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Diet panel approves civil nuclear pacts

A committee of Japan's Lower House has approved civil nuclear cooperation treaties with 4 countries. The house is to vote on the agreements next week.

The foreign affairs committee gave majority support on Friday for the treaties with Jordan, Russia, Vietnam and South Korea.

The main governing Democratic Party and the largest opposition Liberal Democratic Party voted for the pacts.

The treaties would allow Japan to export nuclear power generation facilities and transfer related technology to the nations.

Japan and the 4 countries signed the accords before the March 11th disaster and Fukushima nuclear accident. Diet approval had been pending ever since.

Japan's Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda told the committee that Japan has a duty to share the lessons learned from the accident.

Noda said it would be meaningful for Japan to offer safe nuclear technologies to countries that request them, while ensuring the peaceful use of nuclear power and monitoring conditions in recipient nations.

But he expressed caution about signing similar pacts with more countries, citing the need to review the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

Friday, December 02, 2011 16:16 +0900 (JST)
www3.nhk.or.jp

@Edano, found this one last night. The fuel melted but inside the steel of containment now qualified as "cold shutdown". You were spot on that they were calculated a desired outcome for a reason. :-)
www.reuters.com

Japan may announce Fukushima cold shutdown on Dec. 16: Yomiuri

(Reuters) - Japan may announce on December 16 that tsunami-damaged nuclear reactors in Fukushima are in a cold shutdown, the Yomiuri newspaper reported on Friday, an important milestone in its plan to bring under control the worst nuclear accident in 25 years.

The Fukushima Daiichi plant, 240 km (150 miles) northeast of Tokyo, was wrecked by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, which knocked out reactor cooling systems, causing meltdowns of nuclear fuel rods.

A cold shutdown is when water used to cool nuclear fuel rods remains below its boiling point, preventing the fuel from reheating.

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda may declare a cold shutdown because a November 30 analysis by plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co showed that temperatures for the nuclear fuel lying at the bottom of the containment vessel have stabilized, the paper said.

Radiation levels at the reactors have also fallen significantly, it said.

Declaring a cold shutdown will have repercussions well beyond the plant as it is one of the criteria the government has said must be met before it begins allowing 80,000 residents evacuated from within a 20 km (12 mile) radius of the plant to return home.

But even if a cold shutdown is declared, Tokyo Electric has acknowledged before that it may be unable to remove the fuel from the reactors for another 10 years, and experts say the cleanup at the plant could take several decades.

(Reporting by Stanley White; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
www.reuters.com

Bear, boar and deer banned from shipment for most of the NE region www.asahi.com

Trying to take all of yesterday's work and stories and the cold shutdown nonsense and work it into an article for today.

UPDATE1: Tsunami was direct cause of nuclear crisis: TEPCO investigation
TOKYO, Dec. 2, Kyodo

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Friday it has determined that the direct cause of the nuclear crisis at its Fukushima Daiichi power plant was a larger-than-expected tsunami that flooded key buildings after the March 11 earthquake, and not the magnitude 9.0 jolt itself.

''We had prepared for accidents at a certain level and had documented procedures, but, because of the impact of the tsunami far larger than our expectations, the situation developed into one that deviated from our accident-response assumptions,'' TEPCO said in an interim report on an in-house investigation into the world's worst nuclear accident in 25 years.

''As a result, we were not able to take measures to counter the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant and could not prevent reactor cores from sustaining damage,'' it said.

According to the 130-page report, the facilities important to the plant's safety measures did not sustain damage as a direct result of the massive quake, but the flooding from the 13-meter-high tsunami led to the ''simultaneous loss of multiple safety functions.''

The prolonged loss of backup power sources and functions to cool the reactors resulted in the meltdown of nuclear fuel in the Nos. 1 to 3 reactors, leading to a massive release of radioactive substances into the environment.

In compiling the report, TEPCO sought advice from a panel of experts, which also announced its views in a separate paper also Friday, saying TEPCO's ''insufficient'' safety measures were a factor in the accident.

The panel's paper also noted that TEPCO may have been stuck on the ''myth'' that atomic power is safe.

However, Executive Vice President Masao Yamazaki said in a news conference that TEPCO had taken ''the best possible measures at the time'' for safety.

The TEPCO report said the utility had taken enough measures to withstand tsunami waves as high as 6.1 meters, but the latest tsunami that set off the nuclear crisis at the plant in northeastern Japan was ''far larger than the company's expectations.''

TEPCO projected in an in-house study in 2008 that a tsunami as high as 10.2 meters could hit the plant, but the figure was ''just something based on an assumption without specific evidence,'' the report also said, justifying the company's decision not to take immediate action.

TEPCO's report also included measures to prevent a recurrence, such as setting barriers to block water from entering the buildings and installing functions that would not allow reactor cores to be damaged even in case of a loss of power.

TEPCO plans to compile a final investigative report by around June.

Another panel set up at the government's initiative is also looking into the causes of the accident and is set to compile an interim report in late December.

==Kyodo

@Vivre One of the workers mentioned there really is no action they can take now to change things. It is keep the circulation systems working. It really seems like the govt and tepco are trying to declare the whole thing "over".

@lillymunster with naoto kan, we hoped for a better and independent regulation of the power industry, but now gov and tepco stand hand in hand again. why does noda do that ? is he so weak ? do they really want to keep on their 3-apes-policy (no see no hear no say) ? i am disappointed.

good question, where is edano ?

Govt to review energy law / Edano calls for ways to reduce usage, increase efficiency

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Yukio Edano said in a recent interview with The Yomiuri Shimbun the government would soon start working on a drastic review of the Energy Conservation Law.

Taking lessons from power shortages this summer, the review will seek to lower maximum electricity use during peak hours, which the current Energy Conservation Law does not cover, Edano said.

He said the government aimed to submit a bill to revise the law during the ordinary Diet session in January at the earliest.

"How we can achieve a 'peak cut' [reduction in maximum electricity use] is critical," Edano said.

One of purposes of the current Energy Conservation Law, which was enacted after the oil crises in the 1970s, is to reduce annual energy use. The power shortages this summer, however, required the government to ask companies and households to save electricity to substantially reduce demand during peak hours, when air conditioners were running at full capacity.

According to Edano, the government will consider a system in which it will positively evaluate companies introducing solar panels, storage batteries, power generators and other power-saving equipment. The government also will call on energy companies to promote wider use of next-generation smart meters.

With smart meters, households are able to check electricity use during peak hours, which should lead to more efficient use of air conditioners. The smart meter is also expected to make it easier to promote solar panels.

The government will also call on the private sector to use energy efficient insulation and windows to promote energy conserving homes.

Edano also expressed strong concern over the current state of the economy and stressed the need to actively participate in trade negotiations, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership, to improve the situation.

"Japan is on its way to destruction," Edano said in the interview. "Companies reduce their capital investment to cut costs. Households see their income falling and save rather than spend. This is an economy of 'strained endurance.'"

Edano said Japan will have a trade deficit if nothing is done and fiscal crises such as the one in Greece will no longer be seen as someone else's problem.

Asked about the merits of promoting economic partnerships with other countries, such as the TPP and a trilateral free trade agreement between Japan, China and South Korea, Edano emphasized Japan will be able to fully utilize its competitiveness through the economic partnerships.

"Unless we deepen partnerships with other countries in the growing Asia-Pacific region, we won't be able to compete in the global market even in fields where we have a competitive edge," he said. "Both of them [the TPP and the Japan-China-South Korea free trade agreement] aim to create the Free Trade Area of Asia Pacific to liberalize trade in the Asia-Pacific region."

Asked about people's fear that the public health insurance system could collapse if the country joined the TPP, Edano said: "We'll protect things that can't be sacrificed. We'll be able to assure people most issues they are concerned about now are not included on the agenda [of the TPP talks] once talks with other countries begin."
(Nov. 25, 2011) www.yomiuri.co.jp

edano is still critical...

Such a weird dynamic. Most people don't want nuclear power, local govts want them for the money they hand out, ignoring the risk of obliterating the local area in an accident. Of course the nuke industry wants to expand. So it is this product consumers don't want pushed on them by the nuke industry and local govts. looking for an easy out to governing.

So was TEPCO building Rokkasho? I thought it was a govt project?

interesting news today !

U.K. to be world's first to dispose of plutonium in underground repository
LONDON -- The United Kingdom., which has the world's largest surplus of plutonium, is planning to bury a portion of its waste in an underground repository, the first such attempt in the world to "dispose" of nuclear waste. [....] mdn.mainichi.jp

I see the exact same conformity behaviors in the US. They are just more subtle.

Interview with doctor and govt official in Japan. Health Ministry does a patient survey every few years, the next 12 months is one of those. Fukushima is being excluded from the govt Survey claiming some vague "reconstruction" excuse. The doctor said JMA does not do their own survey or data. That the ministry data will be the source of health data. s123.de-blog.jp