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Seashore solar comes to Japan

by zB7bB4yB6a Posted on January 25, 2014

Seashore solar comes to Japan

By

SMA

Japan has been thinking creatively about electricity since the Fukushima meltdown nearly three years ago.

Dozens of nuclear power plants remain in the “off” mode while leaders and citizens tussle over whether nuclear power can ever be safe. That has left the gas-and-oil-poor country heavily dependent on expensive fossil fuel imports. So it has been turning to cleaner alternatives, using subsidies to help get tens of thousands of renewable energy projects off the ground. We told you recently that offshore wind turbines are being built near the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, part of an effort to turn the contaminated region into a hub for clean energy.

And now, for another Japanese endeavor into safe, low-carbon energy, look again to the sea. Smithsonian Magazine reports:

[In November,] Japan flipped the switch on its largest solar power plant to date, built offshore on reclaimed land jutting into the cerulean waters of Kagoshima Bay. The Kyocera Corporation’s Kagoshima Nanatsujima Mega Solar Power Plant is as potent as it is picturesque, generating enough electricity to power roughly 22,000 homes.

Other densely populated countries, notably in Asia, are also beginning to look seaward. In Singapore, the Norwegian energy consultancy firm DNV recently debuted a solar island concept called SUNdy, which links 4,200 solar panels into a stadium-size hexagonal array that floats on the ocean’s surface.

Projects like these could help crowded coastal countries and metropolises install expansive solar arrays. Not much good for boating or wildlife, though.


Source
Is Japan’s Offshore Solar Power Plant the Future of Renewable Energy?, Smithsonian Magazine

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Seashore solar comes to Japan

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U.S. sailors say Fukushima radiation made them sick

by JerrellLarcombe Posted on January 6, 2014

U.S. sailors say Fukushima radiation made them sick

By

U.S. Navy

The USS Ronald Reagan.

After Japan was pummeled by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011, the U.S. Navy sent the USS Ronald Reagan to deliver aid. The ship unwittingly sailed straight into a plume of radioactive pollution from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which was melting down. Now at least 71 of those sailors are seriously ill.

The sailors are suing the Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, owner and operator of the plant, alleging that it downplayed the dangers of the radioactivity — radioactivity they say has left them riddled with cancers, thyroid problems, and other ailments. From Environment News Service:

The sailors’ lawsuit alleges that TEPCO officials knew how serious the radiation leak was and knew that American troops were heading to Japan to offer relief, but did nothing to warn them of what they were sailing into. …

According to the lawsuit, radiation experts who assisted in the decontamination say the USS Ronald Reagan sailed straight into a plume of radioactivity, which entered the ship’s water supply. Crew members washed, brushed their teeth and drank potentially contaminated water.

The lawsuit claims active duty and former sailors are suffering from cancer, blindness, impotence, and fatigue as a result of the radiation exposure. They are suing TEPCO for unspecified damages.

Meanwhile, a former Fukushima cleanup worker is alleging that cost-cutting measures employed after the meltdown led to leaks of radioactive water — measures such as the use of duct tape to cover metal cracks, and the use of just four bolts in places where there should have been eight. What is this – California?


Source
U.S. Sailors Sue Japanese Nuclear Plant Owner TEPCO, Environment News Service
More than 70 Radiation-Stricken U.S. Sailors Sue Fukushima Plant Operator, AllGov

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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U.S. sailors say Fukushima radiation made them sick

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Chicago cracks down on piles of tar-sands waste

by CindaPortus Posted on December 20, 2013

Chicago cracks down on piles of tar-sands waste

By

Southeast Environmental Task Force

Riverfront shipping terminals in Chicago will soon be forced to be just a little bit neighborly.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) announced on Thursday that the city will require piles of petcoke, coal, and other fossil fuel-related nasties to be stored indoors or under covers. That would mean an end to the open outdoor piles that currently send filthy particles billowing over surrounding homes. From a press release put out by the mayor’s office:

The proposed regulations will require large bulk material storage facilities to fully enclose solid materials such as coal, pig iron and petcoke, while facilities with smaller storage capacity and smaller deliveries would be required to install wind barriers as protective measures and adopt other best management practices. The draft regulations will be posted for public comment until January 24, 2014, and the City and Alderman John A. Pope will host a public hearing in the 10th ward in mid-January.

“We continue to make progress to stop petcoke dust from disrupting people’s lives and forcing children and families in our communities indoors,” said Ald. John Pope (10th). “These steps will allow our residents to host backyard barbecues and allow fresh air to come in through open windows.”

Southeast Environmental Task Force

Soon Chicago’s petcoke piles will have to be covered with more than just snow.

The Chicago Tribune reports that neighbors of the shipping terminals are heartened by the move:

Emanuel is stepping in as a BP refinery in nearby Whiting, Ind., dramatically increases its output of petroleum coke, a powdery byproduct of heavy oil piped from the tar sands region of Alberta. All of the petroleum coke, or petcoke, produced at Whiting is shipped across the state border to a pair of Chicago sites owned by KCBX Terminals, a company controlled by industrialists Charles and David Koch.

Companies have stored bulk materials in the area for decades. But as uncovered piles of petcoke grew larger this year, residents in the East Side and South Deering neighborhoods increasingly complained about gritty black clouds that spoiled summer picnics and forced parents to keep their children inside with the windows closed.

Elected officials and regulators eventually took notice of the anger and frustration. Since October, KCBX and Beemsterboer Slag Co., owner of a third riverfront storage terminal, have faced an onslaught of legal and political pressure to tamp down the dust.

“There are a lot of people in the neighborhood who want to see the piles gone altogether,” said Tom Shepherd of the Southeast Environmental Task Force. “But we are pleased the city seems to have responded quickly to our concerns.”

This is just the start of a big game of Whac-A-Mole that will play out across the nation as such piles pop up in growing numbers. The petcoke is residue left behind after heavy tar-sands oil from Canada is refined, and more and more of that oil is being imported into the U.S.

Petcoke is too dirty to be burned alone in U.S. power plants to generate electricity, but some power companies are starting to mix small quantities of it in with the coal they burn. How’s that for a filthy fossil-fuel double whammy.


Source
Mayor Emanuel, Attorney General Madigan Announce Next Steps to Protect Residents from Petcoke Dust, City of Chicago
Chicago moves to enclose piles of petroleum coke, Chicago Tribune

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Chicago cracks down on piles of tar-sands waste

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U.S. government paid $17 billion for weather-withered crops last year

by Jeff Howard Posted on August 28, 2013

U.S. government paid $17 billion for weather-withered crops last year

By

Thomas

Drought-ravaged corn.

Desiccated corn and sun-scorched soybeans have been in high supply lately — and we’re paying through the nose for them.

The federal government forked out a record-breaking $17.3 billion last year to compensate farmers for weather-related crop losses — more than four times the annual average over the last decade.

The losses were mostly caused by droughts, high temperatures, and hot winds — the sizzling harbingers of a climate in rapid flux.

NRDCClick to embiggen

Could some of these costs have been avoided? The Natural Resources Defense Council says yes. In a new issue paper [PDF], NRDC analyst Claire O’Connor argues that these taxpayer-reimbursed, climate-related losses could have been largely avoided if farmers used tried-and-true conservation-oriented strategies. But she points out that the Federal Crop Insurance Program provides little incentive to farmers to employ techniques that save water and soil.

“By ignoring how on-farm management affects farmers’ ability to withstand weather events like the recent droughts and floods, the FCIP has become a crutch on which farmers will increasingly be forced to lean while taxpayers pick up the ever-growing bill,” O’Connor wrote in the report. From an introduction to the paper on NRDC’s website:

Rather than incentivizing farmers to adopt risk-mitigating farming practices, FCIP premiums are set using a formula that ignores how important healthy, regenerative farming practices — like conservation tillage, cover cropping and improved irrigation scheduling — are to farmers’ risk management as they increasingly face the threats of drought, floods and other extreme weather events.

Methods like no-till farming not only help soil retain moisture, but also limit erosion, improve soil health and increase a field’s capacity to grow high-yield crops. Such methods offer farmers short-term protections against each season’s catastrophic weather events, promote fertile fields into the future and benefit the environment.

O’Connor suggests that the FCIP offer lower premiums to farmers who reduce their risks by investing in soil- and water-conservation strategies — strategies that could help buffer their crops from the ever-worsening vagaries of climate change.

NRDCClick to embiggen.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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U.S. government paid $17 billion for weather-withered crops last year

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Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant to shutter

by sssaa Posted on August 28, 2013

Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant to shutter

By

NRC

Vermont Yankee, on the Connecticut River, will soon be shut down for good.

Yet another American nuclear power plant is going to shut down permanently, giving New Englanders reason to be as excited as the nucleus of a decaying uranium isotope.

Entergy Corp. announced Tuesday that it will power down the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant next year.

This is just the latest in a string of bad news for the industry. Nuclear plants are also being shut down in California, Florida, and Wisconsin, and plans to build new ones are being canceled. From Reuters:

Leo Denault, Entergy’s chief executive since February, said in an interview with Reuters that the plant was no longer economically viable due to a combination of rising capital costs after the September 11 attacks, Japan’s 2011 Fukushima disaster and low wholesale electricity prices stemming from cheap natural gas burned by competing plants.

“We did everything we could to keep the plant open,” he said, praising the 600 employees for operating the plant even when “they did not feel welcome in the state.”

Opponents of the plant were quick to voice their approval.

“This is not a big surprise to me and I don’t think it’s a big surprise to many who follow the economics of aging nuclear power plants,” [Peter] Shumlin, Vermont’s Democratic Governor who led the state’s fight to have the plant shut down when its initial operating permit expired in 2012, told reporters.

But the news came at a surprising time: Just two weeks ago, Entergy won a hard-fought U.S. Court of Appeals case. The court ruled that Vermont lawmakers, who’ve been worried by the plant’s poor safety history, lacked the authority to shutter it.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant to shutter

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National Briefing | Washington: President Orders Review of Chemical Plant Safety

by Myrna Posted on August 1, 2013

President Obama on Thursday ordered federal agencies to review safety rules at chemical facilities in response to the April explosion at a Texas fertilizer plant that killed 15 people. Continue at source –  National Briefing | Washington: President Orders Review of Chemical Plant Safety ; ;Related ArticlesOp-Ed Contributors: A Republican Case for Climate ActionMilestone Claimed in Creating Fuel From WasteClimate Study Predicts a Watery Future for New York, Boston and Miami ;

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National Briefing | Washington: President Orders Review of Chemical Plant Safety

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California’s San Onofre nuclear plant gets final death blow

by Alexandra Smith Posted on June 7, 2013

California’s San Onofre nuclear plant gets final death blow

By Lisa Hymas

Shutterstock

San Onofre nuclear plant — now just a blight on the seashore.

Southern California Edison is officially giving up on the San Onofre nuclear power plant — and it’s about time. When workers have to resort to masking tape and broomsticks to patch up a leaky pipe, you know things are bad. And that’s just one of many reasons why the name of the plant is usually preceded by the word “troubled.”

Speaking of which, from CBS News:

The troubled San Onofre nuclear power plant on the California coast is closing after an epic 16-month battle over whether the twin reactors could be safely restarted with millions of people living nearby, officials announced Friday.

Operator Southern California Edison said in a statement it will retire the twin reactors because of uncertainty about the future of the plant, which faced a tangle of regulatory hurdles, investigations and mounting political opposition. With the reactors idle, the company has spent more than $500 million on repairs and replacement power.

From the Los Angeles Times:

The coastal plant near San Clemente once supplied power to about 1.4 million homes in Southern California but has been shuttered since January 2012 when a tube in its newly replaced steam generators leaked a small amount of radioactive steam, leading to the discovery that the tubes were wearing down at an unusual rate.

That’s a different leak than the one patched with masking tape, just so you know.

Anti-nuclear activists are psyched. “The people of California now have the opportunity to move away from the failed promise of dirty and dangerous nuclear power and replace it with the safe and clean energy provided by the sun and the wind,” said Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth U.S.

This leaves just one operating nuke plant in California — Diablo Canyon, near San Luis Obispo. Last year it was knocked offline by a jellyfish-like sea critter, but most of the time there’s nothing to worry about — other than the fact that the plant sits near two active earthquake faults.

Lisa Hymas is senior editor at Grist. You can follow her on Twitter and Google+.

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California’s San Onofre nuclear plant gets final death blow

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One nuke plant in Wisconsin will shutter, another in California might not be switched back on

by BrandiNic Posted on May 6, 2013

One nuke plant in Wisconsin will shutter, another in California might not be switched back on

By John Upton

Shutterstock

/ Julius FeketeSan Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.

Americans worried by the threat of a nuclear meltdown could soon have two fewer reasons to fret.

A nuclear power plant in Wisconsin will be powered down on Tuesday and the owner of a trouble-plagued plant in California is considering shutting it down for good.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Kewaunee [Power Station] owner Dominion Resources Inc. has announced it will shut the plant on May 7, a move that is expected to result in the loss of hundreds of jobs.

The reactor is closing because the Wisconsin utilities that had purchased its electricity declined to continue buying it, citing the low price of natural gas. Dominion put the power plant up for sale in 2011, but no buyer emerged.

So in a few short weeks, the mission of those who work at Kewaunee will change from generating power to cleaning up the power plant site.

Meanwhile, stubborn maintenance problems at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station between San Diego and Los Angeles might finally achieve what decades of anti-nuclear activism has failed to do: permanently shutter the facility, which operates along the Pacific shoreline in a seismically active region.

San Onofre is one of two nuke plants operating in California. The 2,200-megawatt, double-reactor facility has been powered down since new tubes leaked radioactive water into the sea in January 2012. New troubles continue to emerge and repair costs keep on mounting. (Those would be the costs for real repairs. Not like the jerry-rigged repairs we told you about last week, in which workers at the facility patched together a leaking pipe using plastic, masking tape, and broomsticks.)

The facility’s owner has decided that if it can’t be at least partially fired up this year, then it may never be fired up again. From the AP:

Costs tied to the long-running shutdown of California’s San Onofre nuclear power plant have soared to $553 million, while the majority owner raised the possibility [last month] of retiring the plant if it can’t get one reactor running later this year. …

[Southern California Edison] has asked federal regulators for permission to restart the Unit 2 reactor and run it at reduced power for a five-month test period, in hopes of stopping vibration blamed for tube damage. Without that approval, Chairman Ted Craver told Wall Street analysts in a conference call that a decision on whether to retire one or both reactors might be made this year.

Whenever activists have pushed to shutter the plant in the past, they’ve been told that Californians would run out of electricity and endure blackouts without their biggest single source of power. That hasn’t happened during the facility’s 15-month outage. The recent wind-turbine building spree in the state has helped fill the gap; windy weather led to wind producing more than 4,000 megawatts of electricity at one point last month.

Of course, it isn’t easy to kill a nuclear power plant – they’re like zombies, wreaking havoc even after their vital organs have stopped functioning. The nuclear waste lives on after the generators have been switched off, and that waste must be continuously kept cool to prevent a meltdown. Just look at the never-ending debacle in Fukushima. The shutdown and cleanup at the Kewaunee nuke plant in Wisconsin, which hasn’t even melted down, is expected to cost nearly $1 billion and take until the 2070s to complete.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration is doling out financial support to help industry build new nuclear power plants, part of its “all of the above” energy policy.

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

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Court says N.Y. town can outlaw fracking

by 4q4cv8v Posted on May 3, 2013

Court says N.Y. town can outlaw fracking

By John Upton

Russ Nelson

A bridge leading out of Dryden, N.Y. Frackers are welcome to use it.

A small New York town prevailed Thursday in a court battle against the energy industry, which wants to frack the ground beneath the townsfolk’s feet despite a local law that forbids the practice.

A moratorium is in place on fracking in New York, but Dryden and dozens of other municipalities around the state have passed local ordinances banning the practice in case the state prohibition is lifted. Drillers argued in court that the town’s fracking ban violated state law (a law unrelated to the moratorium), and that they should be allowed to drill for gas there despite the locals’ wishes.

A state trial court judge ruled last year in favor of Dryden. That ruling was appealed, and, on Thursday, Dryden, with the support of public-interest law firm Earthjustice, prevailed again in a state appeals court. Attorneys for Norwegian company Norse Energy Corp. vowed to appeal the latest ruling to a higher state court. That means the dozens of local fracking bans in New York aren’t safe just yet — but the two legal victories so far are a  promising sign.

From the AP:

More than 50 New York municipalities have banned gas drilling in the past few years, and more than 100 have enacted moratoriums on drilling activities.

The court decision involved interpretation of state law that says regulation of the oil and gas industry rests solely with the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

Norse lawyer Thomas West had argued that the law is intended to prevent waste of oil and gas and protect the mineral rights of multiple landowners.

“When a municipality says you can’t drill here, you have the ultimate waste of the resource and destruction of the correlative rights of the landowners,” he said during oral arguments in March.

But the court ruled the law doesn’t pre-empt a municipality’s power to enact zoning laws that would ban gas drilling.

Fancy that, the fracking industry arguing against “waste.”

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

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Court says N.Y. town can outlaw fracking

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A big blow for Big Coal in Wisconsin

by s1cx54s Posted on April 24, 2013

A big blow for Big Coal in Wisconsin

By John Upton

Department of Energy

The Nelson Dewey coal plant along the Mississippi River will be shut down.

Wisconsinites will be breathing a lot easier after another coal-fired power plant is shuttered and two more are overhauled to reduce air pollution.

The coming improvements are courtesy of the EPA’s latest legal victory over polluting coal-plant operators. The EPA and the Sierra Club reached a settlement with Wisconsin Power and Light Company and other utilities following allegations of Clean Air Act violations.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Under the settlement, filed in federal court in Madison on Earth Day, the utilities will be assessed a civil penalty of $2.45 million for alleged violations of air pollution laws over the years. …

But the big-ticket item in the settlement is the nearly $1.2 billion the utilities are spending to keep the largest of the coal plants operating by adding more modern pollution controls. …

By agreeing to stop burning coal at the Nelson Dewey plant in Cassville and two of the three boilers in Sheboygan, that means 590 megawatts of coal will be retired, or the equivalent of one large modern coal plant.

Statewide, including other coal plant settlements, the Sierra Club estimates that over 1,500 megawatts of coal power have been retired, or about 17% of the state’s fleet of coal plants.

“Over the last several years, Wisconsin has effectively begun to transition away from our oldest, dirtiest sources of coal-powered electricity and made way for 21st-century clean energy technology,” said Jennifer Feyerherm, a Sierra Club organizer, in a statement. “Today’s settlement marks yet another victory for clean air and healthier Wisconsinites.”

The EPA says the new settlement agreement will save lives, prevent lung and heart disease, and reduce haze and acid rain. 

As David Roberts has explained, it’s not only pollution laws that are causing problems for coal in the U.S. Coal just isn’t as economical as it used to be. It’s cheaper to burn natural gas nowadays, and prices of solar and wind power have also been plummeting.

Too bad Wisconsin has been lagging behind in wind energy. Time to start ramping that up.

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

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A big blow for Big Coal in Wisconsin

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