Tag: nuclear

Japan considers stress tests for nuclear reactors (via Financial Post | Business)

On By southwerkIn business ethics1 Comment

This is certainly a classic case of closing the barn door after the animal has fled. Yet, the measure is probably no going to pass, even in the face of solid evidence that the plant was already in partial meltdown from the earthquake before the tsunami hit.

James Pilant

TOKYO – Japan’s government is considering conducting stress tests on nuclear reactors to ease safety concerns which have blocked the restart of idled reactors since the March quake and tsunami, including several that have completed maintenance and complied with new, stiffer safety standards. Japan is struggling with a drawn-out crisis after meltdowns at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi atomic plant, site of the world’s worst nuclear incident in 25 … Read More

via Financial Post | Business

Shareholders hammer Tepco over nuclear fiasco (via MY VOICE)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

My favorite sentence –

Another investor shouted that Tepco’s executives should jump into their stricken reactors and die to take the blame for the fiasco.

Enjoy the article and remember that TEPCO has paid out more than 19 billion dollars in damages but that if this happened in America, the responsible utility company would be out less than a hundred million dollars due to our government protecting them from losses.

James Pilant

Shareholders hammer Tepco over nuclear fiasco By KAZUAKI NAGATA Staff writer Tokyo Electric Power Co. faced a six-hour barrage of heavy flak from shareholders Tuesday at their annual meeting, with management blasted over how it has handled the world’s worst nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Demonstrators gather outside Kyushu Electric Power Co.’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Fukuoka Prefecture. KYODO Many investors demanded to know why Tepco failed to foresee the tsunami … Read More

via MY VOICE

Nuclear Plant, Left for Dead, Shows a Pulse (via Energy)

On By southwerkIn business ethics1 Comment

You cannot kill these things.

Christopher Lee as Dracula in a mid-sixties Hammer film has the life span of a mayfly by comparison.

This nuclear plant, little more than a pile of looted wreckage is under consideration for construction.

I call upon anyone and every one for a little respect for the facts of the situation. Surely, we can think better than this?

James Pilant

By MATTHEW L. WALD/NYT HOLLYWOOD, Ala. — Spider webs line the 50-story cooling towers, parts have been amputated for the scrap value of their nickel or copper, and the control room still has analog dials at Bellefonte 1, a half-built nuclear plant here that was shelved 23 years ago. This does not seem like a particularly opportune moment to breathe life back into a reactor that was designed before the computer age. But its owner, the … Read More

via Energy

This Nebraska Nuclear Power Plant Is Surrounded by Floodwaters (via Jewish Nerd)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

There is something about a nuclear plant surrounded by flood waters that is more disturbing that a coal fired plant or any other kind of energy producing facility. What makes it more disturbing is that knowledge in the back of our skull that if things go wrong, the investors aren’t just out an investment, we all will pay a price for such a calamity.

May we live in a world where reason and knowledge are used to make energy decisions.

James Pilant

This Nebraska Nuclear Power Plant Is Surrounded by Floodwaters The good news: Nebraska's Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Station is staying dry despite being surrounded by tremendous Midwestern flooding. The bad news: Nebraska's Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Station is surrounded by tremendous Midwestern flooding, and a history of safety mistakes. Also unsettling, as Boing Boing's Maggie Koerth-Baker points out, is the fact that all our information on the plant's condition is coming from the plant's owner. Very, ver … Read More

via Jewish Nerd

Your Rune For June 23 is Laguz/Flow (via Witches of the Craft’s Blog)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

I have a rune?

James Pialnt

Your Rune For June 23 is Laguz/Flow Laguz/Flow You wish for unity and fusion, consolation and satisfaction of all your emotional needs. This is a time of cleansing and reorientation, a time of contacting your intuitive wisdom, where you find all the answers. Immerse yourself in that inner knowledge, for you will find there, whatever it is you need. … Read More

via Witches of the Craft's Blog

Holding Nuclear Power Plants to Strict Standards (via U.S. NRC Blog)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

I hope the NRC is serious about that. The willingness here to refer to earlier enforcement efforts I find encouraging.

Since, nuclear power seems to be beyond any effect of public opinion, in fact, immune to all expressions of human intelligence and judgment, the NRC is our major line of defense.

Nuclear plants are built in America because the industry pays out a lot of money in political contributions and has superb lobbyists. No public concerns can carry such weight. All other issues are not worth consideration.

James Pilant

It’s not uncommon for regulatory agencies to be accused of being too cozy with whatever industry they regulate. It happens to the FDA, the SEC, the FAA and other federal regulators. And it’s happening to the NRC with some vigor recently, especially since the public’s attention to the Japanese nuclear emergency. As an independent regulatory agency, the NRC has a robust and comprehensive approach to holding U.S. nuclear power plants to strict safet … Read More

via U.S. NRC Blog

Should we be concerned, too? (via Keating’s Desk)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

It should come as no surprise that I am with the “we should be concerned” group.

However, I went to the web site, “Keating’s Desk,” read the post and almost went on. But I paused and looked at the article before and then I looked at the next one and the one after that. You just don’t want to stop. This is great stuff. A good writer who can think and has important issues in mind when he does.

I’ve added the web site to the favorites and intend to keep up with the writing there.

James Pilant

Should we be concerned, too? Keeping in mind what I wrote here about the safety of nuclear power plants, negligent oversight, and Alabama, this report from Yahoo news should be filed under Scary, too. Officials say that floodwater seeping into the turbine building at a nuclear power plant near Omaha on the banks of the Missouri River is not a safety risk. . . An 8-foot-tall, water-filled temporary berm collapsed at the plant early Sunday. Vendor workers are at the site to de … Read More

via Keating's Desk

Worries Over Two Nuclear Plants (via )

On By southwerkIn business ethics

I think there is definitely some grounds for concern. If you buy the idea that corporations are only in business to make money and have no other responsibilities, the idea that they might skimp on protections becomes very viable.

Nuclear plants are indemnified by the federal government if they cause more than a certain amount of damage. Off the top of my head, I believe that amount is fifty million dollars. That’s not a lot of incentive to protect the public. For many corporations, fifty million dollars is small change.

TEPCO, the Japanese utility that runs the nuclear plants that have melted down would have loved to have a deal like the American government gives out to our nuclear utilities.

It should be obvious that indemnification destroys a lot of corporate rationale for safety. If the money damages aren’t that big a deal, why not cut corners?

James Pilant

Worries Over Two Nuclear Plants As record floodwaters along the Missouri River drench homes and businesses, concerns have grown about keeping a couple of notable structures dry: two riverside nuclear power plants in Nebraska. Though the plants have declared “unusual events,” the lowest level in the emergency taxonomy used by federal nuclear regulators, both were designed to withstand this level of flooding, and neither is viewed as being at risk for a disaster, said a spokesman … Read More

via

Unsafe Radiation Found Near Tokyo, Vast Area of Japan Contaminated ! (via Socio-Economics History Blog)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

I’ve been reading reports for some days now that radiation is being detected in “hot spots” outside the restricted in increasing amounts and in more places.

If you’ll examine a recent map of Chernobyl, you will find a phenomenon called “leopard stripes.” Hot radiation areas laid in patterns similar to leopard stripes on the map. Radiation does not spread evenly. So if we see hot spots popping up here and there, it is a new pattern forming.

I am uncomfortable with this. The tonnage of radioactive material is very large at these sites (Fukushima). Over long periods of time and with variations in wind and other weather, the radiation could contaminate countries in every direction.

James Pilant

Unsafe Radiation Found Near Tokyo, Vast Area of Japan Contaminated ! To those of you thinking of a holiday in Japan, you may want to think twice about it. The radiation level reported in the MSM since the 11 March inciden … Read More

via Socio-Economics History Blog

NOAA Makes It Official: 2011 Among Most Extreme Weather Years in History (via madaboutthenews)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Facts are facts. Whether about evolution or climate change, the data is going to just keep accumulating in ever larger stacks of hard to ignore facts.

It’s getting hotter. Now, tornadoes are not very get indicators of climatic change – too many variable. Hurricanes are a little better but not much. The best indicators are average temperatures over time and weather volatility.

However, with the rise of “intelligent design,” more and more science is a matter of opinion. Thus, the United States is gradually losing that key part of the democratic process, critical thinking. If we don’t like what science or history or sociology says, we just get together with a few other disgruntled individuals and rewrite history or science. It’s easy. Pretend there is a controversy, and that you are God’s seekers after truth.

Will we be burning witches soon? Or giving faith healing status to collect insurance for services rendered? I don’t know. Let’s watch. The 14th century awaits.

James Pilant

NOAA Makes It Official: 2011 Among Most Extreme Weather Years in History Just past the halfway point, 2011 has already seen eight weather-related disasters in the U.S. that caused more than $1 billion in damagesAmplify’d from http://www.scientificamerican.comEXTREME WEATHER: Halfway through, 2011 has already seen eight weather-related disasters that caused more than $1 billion in damagesThe devastating string of tornadoes, droughts, wildfires and floods that hit the United States this spring marks 2011 as one of the mo … Read More

via madaboutthenews