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Subscribe to RSSTOKYO -- Japan shuts down its last working nuclear power reactor this weekend just over a year after a tsunami scarred the nation and if it survives the summer without major electricity shortages, producers fear the plants will stay offline for good.
The shutdown leaves Japan without nuclear power for the first time since 1970 and has put electricity producers on the defensive. Public opposition to nuclear power could become more deeply entrenched if non-nuclear generation proves enough to meet Japan's needs in the peak-demand summer months.
"Can it be the end of nuclear power? It could be," said Andrew DeWit, a professor at Rikkyo University in Tokyo who studies energy policy. "That's one reason why people are fighting it to the death."
AP
View side-by-side the progress that Japan has made since the tsunami and earthquake in March 2011.
Japan managed to get through the summer last year without any blackouts by imposing curbs on use in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami. Factories operated at night and during weekends to avoid putting too much stress on the country's power grids. A similar success this year would weaken the argument of proponents of nuclear power.
"They don't have the polls on their side," said DeWit. "Once they go through the summer without reactors, how will they fire them up? They know that, so they will try their darndest but I don't see how."
Rock Center: One year after Fukushima disaster, town remains frozen in time
One by one the country's nuclear plants have been shut for scheduled maintenance and prevented from restarting because of public concern about their safety.
Nearly a year after an earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan, Fukushima City residents fear the radiation is spreading outside of the government mandated exclusion zone. The government has asked residents to bury radiated soil in their own backyards, but how dangerous is the dirt and where should it go? NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel reports.
The last one running, the No3 Tomari reactor of Hokkaido Electric Power Co in northern Japan, is scheduled to shut down early on Sunday. Anti-nuclear activists will celebrate with demonstrations over the weekend.
'Mass suicide'?
The last time Japan went without nuclear power was in May 1970, when the country's only two reactors operating at that time were shut for maintenance, the Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan says.
Nuclear power provided almost 30 percent of the electricity to keep the $5 trillion economy going before the March 11, 2011 disaster that killed almost 16,000 people and left more than 3,000 missing.
A year on, the level of public concern about the safety of the industry is such that the government is still struggling to come up with a long-term energy policy, a delay having a profound impact on the economy and underlining just how costly it will be to contemplate a nuclear-power-free future.
Having boomed in recent decades on the exports prowess of big brands like Sony, Toyota and Canon, the economy suffered its first trade deficit in more than three decades in 2011 as power producers spent billions of dollars on oil-and-gas imports to fuel extra generation capacity.
Water leaks found at Japan's stricken Fukushima nuclear plant
At the time of the Fukushima crisis, then Prime Minister Naoto Kan called on Japan to wean itself off of nuclear power. Up to that point, Japan had been planning to lift the share of nuclear generation to over 50 percent by 2030 from about 30 percent.
The government of current Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has softened Kan's call. Noda says Japan cannot afford to be nuclear free, although he still holds that as an ideal.
But the government has no clear timetable for getting nuclear power back up and running as it tries to navigate the public opposition -- rare in Japan -- and the demands of business that wants a stable supply of power.
Cabinet ministers last month rushed to try to win over the public to allow the restart of two nuclear power reactors at Kansai Electric Power Co's Ohi plant in western Japan, in what experts said was a recognition of the implications of a nuclear-free summer.
The public remained unconvinced. A poll by Kyodo news agency last weekend showed about 60 percent of the public opposed to restarting the two reactors.
Most mayors and governors whose communities host nuclear plants want safety assurances beyond government-imposed stress tests before agreeing to restarts, a Reuters poll showed in March.
Kuni Takahashi / Kuni Takahashi
An earthquake, a tsunami, a nuclear meltdown -- residents of Japan's northeast coast suffered through three intertwined disasters after a massive 9.0 magnitude temblor struck off the coast on March 11, 2001.
To overcome the opposition, some politicians have been more forceful. Yo@!$%#o Sengoku, the acting president of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, on April 16 called an abandonment of nuclear energy the equivalent of "mass suicide," Kyodo news reported. His comment was criticized by Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura, indicating internal divisions over how to handle the issue.
Trade Minister Yukio Edano - the government's point man for energy policy - walks a fine line, saying both that safety must come first while trying to win the support of local communities for restarts.
Kansai Electric Power Co, the utility most reliant on nuclear power, and some other electricity producers have warned of power shortages this summer but have largely avoided lobbying publicly for restarts for fear of a backlash.
Global shift on nuke power
Ultimately, some argue Japan's economy, already weakened by years of deflation, would suffer if reactors are not restarted.
"It's not an option Japan should take. There will be less employment and the economy will be on a shrinking trend," said Takeo Kikkawa, a professor at Hitotsubashi University.
Nearly a year after an earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan, NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel journeys to a place still frozen in the moments after the magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck. Engel visits the exclusion zone surrounding Japan's damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Factories, homes, restaurants and farms remain as they were when people abandoned their homes and livelihoods for safety.
Japan's liquefied natural gas imports climbed 18 percent in volume and 52 percent in value to 5.4 trillion yen ($67 billion) in the year through March.
Renewable energy, although given emphasis in energy policies being formulated, is not expected to be much of an immediate salve. Energy from renewable sources account for about 10 percent of Japan's power generation, most of that from hydroelectric dams. Wind and solar together contribute about 1 percent.
Worldwide, there has been a shift with Germany, Italy and Switzerland moving away from atomic energy, prompting the International Atomic Energy Agency to revise down its forecast for growth in the industry.
Greenpeace 'bombs' French nuclear reactor -- could it happen in US?
The United States, China and India are still planning to increase the number of reactors.
In Japan, a delay in setting up a new, more independent Nuclear Regulatory Agency due to deadlock in a divided parliament is further clouding the outlook.
Some analysts say the government is not going to turn public opinion unless it admits that nuclear power is never going to be absolutely safe.
"The debate needs to be recast," said Bob Geller, a professor of geophysics at Tokyo University. "They have to come clean, and say, in effect - look we know they're not perfectly safe but we've made a careful evaluation of the risks, which we'll make public."
More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:
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- Blind activist Chen Guangcheng: 'I want to leave China on Hillary Clinton's plane'
- 'A little fixing up'? Philippines hides slum behind wall ahead of poverty conference
- Sarkozy fails to floor Hollande in France election television debate
- Has Britain's Prime Minister Cameron lost his gloss? Voters issue their verdict
- Catholic priest: I've been secretly married for a year
- Five years on, parents of missing Madeleine McCann cling to hope
Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world
Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
Leave a Comment:
We need to invent energy besides nuclear and coal. Something needs to be created. I know Japan and US can do it. Anything is possible. Invention is unlimited.
Well... Free energy is all around you solar, wind, wave, geothermal just for starters - you could actually collect the charge of space and solar wind particles, or use the charge created by electrostatics, maybe extract hydrogen from the sea and burn it in internal combustion engines ... Zmerchnews.com
tom111,
There is a machine that makes energy without fuel. It's in the basement of the pentagon, along with the time machine, the 500 mile-per-gallon gasoline engine and the perpetual motion machine. Or we could use the biggest nuclear generator of all ... the sun. Just gotta manufacture enough batteries to store the energy we use after dark or on cloudy days.
if you want to die just make a energy saving device and try to market it.
usaintrouble: You just have to be smart about the marketing. You also can't expect to get rich from it. More of a stealth-based launch, if you will. You have to quietly flood the global market with viable technologies and then launch a full, world-wide blitz. It's a lot like a chess match - arrange your pieces before you strike. Oh, and NO PATENTS! There are thousands of classified energy patents which the inventors of are not even allowed to talk about under penalty of 20 years in federal prison. You file for a patent on your new energy device and you'll instantly paint a target on your back.
Keep quiet about your projects. Build your proofs-of-concepts. Start prototyping, trouble-shooting and refining. Manufacture several hundred units before you even ship the first. When your pieces are placed, get the media involved and launch with an avalanche. It's almost prohibitively expensive unless you have piles of monetary reserves lying around, but it is possible. A big change is coming, my friend - one of those watershed moments in human history. Be ready.
... just so you know, you don't get free energy from any of those. Yes. the source of energy is free. But the process of turning that energy into electricity is more expensive than coal, or nuclear. That's why all of this clean energy hasn't taken off. One day the technology will make solar cheep enough to compete, and then coal and nuclear can go away. We're a long ways from that point though.
Spencer - good point about the source. But not as far off (time wise) as you think. Probably a few years for the average homeowner but it is feasible for large scale systems and those that are major energy users, and yes that can be with no gov incentives. Like all tech just needs some time to develop and get used more. Just look at flat screen TV's. Wasn't that long ago that they cost an arm and leg and you didn't get near the quality picture you do now. Now they are super cheap with amazing high quality displays.
The first push for solar in the 80's was before solar was really ready and it took a big hit. That and other forces that were doing what they could to refocus peoples attention away from it. But that has changed and we really are looking at the beginning of a solar renaissance. There are some parts that aren't great, and it does have some limitations, but it would be a great supplement to our power needs. Especially since it peaks in power production at are near the same time during the day when grid load is at its highest.
I wish solar and wind could do the job, but I've been hearing about solar and wind since the mid 1970s, and today they provide, rounded off, about 2% of our electric energy. I would love conservative to take off, but the reality is our national character is not one of conservation. Oddly enough, the strength of conservatism is a measure of the weakness of conservation. We re-elected Bush, for goodness sakes. We will never be a conservationist, solar-powered nation.
Nuclear power is the only pain-free way to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels that produce GHGs. Pure and simple - the greatest force working to harm the environment today is the anti-nuclear movement. People who condemn nukes should own up to the fact that they are, in reality, hurting the environment that, in their self-righteousness, they think they are helping.
Nuclear power is the answer. Too many ignorant people say we should get rid of the reactors and go solar or wind. They don't have a clue. The new designs are safe and clean. Our country should ramp up and build as many as we can. It will reduce our burden on imported energy and create jobs for Americans. So get you heads out off your butts and let's get started.
want to harness the sun go ALGEA
Excellent! More nukes for us and higher fossil fuel prices for Japan should shift the balance of jobs in our favor, for sure . . .
For sure! :-)
Awesome! Let public uninformed mob mentality dictate policy. Yeah who needs clean energy? Brilliant, just built coal power plants instead. Trade the possibility for health and environment concerns for guaranteed health and environment problems. I mean coal is infinite right? And nuclear is far cheaper than coal, people saying otherwise are just misinformed, or bad at math. Yes lets demonize and entire industry for one terribly designed plant that had no business being built, let alone operated. Lets not blame the designers and power company for ignoring experts telling them a tsunami would wipe it out. That would make sense, can't have that. Sure, keep letting corporate fat cats dictate safety and operation of these nuclear plants. So bass akwards.... All you need to do is regulate it correctly, build only safe plants, and not on fault lines, or not near the water below a tsunami danger zone. It's really that simple folks. No need to wipe out our only reliable constant source of clean energy on this planet due to a couple bad eggs. The consequences are far greater than the occasional incident. There are numbers to back this up, fighting math = fighting logic and intelligence.
You do realize that Japan is a chain of islands, created by a subduction zone in the earth's crust, right? That kind of puts "not near the water" and "not on fault lines" out of the question. Hell, the most iconic mountain in the entire nation is a volcano! Not that I disagree with your sentiment, mind you; it's just never as simple as it seems.
I am aware of it's location. The whole country is not just a few feet above the water, it is possible to build them say 70 feet above sea level. And the major fault lines are off the coast, the fault lines comment was referring to building them on them directly, something that has been done, but not in Japan. I know they have more natural threats than most places, but to say that because they have a volcano, earthquakes, and an ocean, that they can't build safe plants, is simply not true.
They can't build "safe" plants. No one can. We can only build safer plants. The energies contained within reactors is mind-boggling. There won't be a truly "safe" nuclear plant for a long, long time. Even construction time for new plants is an issue. Japan's concerns are immediate, and nuclear power on a volatile island chain is ill-advised, at best. There's no such thing as NIMBY (NotInMyBackYard) when you have 127 million people living on just 146,000 sq. miles.
There are many paths other than nuclear power.
The Japan accident happen because of the lost of power and keeping the cooling water moving which was caused by the tsunami, Not the quake itself.The design was poor but to just shutdown Nuke plants because of one accident is over reacting. Now if all their plants have saftey issues then fine, Fix them.
@jmwhite540
You're right. Nothing is 100% safe. Nothing. Not even coal plants in some regards. But you can make them almost impossible to melt down, making them impervious to nothing short of cataclysmic events. Construction time is lame excuse given the argument. Of course there are many paths, and they should be explored... but in the mean time, perhaps less paranoia... You can use that not 100% safe argument for anything. Cars are not 100% safe, and really aren't needed for survival, ban those too? Same for plains, etc etc etc
@MrGeek
Exactly. It's not like this wasn't 100% preventable. Poor design and people ignoring warnings yield bad results. People forget the other dozens of plants they have that did just fine in a record breaking earthquake.
imwhite - tealcc is right nothing is 100% safe. Like driving to work, walking down the stairs, ect. It's just a fact of life. But there are reactor designs that make up for all of the short comings of the current, outdated, light water reactors. Google generation IV and thorium nuclear reactors or see scubasteve's posts above. It is not perfect but it is certainly a step in the right direction and can answer our energy needs now with very little risk and address some other issues ; like with the existing nuclear waste. Combine that with solar and other energy saving measures (LED lighting will be next, now for commercial and year or two to be really affordable to the average joe homeowner) and we have a great answer. It may also be time to dump the for profit electric companies and go for municipal utilities instead.
We can do it if we want. The solutions are in front of us we just have to use them. If that means revolting and running a few of the current power hungry and greedy good for nothings, care only about themselves, that are trying to steer the ship at the moment, then so be it.
Tealcc: First, I'd like to thank you for having a debate with me that hasn't degenerated into name-calling and vitriol. It's a refreshing change from the status quo of newsvine.
I'm not paranoid at all about nuclear power. In fact, I think small-scale breeder, Thorium and Gen-IV reactors can still be a [relatively] safe, reasonable resource. I also know that per megawatt, nuclear energy is one of the safest current modes for power generation.
I'm a practical feasibility type of guy. If popular opinion, misinformed as it may be, is demanding a change and susceptibility to natural disasters is a concern, maybe nuclear power there isn't the best path. It is the most immediate path, of course. Japan has oceans, rivers and tall, uninhabited mountains where non-nuclear or non-fossil-fuel generators could be implemented. Again, if it's cheaper, faster and safer to build a nuclear plant as opposed to the alternatives, I'm all for it. I have never implied that nuclear power should be banned.
wish you well with your objectives, but the reality is that in the past 10 years almost 90% of power plants that have been built are what is known as "peaker" plants. They are used to power up the electric grid for when we consume more electricity such as when a heat wave arrives in the summer. These are Natural Gas fired since they can come online in a matter of an hour or two and can be shut down just as fast when not needed. Nuclear plants require weeks to fire up and months to shut down. Coal is almost as fast but the cost to build is more than double a gas fired unit. Wind and solar require massive storage to level out peaks in demand and supply. And anyone who thinks wind power is eco-friendly should go to Minnesota when the geese migrate and fly through the "turbine-fields". Nothing like goose for Thanksgiving dinner.
Japan is a classic example of tecno-run-amok. Point is they have an entire nation on a Volcano/earthquake fault zone and they use nuclear power to generate electricity. Then they put their backup generators below ground level...actually even below sea level, so that when the "basement" flooded they lost power to their cooling pumps and the DOMINOS started falling. Any Nuclear plant should never be build in proximity of Earthquake fault lines and within a few miles of active volcanos as well. The debate of power generation is a good one, but my main question on the article here is why has so little been accomplished on cleaning up all the debris from the tsunami? i realize it was a year ago, but seriously...put the people to work moving all the wreckage into some kind of landfill... or is that the issue... no more space for it on the "island" of Japan? not being cruel..just asking.
clean energy is a misnomer. how many square miles are uninhabitable for 20+ years again?
you can't build a plant that is disaster proof...mother nature and the earth are in pissed mode atm. i believe it's mostly a cycle, but still.
Tealcc, there are plenty of sources of more clean energy than nuclear, but ppl like you keep fighting against them.
Clean energy is not a misnomer.
"Clean" nuclear energy IS a misnomer. Ask anyone in Japan or Belarus.
I'm not fighting against clean energy. I promote it fully. That is a baseless and ridiculous assumption. Other sources are not as viable right now for large scale demand, nuclear is constant output, solar is not. Yeah you can't make it disaster proof, but you sure can reduce it to the point where nothing short of a meteor strike would cause an issue. How much will be uninhabitable from climate change and pollution due to fossil fuels? I can assure you, an large order of magnitude more than what that meltdown did.
Side comment: Why are they waiting 20+ years to clean up the area around Fukushima? Answer: because it is cleaning itself up. Radiation comes when an unstable atom releases energy and becomes a stable one. Take some radioactive iodine. Wait 8 days, and half of it is non-radioactive. After 16 days, only 25% remains radioactive. After a month, only 10% is radioactive. Why not rope off the area and wait 20 years before clean up? It will be much, much easier in 20 years than it would be today.
There isn't just radioactive iodine on the ground at Fukushima. There are many other radionuclides there as well, like plutonium with a halflife of 24,000 years.
Seems like we would use the 40+ years of lessons learned with the Nuclear plants and redesign them to avoid the problems. I'm no nuke expert by any means, but I believe there are a few things that could ensure a much safer operating system.
If I can think of 3 things right off the top of my layman head, imagine what people who really understand nuke power could do.
And what happens if in the event of a natural disaster, oh say a tsunami, debris fields destroy the power transmission lines between the two? Yep, the plant loses power, cooling systems fail, and the whole plant goes into meltdown.
There's really only one purpose for uranium-fueled nuclear reactors - weapons production. Electricity is a nice by-product. Thorium reactors on the other hand would be acceptable. But the Powers-That-Be don't want to use them because you can't build bombs from their waste.
Okeeboy: They've already designed safer reactors. There are several kinds, summed up nicely on Wiki.
Look for Generation IV reactors: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor
And breeder reactors: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor
I once met a guy that was studying to be a nuclear physicist (and claimed to work with DoD-maybe, maybe not). I asked him about the Thorium plants. He told me that while it was true that they were 'cleaner' and 'safer' than uranium and plutonium in power production, the element itself is extremely reactive with oxygen (I think that's what he said- this was a couple of years ago). He cited massive costs and difficulties with storage and transportation of the substance, though he did say that the US has plenty in supply. If something went wrong and the Thorium was exposed to atmo... then you get an explosion large enough to make hollywood blush. By the way, EVERYBODY QUIT BLAMING CARS!!! There are way more (and larger) polluters than what's parked in your neighbor's driveway.
@ Okeeboy, I posted a similar proposal sometime ago on Newsvine (click on my name to access the msnbc archive) and I never really recieved a response from anyone on whether or not that was feasible.
The problem that I see (in addition to the phenomenal quagmire we'll soon find ourselves in between energy vs resource availabilty vs economy vs environment) is that no business wants to foot the bill. We here, in the US, are in charge of cleanups in the event of a disaster, not the conglomerates. The thinking is that no business would ever indulge in the risk of something that would almost instantly bankrupt the corp. and possibly all the top execs (and possible incarceration), thus no business would undertake the venture. So what to do? Nationalize the energy companies? Taking away substantial private profits and trading it for substantial national debt is not at the top of anyone's Xmas list. Force responsiblity to utilites? Good luck with that given all the propaganda and corruption that is present.
We're @!$%#ed. All there is to it. We simply don't have the time or the will (political or otherwise) to enact directives in hopes of a possible scientific advancement that allows us to bend the laws of physics to allow us to throw our cigarettes out of a car window while watching television on our facebook phone without worry of 'repercussions.'
Better nuclear designs = $$$$$. Cleaner air = $$$$$. Recycling = $$$$$$. Hell planting trees, something nature has handled by itself for eons and eons and eons, costs $$$$$$. Want to know how receptive the public is about putting $$$$ towards "good causes"? keep reading these forums. You'll get your answer and it won't be the one you want.
In case you don't wish to comb my archived posts.....
1)I believe nuclear is best for short term
2) solar best for long term
3) possiblity of adapting wind turbines to ocean/river currents a la seaquest being a good idea if we can get around the pressure/ effiency/cutting up wildlife issues
4) stop dumping our chemicals and medicines into the water table (seriously scary)
5) plant more trees- national parks and parking lots don't count; keep the jungles, savannahs, and rain forests intact and away from modern human activity b/c the repercussions of that are 1,000,000x worse than some guy not making a killing on a land deal for a subdivision or condo. Ever see "Arachnophobia?"
6) people are ignorant
7) get rid of the corruption
....have a nice day!
a matter of fact - I agree mostly with your overall thoughts and list but does thorium really explode when exposed to air? I know pure thorium will rapidly oxidize and all thorium found in nature is in it's oxidized state already but that it first I have heard about it exploding. Do you have any links for this? I would like to look it up and so far can't find anything on it. Does a thorium reactor need pure thorium or can it work in its natural state?
@thomas paine
I have 2 points to your response:
@It is time
my only source on the matter was what that guy said to me. I didn't do much more in-depth research into it, though I do believe that I saw something about volatility somewhere. It was a conversation we had in a nightclub while waiting for more people to arrive (it was early, so we were both still sober). Good luck with your search and let me know what you find.
Does anyone really think this mess can be fixed for $13 billion? the limit of liability set in the US, by the Price-Anderson act, with the remainder picked up by taxpayers. Long-term storage of radioactive waste is another problem. How can we keep it sealed for 10,000 years?
WE CAN'T.
We don't have to:
Look for Generation IV reactors: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor
And breeder reactors: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor
Well, it WAS going to Yucca Mountain but that got shut down...
Yeah. Build the reactors underground so that if a leak or meltdown should occur the radioactivity will get right into the aquafer. Good plan.
lokay5.....
To late... Texas approved Nuclear waste disposal already... Andrew County Texas... Above the Ogallala
and the Dockum Aquifier, which is in 7 States and used for drinking water and irrigation... Money greased
the way through Gov Perry and Perry appointed Panels for Perry's wealthy Campaign contributer.......
Ogalla Aquifier
http://www.texasradiation.org/andrews/hydro.html
more
http://www.texasradiation.org/wcsandrews.html
The site is at a ranch known as Windmill Hill in Andrews County, Texas. Not only
is this disposal site located above two aquifers, (the Ogallala and the Dockum),
but there are also aquifer recharge features on the property. The Ogallala
aquifer ranges under 7 other states: New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado,
Wyoming, Nebraska, and South Dakota; demonstrating that opposing the WCS
facility is not just a "not-in-my-backyard" stance.
Thier hazardous
waste pit, where they have dumped several million cubic feet of toxic waste and
low-radioactivity trash, is actually dug into the Ogallala which is
around 35 feet below the surface. It has a plastic lining, which historically
have been found to leak. The company bought 16,000 acres in it's earlier days
and has licensed 1,600 acres for its hazardous waste disposal area.
The only disposed of Nuclear Waste site is currently the bottom of the ocean.... the US has done this and France currently still uses this method...not sure about others but was told before that Japan also does this.
If any country was ripe for off shore Wind and wave energy, it is Japan. And now with the reasoning being very clear, Thy Will Be Done (Maybe???). And our Government should take a good hard look at closing our Nuke facilities. These rich fat oil companies have been donating millions of dollars to elect oil candidates. Why in the heck don't they take this same money, invest in the green energies, and save everybody all the trouble created by their pollution? If they think they will find another planet to infest and destroy, they're 150% wrong. All the money in this overpopulated earth cannot buy a reprieve from the disaster coming. Add to the pollution all the CO2s added from war mechanisms and blowing things up and it will go by by faster than thought. Think about it
We need to harness all that nature gives us free. #1 WIND in tornado ally !!#2 Learn how to capture Lightning energy when it strikes capture that energy #3 The ocean waves #4 Do more with the Sun and the heat and energy it gives
There is a reason why there aren't wind turbines in places like tornado alley, it is not worth the risk. WInd turbines are costly delicate technology that would be destroyed with even an F1 tornado.
#1 - Wind turbines have to have spring-loaded vanes that will prevent over-speeding (and burning out of) the generators. As m_g_l said, they're delicate and costly. Even straight-line winds from a microburst can destroy a turbine.
#2 - Do you have any idea of the energy contained within a lightning bolt? ~50,000 degrees Fahrenheit and traveling at ~150,000 mph! Add to that the inherent instability and unpredictability of lightning and you have a huge problem. Some bolts are relatively mild and some are intense discharges of over a billion volts and 200,000 amps of current. Also, how do you intend to store the massive amount of electricity? We just don't have the technology to do this cost-effectively and it would have to be one HELL of a battery bank to store it.
#3 - Totally agree here. The only problem is that you have to live near the ocean to receive the benefits. Unless we plan on making our power lines out of gold, the current loss of today's electrical infrastructure prevents efficient transmission of more than a hundred miles or so.
#4 - Also agree. Until we can get our heads out of our butts and seriously sink some money into solar research (and I'm talking "trip to the moon" serious money), I don't see solar becoming efficient enough to supplant non-clean energy. That's sad.
The truth is: if we were to implement MANY of these technologies and not just one in particular, we could wean ourselves from fossil-fuels power generation. Find a place with a small creek that runs year-round and you'll never have to pay for electricity again, without damming the stream. You can generate >5kw of electricity with little more than a spring, efficient transmission and a generator head! HVAC your house with geothermal. Put solar panels and water jackets on your roof. A resourceful person can even harvest rain water to generate power and flush their toilets.
The paradox is that the global economy is based mostly upon fossil fuels, whether we'd like to admit it or not. If you disrupt that suddenly, it would be a calamity of biblical proportions. Entire governments would collapse and we would possibly end up worse off than where we started. We have to be careful in implementing these technologies, really. And this doesn't even take into account that those same people who stand to go broke from the transition will fight tooth and nail to keep that money in their pockets, even if it means suppressing the technology or arranging "accidents" for the inventors and patent-holders. We NEED the change - we just have to tread carefully.
What happens in Japan happens in our own back yard !!
This a very small planet there is no such thing as over there !!! Its all here "We are Gasping for life as we die" Through self infliction
Oh please!
Hey HOG LOVER ! OH PLEASE !
its ignorance like yours ! that the planet is in the place it is! So say OH PLEASE all you want go sit on your Hog LOL
"We are gasping for life as we die"
Oh stop gasping and get on with it... Enjoy your lighting and wind power.
@ Bob Cotton, maybe you could learn some proper grammar and punctuation so HOG Lover could actually understand what you are trying to say.
obama say's pond scum will work in place of crude,why not use it in place of nuclear reactors?the messiah solve's another one of the worlds problem's.
earthmx just love's those apostrophe's...
How much difference would it make if roof top solar were mandated for every home and business? Could it work to prevent strain on other power sources? Imagine the cost dropping if manufacturing was cranked up to produce that many solar panels and the jobs it would create. Possible?
So how do you intend to power everyone at night where there is no sun? Mandate all homes and businesess have battery systems to store power? Just what everyone needs, loads of batteries made from toxic materials like lead, cadmium, and lithium. Not to mention the added fire hazard they pose from overheating and over charging. And the toxic fumes produced in a fire. And how do you handle situations where the sun is covered by clouds by 5, 6, 7 or more days in a row (a common occurrance in winter months when solar power is at it's lowest impact to begin with due to low angles of the sun in the sky). Also the production capacity just isn't there. The largest producer of solar panels in the world is making only enough each year to power around 15,000 homes. If you add up all the producers around the world, esitmates is they are replacing around 100-150 thousand US homes per year. Of course with 45 million homes in the US, well, you need a WHOLE lot more production to cover every home.
Actually, my solar production is highest on cold winter days due to the increased efficiency of my solar panels. They work better when they're cold. You have solar panels too, don't you?
@ Yet another news reader, please post the make and model of your solar panels and how much they cost you to install.
Ken - first off you are right that solar won't work all the time. Rather it is an offset to help provide power during the day when grid loads are at their greatest. It is part of the answer to our energy needs (it can be a big/bigger part and should be) not the whole thing. We still need a solid base power system (ultimately fusion) but current Gen IV nuclear reactors would solve the problem til we get there. Yes batteries are made up of some nasty stuff but the technology is getting better and it will be a big part too. Solar panels are coming down in price everyday and soon the average joe homeowner will be able to afford them too.
As far as your number I think you are off. Based on an average daily consumption of 50kWh (that is high for average home) the amount of solar installed in the US, around 9000 megawatts I believe, (should be more) would cover the entire power needs of about 720,000 homes give or take for a year. Realistically I think it is closer to 1.2 million homes, assuming you are using 30kWh per day for average house. Really most homes could just have a small 2kw system, 8-9, panels and that could potentially cut almost 25% of homes power draw off the grid. But again I do understand there are still financial concerns here so its not for everyone right now.
The fact is though there are many things that can be done to save energy. And when you put those together that is when you see the biggest difference. The best thing that will happen is when LED lighting gets a little cheaper. Combine that with solar and throw in some other things like better insulated homes and energy efficient appliances to just doing things like turning off lights, tv's ect when not using adds up.
We can all make a difference if we choose and we can have an impact. It's whether or not you really care or want to.
Chole - probably still around $3-3.50 a watt for residential. Good but not where it needs to be to really be affordable. Large scale systems are getting ever closer to about $2-$2.25 a watt. This would be megawatt + sized systems. For users like that it does start making sense. Both are with no incentives mind you. Add those in and you can drop another $1-2 a watt.
Wind power can solve all of our energy needs. Have you noticed it's getting windier? And solar power. Have you noticed it's getting hotter? It's clean. And we don't have to import the wind and sunshine from the Middle East.
A lot of misconceptions here... It's not getting windier that i know of, hotter does not mean more sun for solar, and both of those have nothing to do with the middle east, our cars don't run on solar or wind...
Both good sources of energy but they simply do not produce enough energy. One reactor does the produces more power than 100's of acres of wind turbines, which in turn is FAR more than solar.
O-boy,, ARAB OIL
"Yup, Nukes bad,, OIL good "said Ackmed
Look, no matter what you choose to generate power, you are going to get negative impacts. Nuclear -- even using new generation plants which are designed to prevent meltdowns in all cases, you have waste to deal with. Coal, Oil, gas - you have the pollutants they produce as well as rising costs (oil) or environmental damage to get (coal strip mining, fracking for gas, oil spills). Solar - only good during the day and energy storage systems use toxic materials such as lead, cadmium, and lithium. Wind - Inconsistent winds means more such generation is required to cover potential dips elsewhere from low wind speeds, they use large amounts of land (replacing all power in the US with wind would take up space close to the size of Massachutses), not to mention the deadly impact they have on migratory flocks of birds. What you need is a good mix of the technologies, in order to keep all of the impacts and risk managable yet provide the power required for modern societies.
Amen, do that and sit back and hope we get fusion power generation working sooner rather than later :)
This is all Bush's fault.
Could've sworn I saw Le Monkey Face himself in the epicenter of that tsunami that barreled into Japan.
I agree John.. When Bush lifted all the safety regulations and annual inspections so it would be easier to build plants.. All the fricking Left wants is to make money! They could care less about the masses living in radioactive sludge. @!$%# like this is the reason I wake everyday and thank God for our President.. I sleep well at night because he is here taking care of us all, Republicans and Democrats.
If Japan abandons nuclear power that's fine. The consequences of this decision must also be accepted maturely. They have a $ 5 trillion dollar economy that will now be running on fossil fuels. There will be large increases in electric bills and also at the gas pump. Prices will rise sharply due to increases in the cost of production. Air conditioning will be curtailed and there will be brownouts. In all probability there will be job layoffs. One car per family is also a real possibility. These changes must be accepted, no whinning. The no whinning also includes the environmentalists. There will be extensive fossil fuel polution of the atmosphere. Again, no whinning about the consequences.
Since Im not a Nuclear Engineer, when they state they "shut down the plant", its not really shut down. Right? It takes lifetimes for the rods to cool; so they're still hot and available to harm Japan.
The plant is shut down in that it is not generating power, and the fuel rods are cooling, but they are still hot enough to boil water. It doesn't take 'lifetimes' for them to cool. But yes, it does take a period of time for the plant to reach cold shutdown. From months to a year or two.
Cooling isn't the issue, the rods themselves cool relatively quickly, it is that the rods themselves are radioactive and will be so for 1000+ years
@m_g_l the uranium that makes up the fuel was radioactive before it was refined into rods, and will continue to be so for billions of years regardless of if it is in unused fuel rods, or still in the ground untouched.
(power companies CAN install CO2 scrubbers on the stacks of coal fired plants to remove most of the CO2 from the exhaust, but they dont want to because of the cost. if we took all the subsidies that nuclear power plants)
This being done now, in a few places, and should be the way to go.
RIP Japan
We are again reminded of what it is to be in an nuclear wasteland. The area cannot be safely inhabitted by human beings for decades. Do we need power or farm land?
Solar, wave, wind, geothermal energy generation are cleaner energy sources to both nuclear and fossil fuel combustion - extracting hydrogen and burning it in internal combustion engines is both efficient and clean , collecting the charge of space and solar wind - charged particles can offer another free energy source - wind can be used to generate static charge which can be collected - energy scavenging - radio gsm etc including vibrations is also avaliable - so why stick to nuclear coal and oil ? www.zmerchnews.com
I think the world is abandoning nuclear energy too easily. The recent disaster in Japan has provoked an almost hysterical response, where a more controlled and reasoned approach is advisable.
People in general are not rational nor reasoned. Common sense is not common. People fear what they do not understand. It is a failure of education. This is why religion is so popular, and ignorance is so rampant.
It's also the only reason politicians exist.
My thoughts - look at what it took to bring it down, it wasn't a bad switch, a burned out bulb or a leaky anything, mother nature, a power that will eventually come up with something to beat you...and this was a biggie...
Terrible? yes, but no reason to stop moving forward.
Education doesn't equal knowledge, and knowledge doesn't share the same seat as wisdom!
A wise and knowledgeable person understands they don't and can't know everything.
Education should have taught you that right?
I can point people to the source of knowledge, but too many are not wise enough to accept and learn.
"You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink."
1st. law of thermodynamics: Energy cannot be created or stored.
Erm - thats 'cannot be created or destroyed'.
Positar: batteries would like to have a word with you.
Nuclear power: it's all good fun 'til someone loses their immunity and gets cancer....
That is known as Collateral Damage