N-plant exports eyed to offset gas emissions

From Yomiuri Newspaper

The Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry is working on a plan to export nuclear power plants to other countries as part of efforts to trim this nation's greenhouse gas emissions, according to government sources.
The ministry will conduct a preliminary survey from June on the plan, which would enable Japan to count as its own reductions in greenhouse gas emissions achieved in emerging and developing countries as a result of using Japanese nuclear power plants and related technology, the sources said.

The ministry will incorporate the plan into the government's new economic growth strategy. It aims to achieve two goals: economic growth through exports of infrastructure and the promotion of measures to fight global warming.

The ministry plans to sign bilateral deals with emerging economies and developing countries in Asia to promote international efforts to tackle global warming.

The sources said Indonesia is likely to support the ministry's research, which will calculate how much greenhouse gas emissions would drop in countries that imported Japanese nuclear power plants and Japanese technology for building highly efficient coal-burning thermal power plants.
The ministry aims to introduce the scheme in 2013 at the earliest as Japan's own international emissions trading system. It hopes the scheme will help this country achieve its goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent from 1990 levels by 2020.

The United Nations already has a system called the clean development mechanism, under which industrialized nations conduct conservation measures in developing countries and count the emissions reductions in the latter as their own.
However, the U.N. system is deemed inconvenient in that it requires complicated procedures and does not cover exports of nuclear power plants and related technology.

The ministry estimates that if Japanese companies' advanced technology was introduced at all the planned coal-powered thermal plants in China, that country would be able to cut 8.3 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions, equivalent to about 6 percent of Japan's annual greenhouse gas emissions.

(May. 17, 2010)
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/business/T100516001788.htm

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Nuclear power and coalition government

Blogpost by jmckeati - May 12, 2010 at 3:01 PM 2 comments

Things have got very interesting for the future of the nuclear ‘renaissance’ in Europe in the last few days. Suddenly, things don’t look so optimistic for the nuclear industry.

In Germany on Sunday, Angela Merkel’s coalition government lost its majority at the regional elections in North Rhine-Westphalia. This means her government no longer has the power in the Federal Council needed to extend the lifetime of Germany’s aging fleet of nuclear reactors. Merkel’s coalition was looking to repeal the law requiring all the reactors to be closed by 2020. That is now in doubt.

In the UK yesterday, the Conservative and Liberal Democratic parties formed a coalition government after last week’s national election. The Conservatives are for nuclear power and the Liberal Democrats are against it. So what will happen? Right now, it’s thought the Liberal Democrats will speak against new nuclear reactors but stay out of any nuclear vote in Parliament. Also, Liberal Democrat Chris Huhne has been made the minister in charge of energy and climate change policy in the new government. Huhne has an impressive record of opposition to nuclear power. As the BBC's business editor Robert Peston puts it…

In the end, as I understand, nuclear power is one of those areas where the two have agreed to disagree, which creates considerable uncertainty for the two big companies, EDF and Centrica, that are hoping to roll out a series of enormous new nuclear power stations.

Next is Belgium. On June 13th there will be national elections and it is very possible that the anti-nuclear Greens and Flemish social democrats will join the government. The Greens have already said they will only join a new government if it keeps the country’s nuclear phase-out law. According to this law, created in 2003, Belgium’s reactors will have to close after their 40-year lifespans (that is, between 2015 and 2025).

Meanwhile in Italy last week, Industry Minister Claudio Scajola was forced to resign from Silvio Berlusconi’s coalition after allegations of corruption. ‘Mr Scajola had been an important driver behind Italy's revival of nuclear energy’.

All in all, bad news for the supposedly resurgent nuclear ‘renaissance’. Has anyone seen it recently?