International Law

Ganbare Nippon

Posted on April 01, 2011
(bumped) I would like to get a balloon with the message ?Ganbare Nippon? floating right at the Fukushima site. That balloon should be well visible, via all those television reports. It should also transport a small camera to look closely at the plants from above, giving the operators valuable information...

Dosimeters

Posted on April 01, 2011
were lacking as well, until yesterday (Kyodonews). Ever so slowly, equipment is trickling in to the site.

DESERTEC in Morocco

Posted on April 01, 2011
The DII March newsletter reports about the first DESERTEC projects in Morocco. Starting there makes sense since there is already a grid connection to Spain. They are planning a 500 Megawatt project. 400 concentrated solar power and 100 photovoltaic. DII will be involved in the early planning stages, but not as a contractor...

Again

Posted on April 01, 2011
TEPCO forced to admit error in data monitoring. I wonder how many times these errors will repeat themselves before they get specialists with adequate monitoring equipment on site.

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Irrational fear

Posted on April 01, 2011
of nuclear power in Germany analyzed by someone who shares the fear at this Dailykos dairy. I agree with much of the argument. One reason for irrational fear is the complexity of the situation. Even the experts in charge seem to be driving with a blindfold...

100 years

Posted on April 01, 2011
Now an expert says it “could take 50 to 100 years” to completely clean up Fukushima. If true, the good news is that everybody has lots of time for bringing in the assets really needed to deal with the situation. No particular need to hurry things up.

TEPCO disaster plans

Posted on April 01, 2011
described in detail at the Wall Street Journal here. After all the problems with the response on site, one would assume that those plans were not adequate. That would be correct. They actually relied on fax to communicate instead of Internet services...

Another German concrete pump

Posted on March 31, 2011
on its way to the Fukushima site, says SPIEGEL. It can deliver water up to 60 meter high.

Toshiba

Posted on March 31, 2011
providing 100 home systems to earthquake victims free of charge (Toshiba press release). These consist of normal electric appliances like refrigerator and air conditioner, but combined with a residential solar system and a battery. Sharp has already provided 250 solar systems to shelters, see their March 17th press release.

Solar energy subsidies

Posted on March 31, 2011
At the website of the Japan Photovoltaic Expansion Center (J-PEC) the outline of a new program for solar subsidies has been posted. The program will run with a volume of 34.9 billion Yen and pay 48.000 per kilowatt of installation. The system installed needs to meet quality standards and may not cost more than 600...

14 new nuclear plants

Posted on March 31, 2011
until 2030 was the 2010 plan. That plan is not operational any more. Prime Minister Kan just said that it will be reconsidered from scratch.

Sounds good to me

Posted on March 31, 2011
140-member U.S. military radiation control unit to join the fight in Japan soon, says Kyodonews. About time. I suppose they have instruments to measure over 1000 Millisievert, and boots. Update: A later Kyodonews article gives some more detail. Looks like the Americans are not headed directly to the Fukushima site; possibly they will only monitor [...

Political stability

Posted on March 31, 2011
in Northern Africa would seem to be desirable for a 400 billion Euro project of building large-scale solar energy plants in the Sahara desert. Therefore recent events in the area are not necessarily helpful for realizing the DESERTEC vision. The latest newsletter from DII starts out with a comment by CEO Paul van Son...

Jumpers

Posted on March 31, 2011
“are people who rush into a highly radioactive area, do one job, and then jump out within minutes. Some in the industry even refer to them as “gamma sponges” or “glow boys” because they can absorb a year’s worth of radiation in those few minutes...

Latest Government press conference

Posted on March 31, 2011
of 10:58 AM today now online at the Government streaming site. Chief cabinet secretary Edano was asked about the IAEA finding of soil radiation exceeding limits at Iitate village outside the 30 km zone (briefing of March 30th, annoyingly without permalink)...

Dump it in the ocean

Posted on March 31, 2011
says Robert Peter Gale, according to the Guardian. That would seem to be an easy solution to the question where all that radioactive water is supposed to go that is leaking from the plants.

Nice remote controlled

Posted on March 31, 2011
bulldozers (Yomiuri online). Why aren’t they on site since about 10 days ago?

Flyjin.com

Posted on March 31, 2011
Flyjin.com. A blog collecting stories and facts about foreigners hastily leaving Japan because they are afraid to catch a whiff of radiation somewhere. I like this site and recommend reading it.

Olympic principle

Posted on March 31, 2011
The operators at the site fighting are not specialized in the job they have right now. Obviously, not one of them has ever experienced a disaster of these proportions. And they were hired and trained to run the plant under normal conditions. In contrast, there are people who do this kind of job for a [...

Three weeks in

Posted on March 31, 2011
some very useful remote-controlled American robot-probes are still not on site; but they will be eventually, says this Asahi article (no permalink). These should have been airlifted to the Fukushima plant on day one. They seem to be at the very top of best assets to have in that situation.

of 15:58 PM today now online at

Posted on March 28, 2011
of 15:58 PM today now online at the Government streaming site. Chief cabinet secretary Edano was asked if the Government will hold on to their plan of 9 new nuclear plants until 2020 and 14 until 2030. He declined to comment on that question. The time to discuss about policy is after the ongoing nuclear [...

New diary by Jerome

Posted on March 28, 2011
on energy infrastructure financing, which makes a number of interesting points.

EU summit conclusions

Posted on March 28, 2011
From the conclusions of the European Council (24/25 March 2011): 27. The European Union will support Japan as it strives to overcome the challenges it faces after the earthquake and the tsunami that struck it with such tragic consequences. 28. Following an initial request from the Japanese government, it is mobilising relief supplies for the affected [...

They keep finding

Posted on March 28, 2011
all sorts of exciting new radiation locations at the plant. Now it is water in a trench somewhere close to Unit 2 (Kyodonews article). They say they can’t check the equivalent trench at Unit 3 because it is “hard to get there”. I wonder how long this level of incompetence is supposed to be tolerated...

Zeppelin NT update

Posted on March 28, 2011
The idea of using Zeppelin NT airships for airborne radiation monitoring I discussed in this post and expanded in this other post  (SkyControl) is not realistic for the time being. The operating company has no airships free, they are all booked well into 2012, as I learned from them...

Latest Government press conference

Posted on March 28, 2011
of 11:30 AM today now online at the Government streaming site. Chief cabinet secretary Edano remarked that there are people returning to the evacuation zone briefly to take their belongings from their homes. He noted that the Government is studying the question if it is safe to do so, and advised strongly against doing this [...

Fukushima and Germany

Posted on March 28, 2011
This post on a German energy law blog on my blogroll discusses the technical aspects of how Germany might turn off the nuclear plants. The authors say that legislation is necessary. And they are right. I object however to their idea that the Fukushima accident should require such a step...

Google Books settlement case

Posted on March 28, 2011
I have been writing quite a bit about the Google book search case on this blog. Now a court decision on the “Amended Settlement Agreement” has been published. The settlement agreement has failed. The Court has denied the motion for final approval...

Subsidies

Posted on March 28, 2011
The printed edition of Nikkei newspaper has an article today on page 3 about plans to deal with the electricity shortage expected this summer. The Japanese Government plans to invest about one hundred billion Yen in continuing the “eco-point” subsidy scheme (only in the Kanto and Tohoku areas), which gives consumers subsidies when buying energy-saving [...

Ganbare Nippon

Posted on March 28, 2011
(bumped) I would like to get a balloon with the message ?Ganbare Nippon? floating right at the Fukushima site. That balloon should be well visible, via all those television reports. It should also transport a small camera to look closely at the plants from above, giving the operators valuable information...

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