Skip to main content

Monday Update

By

From NEI’s Japan micro-site:

Japan Prime Minister Noda to Address United Nations

Industry/Regulatory/Political Issues

• Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda this week will address the United Nations’ general assembly in New York on the continuing need for safe and reliable nuclear energy in Japan. As part of the assembly, a meeting on nuclear safety and security will be held Sept. 22, during which lessons learned from the Fukushima accident will be discussed.

• Delegates to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s general conference are expected to endorse a voluntary action plan to enhance safety and emergency preparedness as a response to the accident at Fukushima Daiichi. The plan, adopted by the agency’s board last week, calls for IAEA inspectors to periodically review the safety of reactors worldwide at the request of their operators. Goshi Hosono, Japan’s minister for nuclear crisis management, told the conference today that the Fukushima reactors will be brought to cold shutdown by year’s end, a precondition for the return of evacuees from the restricted zone around the plant. Also, the International Nuclear Safety Group, chaired by Richard Meserve, is to hold a Sept. 19 roundtable discussion on nuclear energy safety issues and on actions needed to strengthen safety.

Media Highlights

• The country’s seismic safety standards should be revised for all nuclear reactors to withstand a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and a 50-foot tsunami, the chairman of Japan’s Nuclear Safety Commission told The Wall Street Journal.

• The Associated Press reported on a large anti-nuclear demonstration in Tokyo on Monday.

Upcoming Events

• NEI and industry representatives will meet with NRC staff Sept. 21 to discuss actions related to the NRC’s Japan task force recommendations. The meeting will be webcast.

• Lessons learned from the Fukushima accident will be discussed in a Sept. 22 meeting on nuclear safety and security that will convene as part of the United Nations’ general assembly.

Labels:

Comments

gunter said…
More corporate fallout from the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe as Seimens pulls out of the nuclear business...
September 21, 2011 at 8:28 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Activists' Claims Distort Facts about Advanced Reactor Design

By
Below is from our rapid response team . Yesterday, regional anti-nuclear organizations asked federal nuclear energy regulators to launch an investigation into what it claims are “newly identified flaws” in Westinghouse’s advanced reactor design, the AP1000. During a teleconference releasing a report on the subject, participants urged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to suspend license reviews of proposed AP1000 reactors. In its news release, even the groups making these allegations provide conflicting information on its findings. In one instance, the groups cite “dozens of corrosion holes” at reactor vessels and in another says that eight holes have been documented. In all cases, there is another containment mechanism that would provide a barrier to radiation release. Below, we examine why these claims are unwarranted and why the AP1000 design certification process should continue as designated by the NRC. Myth: In the AP1000 reactor design, the gap between the shield bu...
23 comments
Read more

What Happens During a Refueling Outage?

By
You may have noticed over the past few weeks that a number of nuclear plants are shut down for refueling outages or are resuming operations after just returning from one. This type of routine outage usually occurs in the spring or fall when electricity demand is low so that nuclear reactors can replace about one-third of the spent fuel rods with new fuel and conduct other routine maintenance and repairs at the plant. To get a better sense of how refueling works at a nuclear energy facility, I spoke with Marcus Nichol, NEI’s senior project manager for used fuel storage and transportation, and asked him to explain the basics. Why does a nuclear plant need to replace one-third of its fuel? Nichol: The main purpose of a refueling outage is to replace older fuel that is depleted—meaning it can no longer efficiently produce energy from nuclear fission reactions—with new fuel. This “used fuel” has typically been used in the reactor for four-and-a-half to six years before it is pe...
6 comments
Read more

How Much Land Does Nuclear, Wind and Solar Really Need?

By
Not too long ago, we reviewed a report that looked at nuclear energy (and other energy sources) as biodiversity agents. This had to do, in part, with the amount of land a facility needs to function. Nuclear energy and fossil fuel plants use relatively little, wind farms and solar arrays quite a lot of land . Based on an objective and transparent analysis of our sustainable energy choices, we have come to the evidence-based conclusion that nuclear energy is a good option for biodiversity conservation (and society in general) and that other alternatives to fossil fuels should be subjected to the same cost–benefit analyses (in terms of biodiversity and climate outcomes, as well as sociopolitical imperatives) before accepting or dismissing them. Writer Barry Brook, who collected 75 scientists to endorse his paper, is interested in land use as it impacts flora and fauna. Biodiversity concerns do not get as much play as they might – and, when they do, it annoys many when land is withdraw...
4 comments
Read more