geoharvey

Japan:

¶   Four of the six members of the new Nuclear Regulation Authority were given ¥3 million to ¥27 million by the nuclear industry in the past four years as grants or donations. [The Japan Times]

¶   The new standards of the Nuclear Regulation Authority say that if a fault has moved in the past 400,000 years, it is considered active. The old standard was 120,000 to 130,000 years. [The Japan Time]
… The fault at the Ohi plant slid about 125,000 years ago. Ohi is the only nuclear plant running in Japan. Experts are disagreeing as to whether the fault is active. [Victoria Times Colonist]

World:

¶   Solar farms are being established in Scotland on a test basis. It is believed they could generate as much as £14,000 per acre per year for farmers. [Scotland on Sunday]

¶   Mexico is in a hurry to increase windpower capacity.  The country has increased its wind power capacity by 119% this year. In 2006, it had 6 megawatts of capacity. Last year it had 519. Now it has over 1100. [Pueblo Chieftain]

US:

¶   The contractors building two nuclear reactors at Vogtle, in Georgia, have filed a lawsuit seeking more than $900 million from the plant owners. [Marietta Daily Journal]

¶   Hurricane Sandy showed how vulnerable US nuclear plants are to damage. [Huffington Post]

Technology:

¶   Researchers from Penn State University in the US have developed sensors, driven by the heat of a nuclear reactor, that can monitor fuel rods in the case of a disaster. [The Engineer]

¶   A pilot project  is testing technology that promises to ‘turn buildings into power stations.’ Steel and glass, which is coated to make it conductive, will be incorporated into buildings, so it’s the fabric of the buildings themselves that generates, stores and releases the electricity. [ITV News]

Japan:

¶   The Japanese Nuclear Regulation Authority has proposed a radius of 30 km from a nuclear plant as a rough standard for areas where special preparations against fallout exposure should be made. In some cases, it may not be enough. [The Japan Times]

¶   New robots are being prepared to examine the reactors at Fukushima Daiichi. [CNET]

World:

¶   Three leading UK scientists have called for a moratorium on the building of new conventional power plants following research indicating that renewables could be implemented much faster than the majority of people realize. [Solar Power Portal]

¶   The Isle of Wight, off the UK’s south coast, could become self-sufficient in renewable energy over the next decade thanks to an ambitious new project. [Energy Efficiency News]

¶   Two companies are planning to build a total of 3.5 gigawatts of wind capacity in the Firth of Forth. [Herald Scotland]

¶   Protesters against a rate increase have occupied the offices of a South African utility, charging that it is failing to switch from coal to renewable power sources. [The New Age Online]

¶   The government of China has released a white paper on energy policy, encouraging private investment. [The West Australian]

US:

¶   Experts say that because of low natural gas prices, the nuclear industry may be nearing its first round of retirements since the mid-1990s. [New York Times]

¶   The federal government will conduct a study into rates of cancer for people near nuclear power plants. [CNN]

¶   According to a new poll, the majority of people living in the lower Hudson River area want Indian Point to continue operating. [Newsday]

¶   Xcel is dropping the proposed upgrade at its Prairie Island nuclear power plant. [Mankato Free Press]

¶   Fracking has increased US petrochemical production for four years in a row, but the price of gasoline has not gone down. [Huffington Post]

Japan:

¶   The Japanese government is refusing to join an initiative at the UN by sixteen countries to work toward banning nuclear weapons. [The Japan Daily Press]

¶   Parts of the restricted zone at Fukushima are being overrun by alien plant species. [The Daily Yomiuri]

¶   Greenpeace is charging that Japanese radiation testing is unreliable. [Greenpeace]

World:

¶   A poll in the UK shows the public majority favors wind, strongly favors solar, and does not favor any other power source. [Director of Finance online]

¶   The past failures of the Indian nuclear industry argue against selling uranium in that market. [Australian Mining]

¶   Ikea says it will power all its stores and buildings with solar and wind by 2020. [Straits Times]

US:

¶   The Kewaunee nuclear plant will close because of competition from other forms of electrical generation. Shutdown will begin in six months, and will be completed before the end of 2013. [Door County Advocate]

¶   A hydrogen leak was found at San Onofre, in a non-nuclear area. The gas is dissipating, and there is said to be no danger. [Los Angeles Times]

¶   Rooftop solar installations in Los Angeles added 22 megawatts of capacity last year, up from 9 the previous year, and 5 the year before that. This is part of a drive to install solar panels on a million rooftops. [CleanTechnica]

¶   The Moapa Band of Paiute Indians, who live near a coal-fired power plant outside Las Vegas, are taking complaints about air quality to a federal appeals court in San Francisco. [CBS News]

Japan:

¶   The Japanese government estimates 20 GW of power could be derived from the country’s geothermal resources, and is interested in using it to replace nuclear power. [Hydrogen Fuel News]

World:

¶   The South Australian regulatory agency responsible for retail electricity prices has released a draft price determination that proposes an 8.1% reduction in the minimum price for electricity. The reason behind this appears to be the increases in supply of renewable power. [SBS]

¶   The Chancellor of the UK has been warned by a number of large corporations that mixed messages on renewable power will have a negative effect on investment. [Financial Times]

¶   The UK is becoming an important center for research in marine power, in part because the Severn estuary has the world’s second largest tidal range. [ESI-Africa]

¶   The protests against the Kudankulam atomic power project resulted in 5000 security personnel being called out. Villagers intend to lay siege to the plant. [The Asian Age]

¶   A radiation researcher is making the case that the Kudankulam plant is completely unprepared for solar Coronal Mass Ejection, and could be badly damaged by it. [IBNLive]

US:

¶   Ohio State University has entered an agreement to get 25% of its electric power from wind. [OSU – The Lantern]

¶   Coal is being replaced by natural gas as the main fuel source for generating electricity. [Financial Times]

Japan:

¶   This weekend, officials from Japan and Europe are meeting to discuss energy solutions at a forum in Kyoto. The focus is the Japanese plan to replace nuclear atomic power with other resources by 2040. [Gulf Times]

¶   The Japanese Prime Minister toured Fukushima Daiichi and inspected the reactor at Unit 4, as workers prepare to remove fuel from it. He is also scheduled to tour municipalities undergoing decontamination. [Radio Netherlands]

World:

¶   A Polish plan restores many incentives for renewable power generation that had been proposed to be cut earlier. The measure also shifts the emphasis away from biomass and onshore wind, toward solar power, offshore wind, and micro-generation. [Reuters]

¶   Before the opening of the first Anaerobic Digestion Conference in Northern Ireland, the country’s Agriculture Minister, Michelle O’Neill, told the press she wanted to see more farmers benefit from renewable power to help support farming activities, and that funds were available too assist in that. [Farming Life]

US:

¶   One place the difference between presidential candidates can be seen most clearly is in their energy policies. [Budgeteer]

¶   In Michigan, voters will decide on Proposal 3, which would create a constitutional amendment requiring 25% of power be from renewable sources by 2025. The issue is controversial. [Lansing State Journal]

¶   The amount of methane in the air is potentially life-threatening in some places around the Bayou Corne sinkhole, according to the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals. It is coming up out of the ground and waters of an expanding area in southern Louisiana, at “bubble sites,” and in household water wells. [Examiner.com]

Japan:

¶   Yoshinori Kobayashi, a comic-book artist famous for his right-wing, nationalist views of Japanese history, has released a comic book called “Exit Nuclear Power.” He believes it will have a negative impact on sales of his books, but is morally necessary for him to take an anti-nuclear stand. [Wall Street Journal]

¶   According to local media, Japan Electric has decided to resume construction of  a nuclear plant in Aomori Prefecture. [Global Times]

World:

¶   Investment in renewable technology is moving into Asia, with half the world’s green energy projects in such places as India and China. [EcoSeed]

¶   Geothermal power is becoming increasingly important. Though development is not fast in the US, it is in double digits elsewhere. [Nevada Appeal]

US:

¶   The Florida Supreme Court is considering whether it is right for people to be forced to pay in advance for a product they might never get, and whether, having paid, they are due a refund if the product never comes. The questions center on power from nuclear plants. [Power Engineering]

¶   Renewable energy projects produce jobs. Because of this, a number of important Republican governors are pushing clean technology. [Triple Pundit]

¶   A new coal-burning power plant is starting up in Virginia. It has reduced emissions, with mercury, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and particulate  emissions reduced by 99%. [Melodica.net]

¶   The Alabama Public Service Commission has struck a deal to buy electricity generated by Kansas and Nebraska wind farms. The price it is paying is below what it would cost to generate the power using conventional plants in Alabama. Coal supplied 77% of Alabama’s electricity in 1999; today it is supplying 47%. [Clean Technica]

Technology:

¶   Adding solar and wind power to the grid will improve grid stability, according to a study at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization. [Utility Products]

¶   Green Fuels, a manufacturer of biodiesel processors, is introducing a new model for small organizations, designed to make 750 gallons per day. [PR.com]

Japan:

¶   Arnie Gundersen, in Japan for a symposium, is sticking by his earliest estimates of one million additional cancer deaths from the Fukushima Disaster. [The Japan Times]

US:

¶   More seismic testing will be done along the coast of California, to determine whether how vulnerable the nuclear plants there are to earthquake and tsunami. Both the Diablo Canyon and San Onofre plants are being studied. [Bay Area Indymedia]

¶   More and more commercial and community renewable power systems are being installed, the following being just the examples in today’s news:
… Apples new 100 acre solar farms can be seen in aerial photographs. They will produce 84,000,000 kWh of electricity per year. [Greener Ideal]
… A number of systems are going in around Chattanooga. (It is difficult to follow the numbers for capacity in this article, as it covers a large number of systems, with output measured in different ways.) [Equites.com]
… Walmart is expanding a solar array at an Arizona distribution center to 5.3 megawatts. [Power Engineering]

¶   Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) and Southern Company, a major U.S. electric utility, have a joint venture that has begun underground injection of carbon dioxide (CO2) recovered from emissions from a coal-fired power generation plant in Alabama. Five hundred metric tons of CO2 will be injected underground, for sequestration in a saline formation at a depth of 3,000-3,400 meters in the Citronelle Dome geologic structure. [Utility Products]

Japan:

¶   There have been 33,000 energy projects approved in Japan so far. More are coming. [Revmodo]

¶   The person chosen to head the new Nuclear Regulatory Commission is concerned about political independence and the fact that the commissioners are being put in place without parliamentary approval. [Power Engineering]

¶   The Japanese government is announcing its position on nuclear power officially. The plan will be that all nuclear power plants will be shut down before 2040. Under the plan, nuclear plants would be allowed to operate until they were 40 years old, if they passed rigorous safety checks. The last five reactors would close in 2039. [Financial Times]

World:

¶   The French government sees an appeal of renewable energy as “ecological patriotism.” They plans to increase the number of jobs in the renewables sector from 100,000 to 225,000 by 2020. [EurActiv]

¶   Regulators have found cracks in a second Belgian reactor, Tihange 2. The indications are similar to those that caused the Doel 3 reactor to be shut down. [Reuters]

¶   As hydro power produced less electricity during a dry season in New Zealand, other sources of renewable energy were able to cover the loss, rather than having to increase use of coal and oil. [Global Times]

US:

¶   Responding to Vermont Public Service Commissioner Elizabeth Miller’s request that the NRC provide additional oversight at VY because of a series of problems with performance there, the NRC has said no additional oversight is needed. [Vermont Public Radio]

¶   The first US tidal generator, installed in Eastport, Maine, has gone online. [Morning Sentinel]

¶   The California ISO is getting ready for another summer without power from San Onofre, in case the outage lasts another year or more. [Los Angeles Times]

¶   The Texas Department of Health is seeking help from the National Guard to find a missing radioactive device that is used for fracking. The device belongs to Haliburton. [Bloomberg]

¶   Bill Clinton gave an address at Solar Power International.  He told the audience there, “You’re Going To Win This Battle.” [Solar Industry]

Technology:

¶   By mounting turbines on a large helix, researchers at Cleveland State University have been able to funnel wind to get about five times as much power from them when they are mounted conventionally. [Plain Dealer]

Japan:

¶   The commissioners of the new Japanese Nuclear Regulatory Commission will be appointed on September 19. [NIKKEI.com]

World:

¶   In Germany, solar power is reaching grid parity. This means the cost of electricity from photovoltaic panels is about the same as power purchased from conventional power plants. [Energy Live News]

US:

¶   There is no clear timeline for restarting Fort Calhoun. A spokesman for the Omaha Public Power District says they are hoping to heat the plant up for testing in December. [NewsOK.com]

¶   Duke Energy is having a hard time deciding on whether to invest $1.3 billion to fix the containment building at Crystal River. [Bloomberg]

¶   Vermont Yankee is being inspected to assess its ability to withstand earthquakes and flooding, as part of the NRC’s response to problems illustrated by the Fukushima Disaster. [VPR]

¶   Representatives Waxman and Rush are calling for hearings on the effects of climate change on energy production. [KCET]

¶   Nuclear materials have insufficient security at four out of five hospitals, making them potential terrorist targets. [Fort Wayne Journal Gazette]

¶   The Air Force Academy’s solar array reduced its energy costs by $802,000 during the first year of operation. [Equities.com]

Japan:

¶   Yukio Edano, the Japanese Minister of Economy, Trade, and Industry, told reporters, “I don’t think the zero scenario is negative for Japan’s economy. On the contrary, it can create growth” by driving technological innovation in renewable energy and energy efficiency. [The Wall Street Journal]

¶   Now under state control, TEPCO has released videos showing what was going on when the Fukushima Disaster was unfolding. They show confusion. [The Washington Post]
… The videos show officials at TEPCO considered shooting holes in the sides of reactor buildings to reduce hydrogen buildup during the disaster. [Bloomberg]

World:

¶   Pakistan is trying to build 143,000 megawatts of solar electric capacity. [The Business Recorder]

US:

¶   After noncompliant rebar was found to have been installed for the foundation for a new reactor at Vogtle, owners have been trying to find a way to use it instead of removing it.  The latest suggestion is that they make up for its deficiencies by pouring stronger concrete.  The NRC has said they could proceed at their own risk while it evaluates the question. [The Augusta Chronicle]

¶   Walmart has put up its first megawatt wind turbine as part of a program to have its power be 100% renewable. [Forbes]