South Korea’s plan to install smart meters in half the country’s households by 2016 could cut electricity consumption equivalent to the cost of one nuclear power plant.
“We want to make the utility industry intelligent and efficient,” said Choi Kyu Chong, director of the Smart Grid & Electricity Market Division of the Knowledge Economy Ministry. South Korea expects it will be able to save the cost of building a reactor by 2016 by helping households and utilities to manage electricity consumption through the meters, he said.
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Showing posts with label nuclear power. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nuclear power. Show all posts
Monday, March 12, 2012
Saturday, January 28, 2012
If not for Russia and Iran; Syrians would be FREE and rid of Assad.
The Arab League looks a bit toothless in Syria,” Paul Sullivan, a specialist in Middle East security at Georgetown University in Washington, said in an e-mail. “The Syrian regime has little time left. The clock is ticking. If it were not for Iranian and Russian help, Bashar would have been out already most likely.”
The Syrian government has “exacerbated” the situation by resorting to force, the Arab League said.
Syria said it was surprised by the Arab League decision after agreeing to allow the mission in the country for another month, the official Syrian Arab News Agency reported yesterday, citing an unidentified government official.
Assad’s security forces have maintained their efforts to crush demonstrations even after the Cairo-based organization sent observers to Syria on Dec. 26. The monitors aimed at ensuring that Assad followed through on his pledge to withdraw security forces from cities, release political prisoners and allow anti-government demonstrations.
The Syrian government has “exacerbated” the situation by resorting to force, the Arab League said.
Syria said it was surprised by the Arab League decision after agreeing to allow the mission in the country for another month, the official Syrian Arab News Agency reported yesterday, citing an unidentified government official.
Assad’s security forces have maintained their efforts to crush demonstrations even after the Cairo-based organization sent observers to Syria on Dec. 26. The monitors aimed at ensuring that Assad followed through on his pledge to withdraw security forces from cities, release political prisoners and allow anti-government demonstrations.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Want to build a nuclear power plant, then I hope your babies don't drink milk...
Radioactive cesium was found in milk powder made by a Meiji Holdings Co. unit in Japan, prompting a voluntary recall of 400,000 cans of the infant formula, Kyodo News said today.
Meiji shares tumbled the most in more than eight months after the report, which said the contamination may be the result of radiation leaked from the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Products affected by the recall have the following expiry dates in 2012: Oct. 4, Oct. 21, Oct. 22. and Oct. 24, Kyodo reported.
Meiji slumped as much as 13 percent (2269) on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The shares traded down 9.6 percent at a 30-month low of 3,025 yen at 2:28 p.m. local time, set for the biggest one- day slide since March 15.
Meiji shares tumbled the most in more than eight months after the report, which said the contamination may be the result of radiation leaked from the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Products affected by the recall have the following expiry dates in 2012: Oct. 4, Oct. 21, Oct. 22. and Oct. 24, Kyodo reported.
Meiji slumped as much as 13 percent (2269) on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The shares traded down 9.6 percent at a 30-month low of 3,025 yen at 2:28 p.m. local time, set for the biggest one- day slide since March 15.
Friday, November 25, 2011
Germany: Water Canons on protesters.
Scuffles broke out between anti-nuclear protesters and German police early on Saturday (November 26) in the northern town of Metzingen. This is some 30 kilometres away from where a shipment of highly radioactive nuclear waste was expected to arrive at a storage depot later over weekend.
Police used water cannons on a smaller group of protesters which had distanced itself from a nearby "camp" of some 700 to 800 activists, many of whom shouted at police to "go away."
A heavily protected train carrying 150 tonnes of reprocessed nuclear waste was en route to the Gorleben storage site in Germany's Lower Saxony state. The train left Areva's nuclear fuel reprocessing facility in Normandy, France on Wednesday (November 23) after scuffles there between police and hundreds of protesters who tried to foil the transport by occupying train tracks near the town of Valognes.
The train was the last of 12 shipments of treated German nuclear waste sent in recent years from France to Gorleben.
Police used water cannons on a smaller group of protesters which had distanced itself from a nearby "camp" of some 700 to 800 activists, many of whom shouted at police to "go away."
A heavily protected train carrying 150 tonnes of reprocessed nuclear waste was en route to the Gorleben storage site in Germany's Lower Saxony state. The train left Areva's nuclear fuel reprocessing facility in Normandy, France on Wednesday (November 23) after scuffles there between police and hundreds of protesters who tried to foil the transport by occupying train tracks near the town of Valognes.
The train was the last of 12 shipments of treated German nuclear waste sent in recent years from France to Gorleben.
Monday, September 26, 2011
See what one "Oh Shit!" costs in terms of a nuclear mishap.
Beyond the police roadblocks that mark the no-go zone around Japan’s wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant, six-foot tall weeds invade rice paddies and vines gone wild strangle road signs along empty streets.
Takako Harada, 80, returned to an evacuated area of Iitate village to retrieve her car. Beside her house is an empty cattle pen, the 100 cows slaughtered on government order after radiation from the March 11 atomic disaster saturated the area, forcing 160,000 people to move away and leaving some places uninhabitable for two decades or more.
“Older folks want to return, but the young worry about radiation,” said Harada, whose family ran the farm for 40 years. “I want to farm, but will we be able to sell anything?”
What’s emerging in Japan six months since the nuclear meltdown at the Tokyo Electric Power Co. plant is a radioactive zone bigger than that left by the 1945 atomic bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. While nature reclaims the 20 kilometer (12 mile) no-go zone, Fukushima’s $3.2 billion-a-year farm industry is being devastated and tourists that hiked the prefecture’s mountains and surfed off its beaches have all but vanished.
The March earthquake and tsunami that caused the nuclear crisis and left almost 20,000 people dead or missing may cost 17 trillion ($223 billion), hindering the recovery of the world’s third-largest economy from two decades of stagnation.
Takako Harada, 80, returned to an evacuated area of Iitate village to retrieve her car. Beside her house is an empty cattle pen, the 100 cows slaughtered on government order after radiation from the March 11 atomic disaster saturated the area, forcing 160,000 people to move away and leaving some places uninhabitable for two decades or more.
“Older folks want to return, but the young worry about radiation,” said Harada, whose family ran the farm for 40 years. “I want to farm, but will we be able to sell anything?”
What’s emerging in Japan six months since the nuclear meltdown at the Tokyo Electric Power Co. plant is a radioactive zone bigger than that left by the 1945 atomic bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. While nature reclaims the 20 kilometer (12 mile) no-go zone, Fukushima’s $3.2 billion-a-year farm industry is being devastated and tourists that hiked the prefecture’s mountains and surfed off its beaches have all but vanished.
The March earthquake and tsunami that caused the nuclear crisis and left almost 20,000 people dead or missing may cost 17 trillion ($223 billion), hindering the recovery of the world’s third-largest economy from two decades of stagnation.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Nuclear energy is not a sovereign decision; it’s a global choice
As some nations push on with nuclear programs and others can’t retire their existing plants fast enough. It is clear, much like climate change, the actions of one nation effect the viability of the others on this blue-ish brown (smog) planet.
California scientists witnessed a spike in radioactive airborne material in March following the meltdown of Japan’s wrecked Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant, a study showed.
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, observed the highest levels ever detected of radioactive sulfur in the atmosphere, 15 days after Fukushima’s operators cooled the damaged reactors by pumping in seawater, according to a study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The 40-year-old Fukushima plant withstood the country’s worst earthquake on record, only to have its power and back-up generators knocked out by the 7-meter (23-foot) tsunami that followed. Lacking electricity to pump water needed to cool the atomic core, engineers vented radioactive steam into the atmosphere to release pressure. A series of explosions ensued, blowing out concrete walls around some reactors.
The amount of radioactive material that escaped from the reactor’s core and found a kilometer above Fukushima was 365 times higher than normal, researchers calculated in the study. About 0.7 percent of the material made its way 5,800 miles across the Pacific Ocean to California, the study said. Researchers made their measurements in La Jolla, California.
California scientists witnessed a spike in radioactive airborne material in March following the meltdown of Japan’s wrecked Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant, a study showed.
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, observed the highest levels ever detected of radioactive sulfur in the atmosphere, 15 days after Fukushima’s operators cooled the damaged reactors by pumping in seawater, according to a study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The 40-year-old Fukushima plant withstood the country’s worst earthquake on record, only to have its power and back-up generators knocked out by the 7-meter (23-foot) tsunami that followed. Lacking electricity to pump water needed to cool the atomic core, engineers vented radioactive steam into the atmosphere to release pressure. A series of explosions ensued, blowing out concrete walls around some reactors.
The amount of radioactive material that escaped from the reactor’s core and found a kilometer above Fukushima was 365 times higher than normal, researchers calculated in the study. About 0.7 percent of the material made its way 5,800 miles across the Pacific Ocean to California, the study said. Researchers made their measurements in La Jolla, California.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Final to initial fissile
China connected an experimental nuclear reactor that produces less radioactive waste than current designs to the electricity grid today, as the nation seeks safer atomic power after Japan’s Fukushima accident.
The 65-megawatt fast-neutron reactor near Beijing connected to the grid at 40 percent capacity, Xu Mi, chief engineer at the China Experiment Fast Reactor program, said by telephone. The program is run by the China Institute of Atomic Energy.
“The next step for us is to increase the generating capacity of the reactor to 100 percent while connected to grid,” Xu said. “After that, we can use the technology to build our own commercial fast reactors.”
About 20 Fast Neutron Reactors (FNR) have already been operating, some since the 1950s, and some supplying electricity commercially. About 400 reactor-years of operating experience have been accumulated to the end of 2010. Fast reactors more deliberately use the uranium-238 as well as the fissile U-235 isotope used in most reactors. If they are designed to produce more plutonium than they consume, they are called Fast Breeder Reactors (FBR). But many designs are net consumers of fissile material including plutonium. Fast neutron reactors also can burn long-lived actinides which are recovered from used fuel out of ordinary reactors
China plans to start construction of a 1-gigawatt fast reactor at Sanming city in 2018, Xu said. The facility will use the country’s so-called fourth generation nuclear technology, he said.
China National Nuclear Corp. the nation’s biggest operator of atomic plants, plans to start building two 800-megawatt fourth-generation reactors using Russian designs around 2013 or 2014, Xu said today. The reactors will also be at Sanming.
The 65-megawatt fast-neutron reactor near Beijing connected to the grid at 40 percent capacity, Xu Mi, chief engineer at the China Experiment Fast Reactor program, said by telephone. The program is run by the China Institute of Atomic Energy.
“The next step for us is to increase the generating capacity of the reactor to 100 percent while connected to grid,” Xu said. “After that, we can use the technology to build our own commercial fast reactors.”
About 20 Fast Neutron Reactors (FNR) have already been operating, some since the 1950s, and some supplying electricity commercially. About 400 reactor-years of operating experience have been accumulated to the end of 2010. Fast reactors more deliberately use the uranium-238 as well as the fissile U-235 isotope used in most reactors. If they are designed to produce more plutonium than they consume, they are called Fast Breeder Reactors (FBR). But many designs are net consumers of fissile material including plutonium. Fast neutron reactors also can burn long-lived actinides which are recovered from used fuel out of ordinary reactors
China plans to start construction of a 1-gigawatt fast reactor at Sanming city in 2018, Xu said. The facility will use the country’s so-called fourth generation nuclear technology, he said.
China National Nuclear Corp. the nation’s biggest operator of atomic plants, plans to start building two 800-megawatt fourth-generation reactors using Russian designs around 2013 or 2014, Xu said today. The reactors will also be at Sanming.
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