Noda says reactor restart necessary once safety is assured

Finally, the correct decision is made in the best interest of the people. The demand is too high to return to other fuels to generate electricity unless higher prices are acceptable for common, every day food, shelter and clothing. Protesters should just stay home and save the fuel and cost of producing energy for them to ride the trains, buses, subways, etc.

At least someone decided something.

He better get some mirrors so he doesn't fall over while he's doing all that back-peddling...

Well, there you have it folks....bought and paid for by Big Energy and Deep Pockets. Not even a day into the hot summer and they're ready to turn back to nuclear energy.

Money talks, common sense walks.

If there were to be another nuclear accident with radioactive release what then?

Would the people be evacuated promptly and informed? Would there be treatment and testing for all? Would all people be accepted for tratment and testing? Would there be another campaign to export and promote consumption of radioactive food? Would there be another tax payer funded campaign to downplay the fear of irradiation? Would there be another bout of food contamination and incineration that would further spread contamination all over Japan? Would another nuclear disaster just be passed off as a baseless rumour?

The government has been struggling to win support from local authorities for the restarts

How about getting the support of the people first? What ever happened to the expression "Once burnt, twice shy"? I believe most of us are willing to cut down as much as possible on the electricity (can't afford to pay for it anyway...) since we'd all rather be safe than sorry...

Nuclear energy is safe if regulated......except in Japan. We're living on a volcanic island here, noone should have approved nuclear energy in the first place. Expect another nuclear accident in the near future. This country's politicians won't learn until japan becomes an uninhabitable wasteland.

Tax and increase and restarting the plants. Two things the public are against. Great. LDP back in power by next election. Damn it.

Or... perhaps he's doing the little "safety dance" and knows these places will never be up to snuff with regulations??

Sensible and needs to be done. The alternative will not only cost Japan too much for energy, it will pump carbon into the atmosphere.

Safety cannot be assured if the government are relying on the same flawed regulatory regime as existed before the Fukushima fiasco. Noda should first establish an independent nuclear power regulator then let them decide what requirements need to be met to ensure safe operation. Only once those requirements are met should any power stations be restarted. Unfortunately, Noda is so useless that he has done almost nothing to set up the new regulator.

No matter how many times Noda tries to win people's "understanding", the fact is that Noda is not an expert on nuclear power and is not qualified to say whether the stations are safe, or not. Nor will he be able to take any responsibility for his decision, since he will be gone in a couple of months.

@Scrote He's not trying to win the people's "understanding" at all.

He is doing what influential lobbyists are pushing him to do. He's not even scared of the LDP. He knows if he does this nuclear power will buy all the votes his party needs. Everybody lives comfortably from TEPCO and Deep Pocket payouts.

The politicians and all those in favor of Big Nuclear will get more money than the residents of nuclear affected areas combined.

Raising the price of household utilities and also consumption tax has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with compensation for the displaced unemployed resisdents that are suing TEPCO. In fact, the money is more for the payoffs and political favors required to stay out of jail and go back to the way things were.

You might be in favor of raising taxes to speed up Japan's recovery but that money is going to lobbyists, lawyers, and politicians. Thus we have yet to see any of TEPCO's top execs brought up on criminal charges.

Big Nuclear has a framework set in place that is near rock solid. There are acolytes in the political system that will do anything to defend it.

The article above, taken together with the following JapanTimes article; http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120531a3.html

It would seem that a restart is inevitable, unless the Japanese People make their voice heard so loud and clear that there can be no doubt that a restart is political suicide.

And I guess even then, it will only be proven that Mr. Noda is nothing but a lamb to be sacrificed on the altar in the temple of nuclear worship.

tmarie,

Or... perhaps he's doing the little "safety dance" and knows these places will never be up to snuff with regulations??

That would be a very Japanese way of handling the matter. It is said that the last thing to leave a human is hope..... But my bets are still on the sacrificial lamb theory above.

Wow! Talk about not even giving non-nuclear energy a chance! We haven't even had a blackout yet. (Or am I wrong and just haven't noticed any?)

"Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, keen to restart idled nuclear reactors to avoid a summer power crunch, said on Wednesday it was necessary to start those reactors ........"

The govt. is terrified that the longer all the reactors are turned off, the sooner it will dawn on the public that the entire nuclear program is not critical after all.

Here is that link again (click-able this time?):

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120531a3.html

The people have no power. BOW

There is NO will or backbone in these people. BOW.

The day Japan stops bowing and they see eye to eye is the day the people will have their own voice.

The psychological impact of restarting even 1 reactor would far outweigh the contribution of that 1 reactor to the nation's power supply.

Because it would underline that the reactors - and by extrapolation - Japan's entire nuclear industry - are necessary.

The government has been struggling to win support from local authorities for the restarts, although their permission is not legally required.

So their support isn't required ? Sounds like they can do whatever the bloody Hell they want. What about the general public, don't they have a voice?

Will this safety assurance be given by the same mob that has been assuring the Japanese public for the past 30 odd years? As stated by Greenpeace, none of the safety recommendations have been implemented so how can they give an assurance of safety and restart them? We all know that once they are restarted they will not touch them again.

would ease worries about power shortages among firms in the region, including struggling electronics giants Panasonic Corp and Sharp Corp

Eh? What does this have to do with the restarting the reactors? If the companies are struggling they should be conserving their energy use anyway, right?

Safety was assured at the TEPCO Fukushima NPP and look what happened there.

In other news, it seems there has been a possible recriticality at Fukushima, according to EneNews which I usually don't link to, but since it seems this info is originally from an article to appear in a future issue of Asahi I'll make an exception.

http://enenews.com/tepco-email-possible-re-criticality-in-reactor-no-2

The problem is that the muppets in charge can't guarantee the safety of the reactors and actually have no idea about their functions. Noda has even less idea and he's only an old puppet that's about to be discarded. Until the baaajin stand up nothing will change in this communist state sorry freedom country of Japan.

Would the people be evacuated promptly and informed? Would there be treatment and testing for all? Would all people be accepted for tratment and testing? Would there be another campaign to export and promote consumption of radioactive food? Would there be another tax payer funded campaign to downplay the fear of irradiation? Would there be another bout of food contamination and incineration that would further spread contamination all over Japan? Would another nuclear disaster just be passed off as a baseless rumour?

These are good points. "Once safety is assured?" The country hasn't even decided on what to do when there's a nuclear disaster. How can they even begin to to guarantee their citizens safety? Just hope and pray that there won't be a nuclear disaster? Again?

Now we know who really runs Japan. Public utilities should never be given to private companies to run.

There's no such thing of "assured safety" with nuclear plants. The world must stop using them. Time to move on.

Convincing local authorities (most likely via promises and/or money) is a far cry from convincing local residents. My only hope is that the current resistance to the restarts being rather adamamtly displayed by people is enough to scare said local authorities, and it would be nice to see it go even further and local residents let it be known that if the authorities restart against their will, said authorities will not be reelected.

Once safety is assured ?!?!?!?!? I thought it was assured BEFORE the tsunami !!!!!

Don't be fooled! First he was considering that we will not have elecricity in summer between 6 and 8PM in order to make up for power shortages, now the reactors will work again once safety is assured. These reactors are actually more dangerous when they are not in operation. Then ask yourself, why would the government buy up most of TEPCO and never use it again? Why would anyone buy something to throw it away? Scaremongering at its best. Just get over it and put them back on again or dismantle everything but don't let them just be there dormant.

SquidBert, the English translation in your link above is so poor that it is impossible to say if there has been, or there might be, recriticality.

Whoever found that article has rushed it through machine translation, ruining any meaning it once might have had.

Now, if we could get hold of the original Japanese article things might start to make better sense...

Japan will never start a nuclear reactor again! 90% of the population is against nukes. July 1, the best Feed in Tariff in the world starts in Japan, which will pay 30 million home owner who have solan panels on their roofs $0.90 cents kWh to harvest solar energy and feed it into the grid.

This will equal the power of 10 nukes. Nukes have been phased out by solar power and the Feed in tariff. This is exactly how Germany shut down its nukes.

Everyone in Japan is installing solar panels as fast as they can!

The price for solar is now the same per kWh as nukes, when you compare all costs created by nuclear accidents.

Solar is always safe.. Nukes are never safe. Never.

said he would make a final decision once local authorities have made up their minds.

Finally, a real chance of avoiding restarting

the same tech that makes LCD TV's makes solar panels. Note that even before you get to expensive technology there are lots of things on the thermal angle that Japan can do. Japan could go for it and not need nuclear. This is an opportunity to bring the nation together, work towards a positive future, and get off the sauce.

PM naoto Kan is leading a march Sunday against restarting any nukes. Kan is the hero of Japan's green movement!

Noda couldn't guarantee the safety of a door handle, and the nation is going to go along and pretend that he can make nuclear assurances???

This is a good time to protest Japan. The corporate muppets are sending you their orders but you don't have to take it.

I was talking to some Japanese friends today and they were appalled at the lack of vision. Nuclear had it's day, and it is no more. All that colossal money to build 54 reactors was a waste and everyday they are supported further is a yen taken away from Japan's future.

Japan is ready to turn the page on nuclear. It will take work and a re-assessment of what is practical and what is not. But it is possible. The money can then be put towards real action on change. I'm rooting for a nuclear free Japan!

"once safety is assured"

That's impossible, nuclear power plants are inherently unsafe. Still, Japan may have no choice but to restart some nuke plants and operate them for another decade or so until alternative power sources can take over. Assuming that's possible...

@sf2k

Please....spare us....would you? These people have no spine, no grit about them. They'll do nothing but take it.....with no vaseline. I'd love to see the end of nuclear energy. We are supposed to be more efficient at this day and age but GREED is good is still par for the course.

This country wastes countless amounts of energy.

Most importantly until you can convince the women to give up their queen like lifestyles it's never going to work. Most of them will be pro-nuclear in a minute should they walk into Louis Vuitton and find it too warm.

The people here ALL want to live glamorously. A bit too posh for my tastes. They want max energy for themselves and their businesses but they want the PEOPLE to suffer.

Anyway, lets hope and pray that we have a monster earthquake soon. It's amusing to see people who don't learn their lesson the first time.

15% overload on 1 or 2 days during summer...with NO N- power. It's not a disaster. The disaster is this idea they can not be replaced, according to the industry.

Decentralization is the way to go. If every house has 10 solar panels, then they harvest energy where they use it. Plus they sell surplus on the grid. Some farmers in Germany make $60,000. a year selling solar.

See the YouTube movie "here comes the sun Scheer".

Japan is due to have a monster quake if they restart one nuke. That's karma. If you have solar, you still have power after a quake knocks out a nuke.

@nandaAmandaKanda

SquidBert, the English translation in your link above is so poor that it is impossible to say if there has been, or there might be, recriticality.

Agreed, I think people should better ignore that post, sorry!

Unless, as you say, someone locates the original it is difficult to say what is going on. As I said I usually avoid enenews. We will see on the 8:th perhaps, it seemed like the Asahi article will be out then.

Sorry, I think I scrambled your name a bit there.....

Thorium...now.

Siesta time...now.

Thorium....now.

Nah, Thorium is so last century.

All the hip kids are doing LENR (What scientists call cold fusion, when they don't want to be stamped as crack pots) with nickel hydrogen.

http://ecat.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Cat

Even NASA joins in and says;

"1% of the nickel mined on the planet each year could produce the world's energy requirements at the order of 25% the cost of coal."

http://futureinnovation.larc.nasa.gov/view/articles/futurism/bushnell/low-energy-nuclear-reactions.html

Mitsubishi also wants in on the deal, but for some reason they decided to base their solution on LENR with cesium. No link, you will have to Google this one.

Personally I think Solar, Geothermal, Wind and Tidal is way cooler, but still.

I wonder if it is wise to restart when researchers say a major quake is due of the Boso Peninsula.

If Noda says he will take personal responsibility, does that mean we can use his body to plug any reactor leaks?

@Paul Kangas The reason people with a lot of space in very clear low latitude areas is because utilities are forced by the government to accept that electricity at a very high premium AND government subsidies on the panels themselves. If you were to use the same things in Japan, each extra kWh would net the person about 100 yen, and then 100000 yen tax rebate per panel installed. The country would go bankrupt (faster), and electrical bills for everyone else would double or triple (I'll laugh when you see your electrical bill go higher than your rent). Not to mention that a good engineering estimate requires about 1000sq. km. of solar panels to offset just nuclear (that is about a quarter of the land used for crops) without excess supply (meaning blackouts between 6pm and midnight)

Nuclear is the only way for Japan, solar/wind are too space consuming (and ugly), geothermal and hydro don't work due to earthquakes, and tidal is an engineering nightmare since it breaks down much faster than anything else. Japan just needs to restart half the reactors, then replace the rest with new Gen IV reactors that are so passively cooled that they get cooler in emergency shutdowns than regular shutdowns.

Noda says reactor restart necessary once safety is assured

No. Noda is wrong. What is necessary as of now is to reinvigorate renewables which Germany has perfected since it closed most of its nuclear plants. It has come up with a time table for elimination of nuclear electricity and developed a gadget that produces electricity from renewables equivalent to 20 nuclear plants! It has hence fst-tracked elimination of nuclear energy! <http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/61b7431c-aa68-11e1-9331-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1wLS3mhKf >

Therefore, the restart of nuclear plants will not be because Japan government cannot come up with alternatives, it will be because corrupt money hungry technocrats and companies are bent on prolifirating nuclear pollution at the expense of the masses who have already rejected nuclear electricity. Shame!

@Basroil,

If you are saying that a low latitude and clear weather is beneficial, then Japan should get cracking right away on building those solar plants.

Mainland Japan is further to the south, and has more sun shine hours on average than Germany. As for space there are 53,890,900 housing units in Japan, each of them has a roof I think. Plus the we both know there is lots of land area available for solar as well if we want it.

Travemunde(Northern part of Germany) 53.9667^ N, 10.8667^ E

Munich (Southern part of Germany) 48.1333^ N, 11.5667^ E

Germany has 1738 sunshine hours annually and approximately 4.8 sunlight hours for each day.

Tokyo (Smack in the middle of Japan?) 35.6833^ N, 139.7667^ E

Japan has 2020 sunshine hours annually and approximately 5.5 sunlight hours for each day.

Now what are the reasons that Japan couldn't produce at least as much solar as Germany again???

A lot of people are saying once the reactors are back online there will be megaqauake and "BOOM!" another disaster.

Fukushima was it... the only meltdown after a quake/tsunami in how many decades? In all the years since atomic/nuclear power was harnessed for fuel and reactors built has there been a disaster after an earthquake in Japan other than Fukushima?

@Basroil @SquidBert

Just a footnote:

"Solar power generation world record set in Germany"

"German solar power plants produced a world record 22 gigawatts of electricity – equal to 20 nuclear power stations at full capacity – through the midday hours of Friday and Saturday, the head of a renewable energy think tank has said......"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/may/28/solar-power-world-record-germany

zichi no matter how many backup or safety systems are put in place ther can still be the possibility of a reactor catastrophically failing. the difernce between probable and possible failure is the worry for sure..It is one heck of a foolish gamble for Japan to restert any NPPs while the current failed plant is still in such an dangerous state of disrepair... Another plant failure is a possibility, no way around that, I wonder if Japan could survive as a country both physically and fiscally should Japan be faced with two ongoing NPP disasters????????????? Firing up NPPs in japan again is a major gamble..

This is from a Report issued after the 2007 quake about the plant in Niigata. People will no doubt say it was much much worse than this report says, but hey.... The report was produced in 2007 by "Global Risk Miayamoto"

Moderator: The URL will suffice.

Last " incident" was close enough, really don't want the same sick helpless feelings again! Looking at my family knowing I can't protect them...once was enough and no amount of talk will convince me N-power is the only reliable option, it's 2012 for goodness sake.there are alternatives there is always a way. No AC fine...no family not on.

The world is out of oil. The world is out of uranium. It is inevitable that the world must convert to solar and renewables. Germany was smart enough to have written a feed in tariff to show the world how to move Rapidly to solar. China is moving rapidly to solar. China believes solar panels are the new money. Germany will be at 100% solar first, about 2033. Japan could match Germany. Everyone who wants an end to nukes should install 10 solar panels.

"winning understanding"

Germany will be at 100% solar first, about 2033. Japan could match Germany. Everyone who wants an end to nukes should install 10 solar panels.

It'll take Germany until 2033 and they are already doing the work... how long do think it would take Japan starting from near-scratch? 2038? 2040? What does Japan do until then? Subsist at low levels of energy? Japan needs power now, not wait ten or twenty years.

Paul Kangas is not as nutty as he may appear (no offence intended).

Japan has a chance to redefine iteself in world as the leader in clean renewable energy. The public must stand up and demand this to happen as the powers that be will not do it.

"Noda says reactor restart necessary once safety is assured": basically it means the reactors can never be restarted. Period.

There are 50,000 houses in Japan. If each owner began putting up 10 solar panels today, all the roofs could have solar in 90 days. Stop waiting. China is installing a million panels daily.

@zichi I happen to both live in Japan and have a relevant ABET accredited engineering degree. Lets take the ideas one by one using real science:

1) Geothermal is a known fault-line activator, by introducing a large amount of high pressure water into a geothermal site (which is always already seismically active by nature), you end up both increasing stress and decreasing friction. The result is an increase in the frequency of earthquakes around the site. The reason why the California geothermal system was abandoned after a test plant was built was due to a massive (statistically speaking) increase in low energy earthquakes and water contamination. While natural source and closed loop geothermal plants (like those in Iceland) have lower risk of issues, they are fairly expensive and not really a viable option for Japan.

2) I think you meant to say Kurobe (not Korobe) Hydro, which has an annual capacity of 1000 GWHr on installed capacity of 335MWe . Onagawa nuclear produced 5283GWHr/yr on installed base of about 2200MWe (most of it underused and meant for peak demand). The main issues with hydro are two fold, first being that it requires a fairly high damn (which in turn requires you to change the local ecosystem and downstream system as well). The second is that the amount of electricity you can produce is both seasonal and highly dependent on the overall weather . What hydro is good for though, is as a black-start power supply, the energy needed to restart power plants after a complete system blackout.

3)Solar and wind require too much space to be practical. Solar is actually more efficient space wise than wind (though more expensive), and even with very unrealistic nearly perfect conditions, you are looking at about 180sq. km (more realistic estimates are about 1000 sq km) to replace the use of nuclear (but not the capacity). Of course, the cost of installing that capacity would be well over 100 trillion yen, which is practically impossible, even forgetting that the area needed would be even more expensive and probably impossible to find.

4) Offshore wind, or onshore for that fact, is impractical due to the frequent storms and on average fast gusts. There are actually very few viable sources for large scale farming. As for the air comment, not a viable engineering solution for large scale energy generation. It's like trying a trying to power a light bulb by blowing into your vacuum cleaner, it's possible, especially with a handheld cheap cleaner and a flashlight, but you wouldn't want to try powering a 500W worklamp that way.

5) Wave/tidal is a running joke (rest of post was not allowed) 6) The real reason why you pay 50% more is because it costs 75% more to produce.

7) Nuclear was over 30% of installed capacity and 24.5% of production before last year. 11% was in 1987.

Germany just installed millions of solar panels. It cost "nothing", because it actually made money for the millions of homeowners who installed the panels. Germany reaped $1 Billion last year from the solar industry. Solar created 300,000 new jobs in Germany in the last 3 years. Japan could easily install millions of solar panels in 90 days once every home owners starts installing just 10 solar panels. This is not some abstraction. Germany just did it. China just did it. Spain just did it. 50 countries just did it. What are you waiting for??? Nay sayers will try to stop all progress.

3)Solar and wind require too much space to be practical. Solar is actually more efficient space wise than wind (though more expensive), and even with very unrealistic nearly perfect conditions, you are looking at about 180sq. km (more realistic estimates are about 1000 sq km) to replace the use of nuclear (but not the capacity). Of course, the cost of installing that capacity would be well over 100 trillion yen, which is practically impossible, even forgetting that the area needed would be even more expensive and probably impossible to find.

Germany can already produce 40% of its electricity demand from solar alone during its peak.

@basroil. What is your point? Do you want nukes?

France has 50 nukes. Do the math. Humans are involved. Parts wear out. Bookies in London are now taking bets there will be a major meltdown in France in the next 13 months. It is inevitable. Humans are involved.

The compelling reasons for rapid energy change can't be falling on deaf ears throughout the entire conventional energy industry. This industry is faced with the decision of whether to artificially prolong the conventional system of toxic energy supply, or to play a role in shaping the clearly recognizable path towards decentralized and rational renewable energy. The latter implies freely relinquishing its monopoly position and, of course, revenue losses. In return, it will not be completely forced out of the market. Nor will it suffer a fundamental loss of acceptance if it switches to solar & renewables. The industry could transform themselves into holding structures for companies which operate independently at regional levels. It is inevitable that solar will replace nukes in our lifetime. Why hold back history?

basroil; the best energy is the saved energy and the better shared energy. As many other posters said, the potential is huge on a worldwide basis (and especially in the US). Heating anything (water, home, ...) with electricity is ridiculous, maintaining 20ºC in open doors shop while it is 30ºC outside, ... aso). Energy is too cheap and we are wasting it selfishly. It is not a matter of eco-terrorism but just good sense. If all the zillion $ invested in dirty energy would have been allocated to renewable energy we would not be where we are now. We still have buffer time with fossil (nuclear) resources, but we need to act now toward more sustainable energy sources.

Noda knows that Nuclear safety is a Myth from the experiences of accidents at Chernobyl and Fukushima particularly when an accident costs so much as to render a country fall into Economic degradation and ecxological destruction including critical public health problems.For more details see web sites from Google search Engine under "DiaNuke.org"

I think the Prime Minister is taking the right approach. Lets face reality; Japan at the moment does not have a viable alternative to turn to. Until this happens, nuclear reactors will be needed. I don't see nuclear reactors being replaced not only in Japan but in other parts of the world anytime soon.

Switch to Thorium, it's many-many times safer than Uranium, because it's liquid. If something will go wrong, fuel will be just flow down to special container and sealed. And it's operating with less temperatures than the Uranium and has more power and 3-4 times more fewer than Uranium.

I was frightened and felt helpless. You can't expect a nuclear expert to be prime minister or cabinet minister, so we need top regulatory officials to provide expertise and help us. We didn't have those people.

I have just read this listed above on JT.

I do not start my BBQ grill unless I have fire extinguisher sitting right next to the grill.

@sichi, thanks for the weblinks. Japanese has been taught Japan is a resource poor country. I never bought that. There are tons of engergy resources available if they want to. They just need to start thinking outside of BOX.

I wonder if any of you have had any experience with solar panels? Mine are broken most of the time, if you are not an electrician it will cost you a bomb to have the broken cells repaired all the time. No sun, no electricity and no hot shower. Good in summer but not in winter. I used to be all for green technologies but there are too many problems with them. I am with zichi for the geothermal exploitation. Please spare us with propellers and solar panels!

Just saw a J TV program last night showing that rather than making money by selling their surplus electricity, many households in Japan are now getting charged MORE per month by TEPCO etc. for their electricity bills than before they installed their solar panels!

The wife was flicking the channels so I didn't get to see why. Will check other news sources on this.

One world, one project. I have one prayer. We all cooperate to help Japan transition into 100% solar to save our blue, peaceful Pacific Ocean from radioactive pollution. It would be different if GE was building nukes in landlocked Pennslyvania. But J is an island in our ocean. Any human error or quake kills all of us. People, plants and fish. Please let the rising Sun save us.

@Foxie. Solar hot water heaters are cheaper, simpler and better than solar panels for hot water. I got mine on line. Cheap.

Washington-based environmental think-tank the Earth Policy Institute in April estimated that Japan could produce 80,000 megawatts and meet more than half its electricity needs with conventional geothermal technology.

And as far as I can find on the net, provided no explaination as to how they got that number.

"Geothermal power generation in the world 2005–2010 update report", by Ruggero Bertani, covering the World Geothermal Congress 2010, and published in the scientific journal Geothermics gives Japan as having the potential to generate 17 Terawatt hours of electricity per year - that's slightly over 2GW power output over the year. How do the EPI get 40 times what the professionals say? Pull it out of the air perhaps?