Japan mulls closure of N-reactors by April (currently 36% operating)

[phantom power]

TOKYO All 54 of Japan’s nuclear reactors may be shut by next April, adding more than $30 billion a year to the country’s energy costs, if communities object to plant operating plans due to safety concerns, trade ministry officials said on Wednesday.

Since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, which triggered a radiation crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant north of Tokyo, concern among local authorities has kept nuclear generators from restarting at least four reactors that had been expected to come online after routine maintenance and inspection.

Several more reactors have since shut for regular maintenance, slashing Japan’s nuclear generating capacity to just 7,580 megawatts, or only 36 per cent of its registered nuclear capacity.

Although a reactor is legally cleared for restart once it receives approval from the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, a trade ministry watchdog, nuclear operators always seek local government approvals as well, for the support from the community around the plant.

If no reactors that shut for regular maintenance after the disaster are restarted, it would cost an extra 2.4 trillion yen ($30 billion) to make up lost power generation during the financial year to next March, a trade ministry estimate showed.

If all of Japan’s reactors end up offline without any restarts, the extra cost would escalate to 3 trillion yen a year, reflecting the need to buy more fossil fuels while the use of renewable energy remains limited.

http://www.omantribune.com/index.php?page=news&id=93501&heading=Asia

[kristopher]

1. This is what happens when you screw up and select the wrong path....

Retracing your steps and starting out again is very, very costly.

[GliderGuider]

2. What path should they have selected during the 1970s?

The 70s look like the crucial decade - by the time 1980 rolled around there were apparently 22 reactors already in service in Japan, and the die was well and truly cast. What could/should they have done instead? Was there enough hydro potential available to do the job?

On edit: Japan has about 36 GW of hydro capacity, and had about 54 GW of nuclear capacity when everything was running. It might have been hard to build out enough hydro to replace the nukes they built, but I don't know the state of their rivers and waterfalls. Their only other option in the 70s would have been fossil...

[kristopher]

4. Try reading Lovins.

With his eye on AGW in 1976 he outlined a portfolio of distributed technologies that would have done the job. Although it included what is now called "advanced coal" the increased efficiency of the distributed system and the friendliness of a distributed grid to the integration of variable renewables would have probably put them in a position today where their total emissions are far less than they have achieved with a reliance on centralized thermal. Having nuclear as 30% of their mix means two things, the other 70% is mostly fossil, and they are locked into the use of nuclear for some unknown time even though the population CLEARLY wants to get rid of it now.

Their situation is not the same as Germany because Germany has been planning and working actively for almost 15 years to lay in the infrastructure to enable a large-scale shift to renewable energy. Japan hasn't. With existing generating resources their renewable penetration is limited to about 20%, meaning that any transition will require them to build not only the bulk renewables, but also significant load balancing resources.

They can do it, and I think the policies they end up with are going to provide a surprising model for how quickly a seemingly insurmountable task can be accomplished.

[stockholmer]

3. 'adding more than $30 billion a year to the country’s energy costs'-US govrnt spends this in 3 DAYS!

Just to give perspective.

[kristopher]

5. Shareholders urge TEPCO to give up nuclear power

Shareholders urge TEPCO to give up nuclear power

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- A group of 402 shareholders of Tokyo Electric Power Co. has urged the utility to give up nuclear power generation, the company, known as TEPCO, said Friday.

The request has been submitted as a proposal to be discussed at the annual shareholders meeting on June 28 in the wake of the nuclear emergency at the utility's Fukushima Daiichi power plant.

TEPCO said its board of directors will oppose the proposal for a change in the company's articles of incorporation to seek the withdrawal from nuclear power generation...

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20110610p2g00m0dm091000c.html

[SpoonFed]

6. I can only see that number of shareholders going up n/t

[kristopher]

7. Shareholders at Kepco (another regional utility) did the same thing yesterday. nt