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Friday Update

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From NEI’s Japan micro-site:

Licenses for New U.S. Reactors Nearing Final Reviews

Industry/Regulatory/Political Issues

• Licensing for new U.S. reactors is proceeding according to schedule, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in letters to electric utilities in Georgia and South Carolina. The agency expects to issue a final safety report this month on Georgia Power’s two advanced reactors to be built at the Vogtle plant in Burke County, Ga. It could approve a construction and operating license before the end of this year. The NRC told South Carolina Electric & Gas that the utility’s application to build two reactors near Jenkinsville, S.C., is complete and that a final safety review should be finished by September. The agency then could approve a construction and operating license for the facility by January.

• The Japanese government announced it would replace three top officials who have been involved in handling the accident at Fukushima: Nobuaki Terasaka, the head of the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency; Kazuo Matsunaga, vice minister of Economy, Trade and Industry; and Tetsuhiro Hosono, director general of the National Resources and Energy Agency.

• TEPCO announced it will shut down reactor 1 of its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear energy facility this weekend for a two-month inspection period. The shutdown leaves 15 of Japan’s 54 reactors producing electricity and only three of TEPCO’s 17 reactors.

• The United Kingdom’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority announced it would close its Sellafield MOX plant “at the earliest practical opportunity,” citing continuing uncertainties with the 10 Japanese utilities with which it has contracts to supply mixed oxide nuclear fuel. The government-owned NDA said it made the decision to shield British taxpayers from the uncertainty of its Japanese business.

• The Japanese government said it would lower the annual radiation dose limit for schoolchildren as early as this month, in time for the end of the summer vacation period. It had earlier set an external dose limit of 2 rem per year for children involved in outdoor activities, but parents and teachers protested that level was too high.

Media Highlights

• Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s call for gradually weaning Japan off its dependence on nuclear power has raised questions that could severely impact the country’s economy, according to an analysis by Reuters. “The issue is the uncertainty over policy,” said Naohiko Baba, chief Japan economist at Goldman Sachs. “Because of an unclear direction about nuclear power plants, companies can’t make their investment plans while utilities can’t make a decisive shift to other power sources from nuclear power.” Japan is already getting an indication of the potential cost to the country of a long-term shift away from nuclear power. If Japan’s 54 reactors went offline by May 2012, the nation would face a 10 percent power shortage next summer and electricity costs would spike up 20 percent. The drag on economic growth from higher energy costs caused by greater use of costly imported fuels while nuclear electricity output dwindles would be substantial, economists say.

• The Financial Times noted that Japanese industrial giants Hitachi and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries are considering a merger for their infrastructure businesses.

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Comments

Anonymous said…
Do you honestly believe that Third World nations will be able to successfully assimilate into Western Culture? You keep insisting that the Third World nations, even those in Africa, will eventually attain a First World lifestyle, thus driving up demand for commodities like uranium and silver. Culture is defined as anything passed on from one generation to the next that isn't inherited, characteristic of a particular population. Therefore a First World lifestyle would essentially be one in which one practices that which whites have invented ever since the transition to agriculture began in Europe thousands of years ago, with the introduction of Middle Eastern wheat into nearby Greece. This chart clearly shows that very few nations will be able to assimilate:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations

China will undoubtedly keep assimilating at 100, and Japan and South Korea are already assimilated, at 105. Japan's assimilation began as early as 1867 with the Meiji restoration, and has since culminated in the emergence of a world power. Much hope also lies with Argentina and Uruguay (96) and other parts of Latin America where the population is near-pure white, such as northern Mexico and southern Brazil. Mexico has already attained First World prosperity in its state of Nuevo Leon, which is mostly white and castizo, but southern Mexico remains solidly Third World, which is mostly mestizo, cholo, and Indian. Mexico and Brazil are both at 87, which is the approximate midpoint one would expect relative to their admixture profiles. The average IQ in sub-Saharan Africa is 67, and among American Indians 75. Mexico is about 59% European in admixture, 32% Indian and 9% black. Note Spain at 99. Brazil is about 69% European in admixture, 27% black and 4% Indian. That is, of course, only on average. The two nations shade from lightest to darkest, North to South in Mexico, South to North in Brazil, and actually have the most racial inequality of any nations on Earth and rigid affirmative action quotas. Manuel Obrador, who nearly defeated Felipe Calderon in the 2006 presidential election with 35.31% of the vote to Calderon's 35.89%, based his entire campaign on racial equality through socialism (Calderon won 865,006 to 282,384 in Nuevo Leon). Please, get realistic on race. The nuclear fast breeder reactor (such as the IFR) is a highly sophisticated technological invention which will make assimilation even more difficult as world fossil fuel extraction soon reaches its peak and enters terminal decline.

Sincerely,

Luis Garcia
San Pedro Garza Garcia, Nuevo Leon
August 7, 2011 at 2:57 AM
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