TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan shuts down its last working nuclear power reactor this weekend just over a year after a tsunami scarred the nation and if it survives the summer without major electricity shortages, producers fear the plants will stay offline for good.
The shutdown leaves Japan without nuclear power for the first time since 1970 and has put electricity producers on the defensive. Public opposition to nuclear power could become more deeply entrenched if non-nuclear generation proves enough to meet Japan’s needs in the peak-demand summer months.
“Can it be the end of nuclear power? It could be,” said Andrew DeWit, a professor at Rikkyo University in Tokyo who studies energy policy. “That’s one reason why people are fighting it to the death.”
Japan managed to get through the summer last year without any blackouts by imposing curbs on use in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami. Factories operated at night and during weekends to avoid putting too much stress on the country’s power grids. A similar success this year would weaken the argument of proponents of nuclear power.
“They don’t have the polls on their side,” said DeWit. “Once they go through the summer without reactors, how will they fire them up? They know that, so they will try their darndest but I don’t see how.”
Japan has 54 nuclear power reactors, including the four at Tokyo Electric’s Daiichi plant in Fukushima that were damaged in the earthquake and tsunami, culminating in three meltdowns and radiation leaks for the worst civilian nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.
One by one the country’s nuclear plants have been shut for scheduled maintenance and prevented from restarting because of public concern about their safety.
The last one running, the No3 Tomari reactor of Hokkaido Electric Power Co in northern Japan, is scheduled to shut down early on Sunday. Anti-nuclear activists will celebrate with demonstrations over the weekend.
COSTLY OPTION
The last time Japan went without nuclear power was in May 1970 Office Project Key, when the country’s only two reactors operating at that time were shut for maintenance, the Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan says.
Nuclear power provided almost 30 percent of the electricity to keep the $5 trillion economy going before the March 11, 2011 disaster that killed almost 16,000 people and left more than 3,000 missing.
A year on Office 2011 MAC Key, the level of public concern about the safety of the industry is such that the government is still struggling to come up with a long-term energy policy, a delay having a profound impact on the economy and underlining just how costly it will be to contemplate a nuclear-power-free future.
Having boomed in recent decades on the exports prowess of big brands like Sony, Toyota and Canon, the economy suffered its first trade deficit in more than three decades in 2011 as power producers spent billions of dollars on oil-and-gas imports to fuel extra generation capacity.
At the time of the Fukushima crisis, then Prime Minister Naoto Kan called on Japan to wean itself off of nuclear power. Up to that point, Japan had been planning to lift the share of nuclear generation to over 50 percent by 2030 from about 30 percent.
The government of current Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has softened Kan’s call. Noda says Japan cannot afford to be nuclear free, although he still holds that as an ideal.
But the government has no clear timetable for getting nuclear power back up and running as it tries to navigate the public opposition — rare in Japan — and the demands of business that wants a stable supply of power.
Cabinet ministers last month rushed to try to win over the public to allow the restart of two nuclear power reactors at Kansai Electric Power Co’s Ohi plant in western Japan, in what experts said was a recognition of the implications of a nuclear-free summer.
The public remained unconvinced. A poll by Kyodo news agency last weekend showed about 60 percent of the public opposed to restarting the two reactors.
Most mayors and governors whose communities host nuclear plants want safety assurances beyond government-imposed stress tests before agreeing to restarts, a Reuters poll showed in March.
To overcome the opposition, some politicians have been more forceful. Yoshito Sengoku, the acting president of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, on April 16 called an abandonment of nuclear energy the equivalent of “mass suicide,” Kyodo news reported. His comment was criticized by Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura, indicating internal divisions over how to handle the issue.
Trade Minister Yukio Edano – the government’s point man for energy policy – walks a fine line, saying both that safety must come first while trying to win the support of local communities for restarts.
Kansai Electric Power Co, the utility most reliant on nuclear power, and some other electricity producers have warned of power shortages this summer but have largely avoided lobbying publicly for restarts for fear of a backlash.
GLOBAL SHIFT
Ultimately, some argue Japan’s economy, already weakened by years of deflation Windows 7 serial key, would suffer if reactors are not restarted.
“It’s not an option Japan should take. There will be less employment and the economy will be on a shrinking trend,” said Takeo Kikkawa, a professor at Hitotsubashi University.
Japan’s liquefied natural gas imports climbed 18 percent in volume and 52 percent in value to 5.4 trillion yen ($67 billion) in the year through March.
Renewable energy, although given emphasis in energy policies being formulated, is not expected to be much of an immediate salve. Energy from renewable sources account for about 10 percent of Japan’s power generation, most of that from hydroelectric dams. Wind and solar together contribute about 1 percent.
Worldwide, there has been a shift with Germany, Italy and Switzerland moving away from atomic energy, prompting the International Atomic Energy Agency to revise down its forecast for growth in the industry.
The United States, China and India are still planning to increase the number of reactors.
In Japan, a delay in setting up a new, more independent Nuclear Regulatory Agency due to deadlock in a divided parliament is further clouding the outlook.
Some analysts say the government is not going to turn public opinion unless it admits that nuclear power is never going to be absolutely safe.
“The debate needs to be recast,” said Bob Geller, a professor of geophysics at Tokyo University. “They have to come clean, and say, in effect – look we know they’re not perfectly safe but we’ve made a careful evaluation of the risks, which we’ll make public.” ($1=80.165 yen)
(Additional reporting by Yoko Kubota, Linda Sieg, Osamu Tsukimori and Risa Maeda in Tokyo: Editing by Edwina Gibbs and Neil Fullick)
World Japan Natural Disasters Nuclear Power Related Quotes and News Company Price Related News
Signs hanging above the registers clearly inform shoppers that no magazines are sold in that particular aisle. Photo: Sandy Eller
Monroe, NY – Following a request from a prominent community member replica watches, an upstate Walmart is now offering a magazine free checkout aisle, a move that is both a sign of respect for its Jewish customers as well as an opportunity to attract a larger clientele to the superstore.
The Monroe Walmart Supercenter is located approximately three miles from the heart of Kiryas Joel and while many community members flock to Walmart for bargains, the assortment of magazines at the checkout aisle prevented many others from patronizing the store.
“People can be waiting on line in the checkout aisle for a long time and the magazines displayed there were extremely offensive,” Rabbi Eliyahu Shlomo Kohn, principal of the Bais Rochel Girls School in the village, told VIN News.
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Several months ago, Rabbi Kohn contacted Walmart managers in the densely Orthodox communities of Monroe, Monsey and Lakewood and asked them to find some way of eliminating the problem, either by using a plastic cover to hide the magazine covers or by offering checkout aisles that did not sell magazines.
“The Monsey Pathmark had certain aisles where the magazines were kept covered for years, with only the titles visible in order to accommodate Jewish residents replica watches,” explained Rabbi Kohn. “While the store is no longer in business, the store manager had told me that covering the magazines in certain aisles did not hurt magazine sales in any way.”
Scott Satterfield, manager of the Monroe Walmart, was more than happy to comply with Rabbi Kohn’s request, setting up one checkout aisle with three cash registers for those customers who prefer to avoid the magazines.
“I made sure to set aside an aisle that had both regular cashier checkouts as well as a self serve checkout in order to best accommodate our Kiryas Joel customers,” said Satterfield.
Signs hanging above the registers clearly inform shoppers that no magazines are sold in that particular aisle.
Hoping to further cater to local residents, Satterfield looked into the possibility of replacing the regular magazines with those that would be amenable to the Jewish community replica watches, but so far that idea has not come to fruition.
Rabbi Kohn says he hopes to approach both the Monroe Shop Rite and Target stores, as well as the Monticello Walmart Supercenter and ask them to designate magazine free aisles for their Orthodox clientele as well and was quick to point out that while everyone tries their best to patronize locally owned businesses, sometimes a trip to Walmart is unavoidable.
“When the baby is crying at two o’clock in the morning and you are out of diapers, where are you going to go if not Walmart?” asked Rabbi Kohn.
Letter sent by Rabbi Kohn to Wal-Mart
In-flight Wi-Fi company Gogo announced Monday it will purchase the Airfone radiotelephone service unit from Jet Blue LiveTV LLC Tattoo Machines Kits, bagging Gogo a 1 MHz spectrum license. The acquisition adds to its existing 3 MHz license The Best Tattoo Guns, for which Gogo beat out JetBlue in an auction in 2006. Gogo filed its S-1 in December with plans to raise up to $100 million in its eventual IPO.
What a difference one year makes. Last year I praised President Obama for not wanting to “spike the football” by releasing gruesome death photos of Osama bin Laden. But this year, forget spiking the football. The president is doing an end-zone dance.
The Bible says that when someone incurs the death penalty and his body is hung on a tree as an example to others, he still must be buried the same day. We’re not to desecrate the body of even the most vicious killer, because G-d created humans in His image. So America had no need to put out pictures of Osama missing a part of his cranium. The president last year stood by this, and it was impressive.
And as far as gloating over the demise of our foes is concerned, Proverbs 24 expressly forbids celebrating the death of our enemies: “Do not rejoice when your enemy falls and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles.” We fight bad guys like bin Laden because we have an obligation to protect the innocent by resisting the wicked. But we don’t gloat over it. War should never be about winning glory but protecting innocent life.
The obligation to protect the weak and punish their butchers is famously conveyed in Leviticus 19, “Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor,” and again in Psalm 82, “Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them out of the hand of the wicked.”
Osama bin Laden was evil personified. We had a moral obligation to abhor him, as the Bible makes clear in Amos: “Hate the evil and love the good.” But while feelings of revulsion were justified, feelings of elation at his demise were not. This, too, President Obama understood last year, and I praised him for it.
But all that has changed with his current victory dance.
Well, we’re in an election year. I get it. But that doesn’t mean our morals should change. What was particularly strange was the president inviting NBC TV into the Situation Room, which had never before been penetrated by network cameras, because it’s supposed to be the most classified and off-limits place in the country. There he spoke about how tough his decision had been to send in the SEALs to get the al-Qaeda head.
Much has been made of the difference between the speech given by President Bush when the U.S. captured Saddam Hussein and that given by President Obama when bin Laden was killed, with the former focusing on the bravery of the troops and the latter seemingly focusing on the president’s own role in bin Laden’s killing. But I’m not here to be petty and parse words Tattoo Machine Supply, and in any event actions are much more important than speeches. Last year the president did not gloat over killing bin Laden, and he deserved praise, just as his complete about-face this year, in order to win votes, deserves to be criticized.
I am a huge fan of the mostly moral foreign policy of George W. Bush, which largely held tyrants accountable for slaughtering their people. I contrast this with President Obama’s lack of response in Iran after Ahmadinejad killed his people, his leading from behind on Libya (even though in the end he did the right thing), his lack of leadership in the Arab spring, and his failure to do much of anything in Syria.
But even President Bush stumbled when he plastered “Mission Accomplished” on an aircraft carrier and flew in to do a tailhook landing in May 2003. At the time I honestly said to myself that this would work out poorly. The same was true when Bush used words like “dead or alive” with reference to bin Laden. Glory in battle nearly always ends badly.
The American way is not to gloat over war. It was summed up by Colin Powell in a brilliant speech at the MTV Global Discussion on Feb. 14, 2002:
Far from being the Great Satan, I would say that we are the Great Protector. We have sent men and women from the armed forces of the United States to other parts of the world throughout the past century to put down oppression. We defeated fascism. We defeated communism. We saved Europe in World War I and World War II … all in the interest of preserving the rights of people. And when all those conflicts were over, what did we do? Did we stay and conquer? We defeated Japan, so Japan belongs to us? No. … We built them up. We gave them democratic systems Tattoo Gun Tattoo Designs, which they have embraced totally to their soul. And did we ask for any land? No. The only land we ever asked for was enough land to bury our dead. And that is the kind of nation we are.
This uniquely humble American ethos stems largely from Judeo-Christian ethics. We Jews have suffered more than most. But we stubbornly refuse to celebrate the demise of our enemies or any military triumph. King David is Judaism’s most famous warrior, yet rather than praising David’s slaying of Jewish foes, God expressly denied his request to build the Holy Temple, because he had taken life, even in the defense of life: “But God said to me, ‘You shall not build a house for My name, because you have been a man of war and have shed blood’” (1 Chronicles 28). Indeed, the great king was celebrated by generations of Jews not for dispatching enemy combatants but for beautiful Psalms accompanied by harp and lyre.
Hanukkah celebrates the miraculous military victory of the Maccabees over the Assyrian Greeks, inheritors of Alexander the Great, in the second century B.C.E. But it was the miracle of the lights of the Menorah that the Jews chose to emphasize rather than the necessary slaughter of enemy soldiers in self-defense.
Even on Passover, as we recite the Ten Plagues that culminated in the killing of the Egyptian firstborn, we pour wine out of our glasses so as not to revel in the demise of our enemies.
And while the modern State of Israel has enjoyed electrifying military victories like the 1967 Six-Day War, travel the length and breadth of that tiny country and you will not find a single victory arch or a monument to vanquished adversaries but only sad memorials to dead Israeli soldiers and civilians. Judaism is a religion of life. We do not celebrate death, even the deaths of those who made inflicting death their trademark.
Killing Osama bin Laden was absolutely necessary in order to establish justice and protect life. But the very necessity of the action betrays the highly imperfect world in which we live, one where the innocent are forced to shed blood in order to preserve the blood of the innocent. Tied as we are in Martin Luther King’s “single garment of destiny,” where “whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly,” courageous soldiers of the U.S. military are forced to engage in war so that the rest of us might live in peace, to stain their hands so that our future might be clear. We do not gloat over the death of evil, because its very existence must be mourned.
The prophet Ezekiel expressed it best: “As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from their ways and live.”
Shmuley Boteach The Best Tattoo Guns, “America’s Rabbi,” is the international bestselling author of 27 books and has just published Kosher Jesus. He is currently running for Congress to represent New Jersey’s Ninth District. Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley. His website is shmuleyforcongress.com.
This piece was written in memory of Machla Dabakarov, the mother of a dear friend of Rabbi Shmuley, who passed away last year.
Rupert Murdoch Discount Herve Leger v neck, News Corp. chairman and chief executive, is appearing Thursday for the second consecutive day before the Leveson Inquiry in London Cheap Missoni Dresses, a judge-led examination into British media practices.
The inquiry is preparing recommendations for the U.K. government on press regulations in the wake of the long-running scandal over illicit reporting tactics at News Corp.’s U.K. newspaper unit.
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CVT transmissions definitely aren’t new, but high gas prices have thrust the once unreliable continuously variable trannies back into the powertrain equation. Chrysler uses the CVT in a few of its products, Mitsubishi added the tranny to the new Lancer, and Nissan has begun using the CVT in the Altima and Sentra, among others. According to a Japanese business rag Tattoo Supplies, Subaru is planning to add the gearless transmission into every model they make by 2010. The first Subie to mate a boxer engine to the CVT is rumored to be the updated 2009 Legacy, and a 2.0L diesel with a CVT may follow shortly there after. While the CVT will be available with every model, we’re assuming (and hoping) that manual transmissions will be offered as well.
CVTs are usually a bit quicker off the line than automatics, but in our experience fuel economy savings are a mix bag. While the Sentra’s MPG improved with the CVT, in the 2006 Ford Five Hundred, the FWD CVT version got two less MPG on the highway than the auto-equipped SEL model. As far as the driving experience goes, CVTs take a little getting used to since the transmissions keep the engine in the optimal rev range at all times and the transmission feels like it’s slipping Tattoo Supplies, but most drivers may never notice the difference.
[Source: Winding Road]
BMW G450X plays chicken with a bobsled – Click above to watch the video after the break
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But it’s also just about as cool as a staged game of chicken between a motorcycle and a bobsled can be. We suggest you see for yourself after the break. And don’t try this at home.
[Source: YouTube via Hell For Leather – sub. req.]
Porsche Panamera assembly begins at Leipzig – Click above for a high-res image gallery
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After years of anticipation and ramp-up, Porsche has finally begun production of the Panamera four-door model at its factory in Leipzig. But don’t take our word for it Christian Audigier Clothing sale, you can go and see for yourself as the German automaker has re-opened the factory to the public.
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Related GalleryPorsche Panamera assembly at Leipzig
[Source: Porsche]
Buyers in China have been snapping up Ferrari models for 20 years now Cheap Karen Millen Dresses, and the Italian automaker is marking the anniversary with the introduction of a special-edition 458 Italia. Dipped in a new Marco Polo red and swaddled in a “dragon-horse” livery with gold imagery and black stripes, the vehicle is supposed to pay homage to Chinese culture. Buyers will also enjoy unique gold wheels and a cabin fitted with gold embroidery to match. A start button with 20 stars and a unique dash plaque are also part of the package. So far Cheap Missoni Dresses, there’s no word on how much the machine will cost.
The company plans to build just 20 examples Cheap Herve leger strapless, the first of which will be unveiled at the debut of the first “permanent” brand exhibition outside of Maranello. Ferrari will set claim to nearly 3 Replica Christian Audigier Clothing,000 square feet at the Shanghai World Expo Park, where the exhibition will remain for three years. Examples from the Maranello Museum will be arrayed in order of topic Buy White Herve leger, from green technology to product Discount Chanel Dresses, design and racing as well as Ferrari in China. Hit the jump for the full press release.
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Tata has its eyes on China. The Indian automaker has announced plans to build up to 40,000 Jaguar and Land Rover models in the People ’s Republic as part of its plan to target emerging markets. So far, there’s no word on exactly when Tata plans to open the doors on new production facilities or exactly where the factories will be located Fake Longines Watches, but it’s clear that the company wants a taste of all of the new money cropping up in China as wealth continues to migrate from the West.
Evidently Replica Anonimo Watches, Land Rover will be the first of the two brands to be built in the country. Last year Discount Replica Sinn Watches, around 208,197 globe-roaming SUVs found their way into the hands of Chinese buyers – around eight percent of total Land Rover sales. Tata is hoping that lowering production costs and increasing supply will help that number swell considerably. From there, Jaguar won’t be too far behind.
Of course, the dark side of the news is that once the Chinese facilities go live Best place to buy Replica Rolex Watches, Tata will then shut down one of its two British plants. So far Jaeger LeCoultre Replica Watches, it hasn’t mentioned which will get the boot.
[Source: Automotive News - Sub. Req.]