Japan's government is considering whether or not new nuclear power plants will be built:
Japan's trade ministry will launch a panel to revise the government's basic energy plan and consider a need to build new nuclear plants or replace existing plants in the future, the Nikkei business daily reported on Friday.
[...] The government will keep its current plan to reduce its reliance on nuclear energy but it would propose to keep a minimal amount of nuclear power for long-term stable power supplies and maintain technology and personnel, according to the report.
A target by the industry ministry for nuclear to provide about a fifth of the country's electricity in 2030 provoked widespread criticism when it was finalised in 2015.
[In light of the fallout from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, what would be a reasonable and prudent level of nuclear power for Japan? --martyb
(Score: 4, Informative) by looorg on Friday June 09 2017, @12:20PM
Japan already is one of the worlds larger users of hydroelectricity but it only makes up about 8% of their total usage. But if that isn't enough there might not be any choice but to go nuclear. Looking at the modes of production there are notable changes after Fukushima where nuclear power goes from 1/4 of the total supply to 0. It was replaced in large by burning coal, gas and oil. So I can understand them wanting to go nuclear again cause that just isn't a proper replacement or sustainable in the long run.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Japan [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Japan [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 09 2017, @12:23PM (14 children)
Having said that, they also need to throw what little remains of their financial resources into a fusion moonshot project to replace them ASAP once they have a working fusion reactor prototype.
Knowing what they do now, they should have no problems building nuke plants that won't fail critical, for at least 20-30 years, and by the time they should be up for replacement, alternatives, such as fusion should be viable if they have put their technology prowness and financial resources into solving it before another geological catastrophe causes one to fail in a new unexpected manner.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 09 2017, @12:52PM (7 children)
As long as they avoid failures like their Fifth Generation project [nytimes.com]. Personally, I'd bet against such a project succeeding. The grown ups are no longer in charge of Japan.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday June 09 2017, @01:07PM (3 children)
What kind of people are in charge of Japan then?
Btw, the 5th generation project seems to have failed but it likely generated a lot of spinoff and lot's of trained engineers.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 09 2017, @05:57PM (2 children)
Children. In this particular topic, there are several points of evidence that indicate Japan has lost much of its ability to make mature decisions about itself and its future. First, the enormous publicly held debt of Japan which is roughly twice as large as its GDP. Second, the closely related problems with Keynesian policy, particularly what I call the Keynesian trap where publicly funded economic stimuli are continued even during good years because the economy of Japan has become so highly dependent on this stimuli that the government won't risk its absence.
For nuclear power in particular, we have a history of bad choices, such as permanently halting a whole generation of nuclear plants just because of one accident in the 1995-2005 period, combined with the decision to continue the use of much older and much less safe nuclear plants. Then after the Fukushima accident there was the spurious decision to halt all nuclear plant activity for more than a year even though about half the nuclear reactors in Japan hadn't been affected in the least by the earthquake.
So what makes someone a child in this regard? It's the inability to plan and the inability to accept current pain for future gain. Japanese leadership has shown a lot of this behavior over the past two decades.
That's always the excuse when these things fail. The consolation prizes would have been much cheaper to achieve, if that was all that had been tried. They don't justify the expense of the original program.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday June 09 2017, @06:53PM (1 child)
So what makes someone a child in this regard? It's the inability to plan and the inability to accept current pain for future gain. Japanese leadership has shown a lot of this behavior over the past two decades.
This doesn't sound any different from American leadership these days. In fact, it seems perfectly normal for human societies that are past their sell-by date. Basically, if you look at the history of human societies, they all have limited lifespans, where they start out, prove to be very successful for a while and rise in power, but then become complacent and corrupt and then the society declines. Japan and the US were both ascendant in the early 20th century; now they both seem to be in decline, while China and India are on the rise. It's too bad about Japan though; they were really kicking ass in the 70s and 80s, but then took a wrong turn and things have been downhill from there. Maybe they just over-extended themselves during that time, achieving a lot through a ton of hard work but sacrificing too much in the process, and it's now biting them in the ass.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 09 2017, @07:34PM
Sacrificing too much? Like what? My view is that the problem is rather that they kept the top-down systems that worked for them in the earlier decades, but not the people who made those systems work relatively well in the past. What helped them then is now hindering them due to the quality of the people running things.
I agree that sounds like American leadership today. But that's why I'm an advocate for government reduction. One doesn't have to hope for the very unlikely event that will somehow catalyze competent government leadership when you can create it instead on the private sector side.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Saturday June 10 2017, @04:18AM (2 children)
The hardware may have gone nowhere, but the software is very widely used, ITRON seems to run half of Japanese industry.
Also, while it's easy enough to put down the Fifth Generation hardware, the same sort of bet-the-company thing was what made IBM at one point not just the world's largest computer company but practially the computer company, where "computer" was synonymous with "IBM".
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday June 10 2017, @04:59AM (1 child)
Doesn't look like ITRON had anything to do with the Fifth Generation project. I see a diatribe that has this to say about ITRON and the Fifth Generation project.
Moving on:
I think a key difference is that IBM bet their own company on this, while the fifth generation project bet other peoples' companies. No skin in the game leads to universally weaker outcomes IMHO. Every problem you can conceive of, including the profit motive afflicts private and public efforts alike (even when the latter doesn't have an explicit profit motive, they often want to use the service or good as a revenue source for other projects, which requires it to turn a profit). But the latter is far more likely to be using other peoples' money and to have little downside to failure.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday June 10 2017, @05:01AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 09 2017, @12:57PM (1 child)
Moonshot? What's wrong with NK as a shot for a fusion project?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday June 09 2017, @06:53PM
It's upwind of Japan, and both SK and China may not like the resultant fission/fusion/lead/DU mix.
Let's not go there. It's a silly place.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by kaszz on Friday June 09 2017, @01:02PM (3 children)
There are many alternatives:
* Fission: Breeder reactor that will produce more fuel than it consumes (superficially, the energy principle still applies)
* Fission: Accelerator driven reactor to re-use "spent" fission fuel.
* Fission: Liquid cores
* Fission: Using liquid metal or salt cooling loop to enable high temperatures without insane pressure
* Fission: Explore Thorium? (easy access at 2.5-20% in ore)
* Fusion: Polywell
* Fusion: ITER (slow progress)
* Black hole: compress matter and use hawking radiation etc. The catch is how to compress matter fast enough to initiate the process.
* Use oxidation of Clathrate hydrates (won't solve the CO2 issue though!)
And if any conventional reactor is to be built. Make it handle being put under water instead of trying to prevent it. Make it submersible, if submarines can take it. Then a reactor may also be built for the same conditions. And most of all go directly for Gen-3 or better.
Take all MBA and executive style of people out of the loop and implement Hyman Rickover standard for bosses. The cleanup process obviously suffers from suboptimal bosses running it considering what technicians writing about the work say.
I think Japan has a good shoot at this. They have the industrial base, clever people, the money and the desperate need. Creativity may lack however as people are raised to "fit in".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 09 2017, @01:37PM
Yes, indeed, it's a bamboo shoot, certain species of bamboo can grow 90 cm/day, that's more than good, that's great.
(Score: 3, Informative) by BananaPhone on Friday June 09 2017, @04:09PM (1 child)
IMHO they should at least reproduce the Molten Salt Reactor.
-Self regulating
-passive safety (Freeze plug)
-No shutdown needed to refuel
-Higher temp (good for industrial processes, not just boiling water to make power)
-No high-pressure
-No MASSIVE building (could fit in a shipping container!)
-valuable side-products from the "waste"
The only catch: Keep away from water. Molten salt and water mix violently.
(Score: 3, Informative) by butthurt on Friday June 09 2017, @08:06PM
> The only catch: Keep away from water. Molten salt and water mix violently.
You seem to be confusing them with sodium-cooled reactors. Metallic sodium can react violently with water, if they come in contact. There are other disadvantages, however:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_Salt_Reactor#Disadvantages [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by WalksOnDirt on Friday June 09 2017, @12:38PM
Hokkaido needs nuclear. Okinawa doesn't.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 09 2017, @03:29PM
I'd rather they don't. They fucked this shit up already.