Japanese energy crisis

"'They want to avoid setting a precedent of the country operating without nuclear power because it will create a huge barrier in terms of restarts,' said Jeffrey Kingston, director of Asian Studies at Temple University's Tokyo campus."

-- This is really awkward spin. The truth is basically that, without restarts, Japan is likely to collapse this summer, economically, politically and quite possibly socially. Japan's economy is toast. It's debt exploding and much of its countryside either currently, or on the way to, becoming permanently uninhabitable.

There is a real risk, that in its death agonies, Japan might severely worsen things and add additional threat and risk to all life on the planet. This is a big rock-and-a-hard-place dilemma. I somehow sense that the Japanese people will not tolerate or accept the restarts. And, from Jevon's paradox we know full well that any additional electrical generation will not be used to maintain stability or cool Fukushima. It will be used to increase economic activity and plant a new "can't live without" mindset.

This is the nuclear industry's foot-in-the-door con game. The longer our species refuses to bite the bullet on growth and energy, the greater the carnage, suffering and loss for all who follow.

Until you change the way money works, you change nothing. -- MCR

Japan rushes to restart reactors to avoid total shutdown

Japan's government is racing to get two nuclear reactors, idled after the Fukushima crisis, running again by next month out of what experts say is fear that a total shutdown would make it hard to convince a wary public that atomic power is vital.

Reuters,

26 April, 2012

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and three cabinet ministers are to meet on Thursday to discuss the possible restarts of the No. 3 and No. 4 reactors at Kansai Electric Power Co's Ohi plant in Fukui, western Japan - a region dubbed the "nuclear arcade" for the string of atomic plants that dot its coast.

Trade minister Yukio Edano, who holds the energy portfolio, could travel to Fukui as early as Sunday to seek local approval for the restarts, Japanese media said. If approved, the restarts would be the first since a huge earthquake and tsunami triggered the radiation crisis at Tokyo Electric Power's Fukushima plant a year ago, forcing tens of thousands of people to evacuate.

Concern about a power crunch when electricity demand peaks in the summer has been set against public fears about safety since Fukushima, the world's worst nuclear accident in 25 years.

Nuclear power, long advertised as safe and cheap, provided almost 30 per cent of Japan's electricity before the crisis but now all but one of Japan's 54 reactors are off-line, mainly for maintenance. The last reactor will shut down on May 5.

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