the mines at Units 5 and 6 on the ground of six reactors, he said.

He said the release would take place "as soon as the necessary preparations are made."

Government spokesman confirmed a plan Edan Yukio televised news conference, said it was the only option available.

"We have no choice but to release water contaminated with radioactive materials at sea as a precautionary measure," Edan said.

Japan uses colour dye to trace nuclear leak (AFP)

Japan uses colour dye to trace nuclear leak

OFUNATO, Japan (AFP) – Emergency crew at Japan's tsunami-hit nuclear plant used a colour dye Monday to trace the source of a radioactive leak as lower business confidence signalled the disaster's economic impact.

While round-the-clock work continued to prevent a wider catastrophe at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, Tokyo's officials at UN climate talks reportedly suggested Japan may have to back off ambitious targets to cut carbon emissions.

Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), owner of the troubled nuclear site, has been struggling to regain control since a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and ensuing tsunami on March 11 knocked out its cooling systems, leading fuel rods to overheat and threatening a meltdown.

An immediate concern is a radioactive leak into the ocean through a cracked concrete pit, which has continued despite efforts to stem the flow in a pipe upstream with a polymer capable of absorbing 50 times its own volume in water.

"There is no significant change in the amount of water leaking. We haven't achieved the original goal of stopping the water," said a spokesman for TEPCO, Japan's largest power provider.

TEPCO workers started pouring white powder into a tunnel from reactor number two, to ascertain if it is the origin of the contaminant leaking out into the Pacific Ocean, where high iodine-131 levels have been detected.

If the polymer fails to plug the leak, "we will consider solidifying the soil around the pit to prevent water from seeping through," a TEPCO official told a briefing, adding that chemicals might be employed to achieve that.

Since the quake struck more than three weeks ago, throwing Japan into its worst post-war calamity, fears have mounted over the impact on the world's third-largest economy, and a survey Monday suggested the hurt could be massive.

The Bank of Japan said in its Tankan survey that Japanese business confidence is set to plunge in the months ahead.

The central bank's re-release of a quarterly survey from Friday showed the breakdown in the replies it received before and after the disasters.

Friday's report showed business sentiment among large manufacturers improving to "six" in March from "five" in December, but it was predicted to fall to "minus two" in the April-June period.

One of the big question marks is how the Japanese economy will be affected by a looming power shortage, triggered when the quake and tsunami knocked out a sizable portion of the nation's electricity-generating capacity.

The Nikkei business daily reported Monday that the government is considering loosening labour, competition and environmental regulations to promote energy saving this summer.

For example, the government may allow lowered air conditioning at offices, stores, and other public spaces, offering exemptions from a law requiring that room temperatures be kept below 28 degrees Celsius (82 degrees Fahrenheit).

The disaster could also require a more fundamental rethink of energy and climate policies in Japan, local media said.

The nuclear accident will likely force Japan to review its ambitious target of reducing CO2 emissions by 25 percent by 2020 against the 1990 level, according to the reports.

The target is subject to a review, Hideki Minamikawa, vice minister at the Japanese Environment Ministry, told Japanese media in Bangkok on the sidelines of UN talks on climate change.

"It is true that the reduction target will be significantly affected" by the nuclear accident, he said, according to the Yomiuri Shimbun.

Japan — which meets about one third of its energy demand from nuclear power — has lost some generating capacity from the Fukushima and other accidents, which may in turn lessen public support on plans to build more reactors.

Minamikawa's comment would contradict a remark by Environment Minister Ryu Matsumoto that the government had no plan to change the emission goal.

Japan tsunami survivor returns to help save nuclear plant (AFP)

Japan tsunami survivor returns to help save nuclear plant

KAZO, Japan (AFP) – Three weeks after watching a massive wave smash into the Fukushima nuclear plant, Hiroyuki Kohno is heading back to the disaster zone to join crews struggling to avert a meltdown.

The 44-year-old radiation controller, who has worked in the nuclear industry since his late teens, has taken on a job many others have declined, with a clear understanding that the mission will likely be the last of his career.

"To be honest, no one wants to go," Kohno, who is soft-spoken and bespectacled, told AFP at the evacuation centre in the city of Kazo north of Tokyo that has been his home since the March 11 disaster.

"Radiation levels at the plant are unbelievably high compared with normal conditions. I know that when I go this time, I will return with a body no longer capable of work at a nuclear plant."

Kohno, who was employed at the now-crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant for a decade, left northeastern Japan soon after the quake and tsunami, but a fortnight later he received an email he had been half expecting.

"Attention," read the email from his company, a subcontractor of plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. "We would like you to come work at the plant. Can you?"

Single and without a family of his own, he felt it was his duty to accept the assignment.

"The work rotation is becoming increasingly difficult, and my friends have families to return to," he said.

But Kohno is not just a company employee. He is also the eldest son in his family, and when he broke the news of his return to the plant to his parents, he did his utmost to downplay the risk.

They were not fooled. His father, who also worked many years as an electrical engineer at Fukushima Daiichi, told him to follow his heart. His mother's reaction was simpler: "Come back as soon as possible."

Kohno can only begin to imagine what conditions await him at Fukushima, but his recollections are vivid of the fateful day when the 9.0-magnitude earthquake struck.

He was in the turbine building of one of the reactors when suddenly a desk nearby began trembling.

At first he thought someone was playing a prank. Then he remembered there had been a small earthquake the day before, and assumed it was just an aftershock.

But when equipment around him began to shake and creak loudly, he realised this was different.

"It was a sound I'd never heard before in my life and I immediately thought, 'This time the quake is huge.'"

Unable to stand straight, he leant against the concrete wall, but it too was shaking violently.

Workers started pouring out of the building, skipping the normal radiation screenings and running up a nearby hill.

"We started hearing people screaming: 'Tsunami coming!' From the bay we saw white waves hurling towards us. I was terrified," he said.

He joined the exodus up the hill, watching as a wave swallowed a ten-metre pole and swept through the plant, leaving the six reactors looking like barren rocks in the middle of a roaring sea.

"My family was unscathed, but many of my friends lost loved ones," he said.

As the rest of Japan now seeks to move on from the nation's worst post-war disaster, workers at Fukushima are still struggling around the clock to contain the crisis.

The March 11 tsunami broke down the plant's cooling systems, provoking a series of explosions and fires, and causing radiation to leak into the air, soil and ocean.

Emergency work ranges from removing massive amounts of radioactive water to clearing contaminated rubble, measuring radiation levels and hooking up power cables to kick-start cooling.

Kohno said he will be assigned to the plant's headquarters located in a quake-resistant tower, where he will be exposed to the same amount of radiation every hour that ordinary people experience in a whole year.

He will be joining a team that has been lauded worldwide, with media affectionately dubbing the core unit the "Fukushima Fifty", but he said heroics were not his motivation.

"There?s a Japanese expression: 'We eat from the same bowl.' These are friends I shared pain and laughter with. That?s why I?m going," he said.

Out of about 50 technicians at his company, around ten are currently on site. A majority likely refused to go, he said.

"When I think about it I get nervous. I was quite anxious for the first four days after I said I would be going. I especially think about it at night," he said.

It is hard to completely forget the risks that await him — at least 19 workers so far have been injured due to high radiation levels.

His friends have also described terrible working conditions, amid constant exposure to the highly penetrating gamma-rays.

"Although they don?t come out and say it openly, they all want to be replaced immediately," he said.

He expects to work without pause for several days before taking two or three days of rest. And like his workmates, he will probably get by on a diet of canned food and energy bars.

"We tell each other that Japan was utterly destroyed in World War II. Now Japan has once again been burnt to the ground. Although the battlefield is different, we are the modern-day kamikazes," he said.

"Kamikaze" refers to suicide pilots who flew planes filled with explosives into Allied ships at the end of the war, and in modern Japan the word carries connotations of sacrificing one's life when ordered to.

To be sure, times have changed. The United States is no longer a mortal adversary but a valued friend, and Kohno does not expect to die. Even so, Kohno is awed at the task ahead.

"Our enemy is now different. But this time it is perhaps more terrifying," he said.

Japan nuclear crisis to affect climate battle: EU (AFP)

Japan nuclear crisis to affect climate battle: EU

BANGKOK (AFP) – Japan's nuclear crisis will have a clear impact on global efforts to fight climate change, the chief EU negotiator said Sunday as the latest round of UN talks got under way.

"Nuclear is one of those energy options that has very, very low greenhouse gas emissions," Artur Runge-Metzger said at a news conference on the sidelines of the meeting in Bangkok.

"If you look at the energy mix countries were planning to have in the future, nuclear plays an important role."

But since an earthquake and tsunami on March 11 sparked an emergency at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi plant, in many of those countries doubts have now emerged about the nuclear option, he added.

"I think there will be a lot of political considerations," Runge-Metzger said. "Certainly, this is something that has an impact on climate negotiations."

Several developing countries, whose greenhouse gas emissions have risen sharply in recent years owing to their rapid economic growth, have shown interest in nuclear power to meet their soaring energy demand.

Workers at the Japanese plant at the centre of the worst atomic accident since Chernobyl have been battling to prevent a major disaster after the quake and tsunami damaged the plant and knocked out the cooling system.

Contamination has been found in the air, tap water, farm produce and sea near the stricken plant, adding to worries about public safety.

But the crisis must not lead to reduced ambitions about tackling climate change, with renewable energy an alternative option, Runge-Metzger said, while indicating that the EU might re-examine its own energy roadmap.

Negotiators at the first UN climate talks of the year are looking to hammer out the details of an accord reached in the Mexican resort of Cancun in December last year that brought cautious optimism to the difficult process.

The six days of discussions, which begin Sunday with informal workshops, are being held as the world's energy problems are in sharp focus amid the Japanese troubles and with oil prices hovering near record highs.

In Cancun, more than 190 countries called for "urgent action" to keep temperatures from rising no more than two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, pledging "deep cuts" in greenhouse gas emissions.

But after US President Barack Obama's setback in the November midterm elections, "the politics are looking much more difficult this year," Runge-Metzger said.

German nuclear plants shut down

Germany had decided to extend the lifetime of nuclear power plants

Germany has suspended seven of its nuclear power plants, while review its nuclear strategy.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said that all reactors in operation before 1980 would be taken offline and security controls are implemented in the remaining plants.

The decision came after concerns about the radiation leak at a Japanese earthquake last Friday.

The EU also agreed on "stress tests" of all nuclear installations in Europe.

"We're seeing a risk and safety issues in light of the events in Japan," said European Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger.

Chancellor Angela Merkel also discussed the security issues behind the German movement.

"In light of the situation, we have a safety audit of all nuclear plants to carry," she said.

"Nuclear power plants in circulation before 1980 will be temporarily closed for the duration of the moratorium. They're down.

"Safety is the priority. These are the criteria on which we act today."

All safety issues will be answered on June 15, "she said.

Last year, Germany decided to extend the life of the 17 nuclear power plants to extend its 12 years, but this decision was suspended for three months on Monday.

The government has faced increasing pressure to extend the break.

More than one quarter of all German electricity comes from nuclear power.

The Swiss government has suspended decisions on its nuclear program.

Increasing concerns about the radiation leak at a nuclear power plant in Japan, which has been beaten by a third explosion in four days after last week's earthquake and resulting tsunami.

The explosion occurred in the second reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi plant – 250 km (155 miles) northeast of Tokyo – that engineers had tried to stabilize after two other reactors exploded.

source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/business-12745899

Long game

From top to bottom – Reactor Nos 1, 2, 3 and 4 at Tepco's Daiichi plant

We are now in a long game at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan.

The BBC's David Shukman looks at the dangers facing nuclear workers

Reactor Units One and Three also have water collected in their basements. Much of this water is likely the result of the spraying and "water-bombing" that occurred in the early days of the crisis to try to keep their reactors and storage ponds cool.

All of this water has to be removed so that engineers can repair equipment and get systems fully up and running.

Extracting it, however, has been hampered because some of the tanks into which it would be fed are themselves full.

Eventually the water will be cleaned. "The water can be put through an ion exchange system to take out radionuclides like caesium. That is relatively easily done; the technology is available to do that," explained Laurence Williams, another British professor of nuclear safety, at the John Tyndall Institute. "The caesium is removed and put in a shielded container and sent to a repository."

One other intriguing announcement this week has been the discovery by the plant's operators, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), of traces of plutonium in soil samples close to the facility.

Three of five samples were said to be very typical of the traces one might expect to find in Japan as a result of the fallout from atmospheric atomic weapons testing conducted decades ago. But two samples were said to stand out because of the nature of the type, or isotopes, of plutonium atoms present. These, Tepco conceded, were what one might expect from nuclear reactions inside the plant. It could not say how the isotopes got there.

Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency explained that the detected levels of plutonium were not health-threatening for emergency workers at Daiichi, nor the residents in the surrounding areas. But the radionuclides' detection raises further questions about the integrity of the reactor systems at Daiichi and the damage they may have sustained.

In his most recent briefing, the head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, Yukiya Amano, described the situation at Fukushima as one that had "still not been overcome". In his view, he said it would "take some time to stabilise the reactors".

On the positive side, however, he noted that electrical power had now been restored to all three of the reactors that were operational at the time of the quake – Units One, Two and Three – and that fresh water was now available on the site to assist with cooling.

Reactor Four, which was not operating at the time of the quake but then caused concern because of a shortage of water in its storage pond, appears now to be under good control. Tepco was working to pump large amounts of freshwater into the pond.

The IAEA is going to convene a high-level conference in late June or early July to examine the repercussions of the Fukushima crisis.

Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/science-environment-12896690

Uranium Processor Still Optimistic About Nuclear Industry

Workers at a mine site of the Canadian uranium producer Cameco, which supplied the Fukushima Daiichi reactors in Japan.

The accompanying tsunami, they learned, had swamped a Cameco customer: the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Suddenly, this strategy meeting would be anything but routine.

“We had kind of a fortuitous convergence,” said Gerald W. Grandey, the chief executive of Cameco, which held the meeting near its headquarters in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

Fortuitous, but not fortunate — for Cameco or the rest of the uranium industry, whose products fuel the world’s nuclear power plants.

Over the last five years, uranium miners and processors — and their stock prices — have generally benefited from the assumption that rising energy demand in developing countries, and global concerns about greenhouse gas emissions, were creating a new appreciation for nuclear power industry.

Shares of Cameco had reached a recent high of $43.14 in mid-February, reflecting a steady rise from a low of $16 in October 2008. But since the tsunami, shares of Cameco have closed as low as $30.82, and closed Friday at $31.17.

Unusually rich ore deposits, particularly at Cameco’s main deep-rock mine in northern Saskatchewan, help make it a low-cost producer. Uranium mining requires costly robotic systems and other measures to protect workers and the environment from radiation.

Cameco produces about 16 percent of the world’s uranium supply and dominates the market, along with Areva, a French company with 17 percent of production, and the British-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto, which also holds a 16 percent share. But compared with those more diversified companies, Cameco is essentially a pure-play uranium producer.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company, which owns that power plant, is not only a buyer of nuclear fuel from Cameco, among other suppliers. Tepco, as it is known, also holds a small stake in a Canadian mine that Cameco plans to open in 2013 as part of its goal to double production by 2018, which would make it the global leader in uranium.

Right now, most of the rest of the world is pausing to assess the future of its nuclear power programs. In Germany, a market for Cameco, Chancellor Angela Merkel has temporarily shut down seven nuclear plants and suspended a program for extending the life of aging reactors. And Italy, has suspended a plan to resume its nuclear power program, which it had stopped after the 1986 disaster at Chernobyl.

But for all that, Mr. Grandey said this week that he was still optimistic about the long-term future of nuclear power. He says he thinks the nuclear renaissance is only taking a temporary pause.

“Even with Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and now Fukushima, nuclear still has an impeccable safety record,” Mr. Grandey said in an interview. “There will be in time — I’m looking five, seven years — a rapid acceleration of nuclear building putting us back on track to where we would have been, absent Fukushima.”

Not everyone, of course, shares Mr. Grandey’s optimism, or his assessment of the industry’s safety record. But there is no question that Cameco’s future depends largely on the world’s appetite for processed uranium after Fukushima.

Even if there is a global pullback on developing new power plants, Cameco has something of a cushion with its current customers. The company generally has multiyear contracts with utilities that require them to pay for fuel even if they do not accept delivery. (The company has suspended some contract terms for Tokyo Electric and another Japanese utility with reactors in the heavily damaged north, Tohoku Electric Power. Long-term Japan accounts for about 18 to 20 percent of Cameco’s contracted sales.)

Farther out, Mr. Grandey bases his optimism on the inexorable rise in energy demand by developing economies like China and India, which have both indicated that they do not plan to curtail their ambitious rollout of new nuclear plants though they will proceed with a greater sense of caution. Fossil fuels, whether for environmental issues, supply constraints or price uncertainties, simply cannot meet the world’s needs, he said.

“It will take us six months a year to digest and learn the lessons of Fukushima,” he said. “After we digest the lessons learned, I think we’ll get back on the path of nuclear construction.”

Joshua M. Pearce, a professor of mechanical and engineering at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, said that such analysis omitted an important factor.

“This is not the 1950s when there was just nuclear and fossil fuels,” he said, noting that alternative energy sources like solar and wind had become increasingly viable.

Professor Pearce was a co-author of a recent academic paper about indirect subsidies to nuclear power plants. He estimates that insurance liability caps granted to the American nuclear power industry, for example, produce an annual indirect subsidy of $33 million for every reactor in the United States.

He said that the liability costs to the Japanese government arising from Fukushima Daiichi, while still impossible to estimate, were presumably large, and might make other governments see that offering subsidies to renewable energy sources might be a comparative bargain.

Tony Ward, who heads Ernst & Young’s power and utility practice in London, agrees that the current crisis will focus new attention on wind and solar power, particularly in China, which has already heavily invested in renewable energy technologies.

But Mr. Ward points to a significant limit to renewable energy as an alternative to nuclear. “The supply chain is not sufficiently deep to provide the sheer scale of capacity that is sufficient,” he said.

For Mr. Ward, one potential long-term change for Cameco stemming from the Fukushima Daiichi disaster is the issue of spent fuel storage — which has been a big source of the trouble at that plant. He expects governments to reassess the economics of reprocessing nuclear waste into new fuel rather than allowing its continued storage.

But Cameco’s Mr. Grandey, voicing optimism, insists that the nuclear industry’s image will suffer no long-term harm.

“The numbers that are questioning safety have gone up but that’s inevitable,” Mr. Grandy said. “But it certainly can’t be described as a mass change in attitude toward nuclear.”

He added: “I think the public also understands that these are 35- and 40-year-old plants. So like airplanes that occasionally fall out of the sky, or like other industrial activities that experience disasters, every industry learns and improves.”

source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=56dd12ee33f1d8ba12e8e5f0e3fde1a1

A Radical Kind of Reactor

Xu Yuanhui of Chinergy with one of the “pebbles,” or fuel elements that power the reactor.

The technology will be used in two reactors here on a peninsula jutting into the Yellow Sea, where the Chinese government is expected to let construction proceed even as the world debates the wisdom of nuclear power.

Rather than using conventional fuel rod assemblies of the sort leaking radiation in Japan, each packed with nearly 400 pounds of uranium, the Chinese reactors will use hundreds of thousands of billiard-ball-size fuel elements, each cloaked in its own protective layer of graphite.

The coating moderates the pace of nuclear reactions and is meant to ensure that if the plant had to be shut down in an emergency, the reaction would slowly stop on its own and not lead to a meltdown.

The reactors will also be cooled by nonexplosive helium gas instead of depending on a steady source of water — a critical problem with the damaged reactors at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi power plant. And unlike those reactors, the Chinese reactors are designed to gradually dissipate heat on their own, even if coolant is lost.

If the new plants here prove viable, China plans to build dozens more of them in coming years.

The technology under construction here, known as a pebble-bed reactor, is not new. Germany, South Africa and the United States have all experimented with it, before abandoning it over technical problems or a lack of financing.

But as in many other areas of alternative energy, including solar panels and wind turbines, China is now taking the lead in actually building the next-generation technology. The government has paid for all of the research and development costs for the two pebble-bed reactors being built here, and will cover 30 percent of the construction costs.

Despite Japan’s crisis, China still plans to build as many as 50 nuclear reactors over the next five years — more than the rest of the world combined. Most of this next wave will be of more conventional designs.

But if the pebble-bed approach works as advertised, and proves cost effective, China hopes it can eventually adopt the technology on a broad scale to make nuclear power safer and more feasible as it deals with the world’s fastest growing economy and the material expectations of its 1.3 billion people.

Western environmentalists are divided on the safety of pebble-bed nuclear technology.

Thomas B. Cochran, the senior scientist on nuclear power for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an American group, said that such reactors would probably be less dangerous than current nuclear plants, and might be better for the environment than coal-fired plants.

“Over all, in terms of design,” he said, “it would appear to be safer, with the following caveat: the safety of any nuclear plant is not just a function of the design but also of the safety culture of the plant.”

The executives overseeing construction of the new Chinese reactors say that engineers are already being trained to oversee the extensively computerized controls for the plant, using a simulator at a test reactor that has been operating for a decade near Beijing, apparently without mishap.

But Greenpeace, the international environmentalist group, opposes pebble-bed nuclear reactors, questioning whether any nuclear technology can be truly safe. Wrapping the uranium fuel in graphite greatly increases the volume of radioactive waste eventually requiring disposal, said Heinz Smital, a Greenpeace nuclear technology specialist in Germany.

But he said the waste is far less radioactive per ton than spent uranium fuel rods — one of the big sources of trouble at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.

China is building a repository for high-level nuclear waste, like conventional fuel rods, in the country’s arid west. But the far less radioactive spheres, or pebbles, like those from the Shidao reactors will not require such specialized storage; China plans to store the used pebbles initially at the power plants, and later at lower-level radioactive waste disposal sites near the reactors.

source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=4f752b7b084873bb0958205ee4004c62