Posted on 09/15/2013 1:59:07 AM PDT by nickcarraway
apan is to start the process of switching off its last working nuclear reactor Sunday for a scheduled inspection with no restart in sight due to public hostility towards atomic power. The move will leave the world's third largest economy without atomic energy for the second time since the Fukushima crisis erupted in March 2011.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/09/15/japan-to-be-nuclear-free-as-last-reactor-switched-off/#ixzz2ewy6EeAV
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
How much of Japan’s total generating capacity do the downed nukes represent?
ping for further information
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Country-Profiles/Countries-G-N/Japan/#.UjWDNkvwZmU
“The country’s 50 main reactors have provided some 30% of the country’s electricity and this was expected to increase to at least 40% by 2017. The prospect now is for about half of this.”
Edgar Casey prophesized that Japan must fall into the sea. Their troubles are just beginning. It will get much worse despite their best efforts. They nuked themselves back to the stone age in a sense. Unable to make up the power loss, will they once again strike out against the world in search of energy?
Germany's recent position on nuke plants,OTOH,makes no sense at all.Just more Marxist BS from Euroweenies.But then Marx *was* a German.
Like anything else nuclear power is not without risks. But when one builds a nuclear plant where it is known to have tsunamis’ at regular intervals seems to be foolhardy to say the least.
Sometimes, the risks are too high.
As I recall Japan has neither oil or natural gas resources and little coal so what are they going to do for power when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine?
And much the rest the fate of their neighbors.
Every day 400 tonnes of radioactive water is created in Fukushima. In comparison to Fukushima, Chernobyl was minor incident and Three Mile Island was non-event.
It wasn't the tsunami or the earthquake that caused the primary failure, which if you think about it is amazing given the mind-blowing, record-splintering size and scope of this incredible earthquake and devastating tsunami. What caused the failure was the extended loss of power to the generating station.
There are new designs - newer than the 50-year-old designs at Fukushima though that's not saying much - that fail completely passively. They do not require pumps or any other active cooling when shut down, instead relying on the laws of physics like gravity and convection.
But given the massive regulatory hurdles involved in building a new nuclear power plant, they were forced to keep 40-year-old reactors running to keep people from freezing to death in the winter, instead of replacing them with new passively safe reactors the designs of which incorporate decades of operational experience and institutional knowledge.
Maybe when enough people freeze to death or choke on horrific fossil-fuel smog, they'll reconsider their decision.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.