Japan LNG, Thermal Coal Imports Rise to Record in August; Oil Imports Gain

[phantom power]

Japan’s imports of liquefied natural gas and thermal coal rose to a record in August because of low utilization rates at nuclear power plants.

The nation’s LNG imports climbed 18.2 percent from a year earlier to 7.55 million metric tons, while thermal-coal imports increased 7.1 percent to 10 million tons, according to data released today by the Ministry of Finance.

The operating rate for nuclear power plants fell to 26.4 percent in August, the Federation of Electric Power Companies announced last week. It was the lowest since the federation started compiling data in April 1977. Power generation at thermal plants rose 8.2 percent, while total electricity output by utilities dropped 12.1 percent on lower temperatures and efforts to conserve energy, according to the federation.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-21/japan-lng-thermal-coal-imports-rise-to-record-in-august-oil-imports-gain.html

[kristopher]

1. Japan Confirms Complete Core Nuclear Meltdown In 3 Fukushima Reactors

[Systematic Chaos]

2. Japan LNG, Thermal Coal Imports Rise to Record in August; Oil Imports Gain

[kristopher]

3. When you are in a hole and need to get out, you have to stop digging.

If they'd put the resources into developing renewables instead of nuclear they would solve BOTH problems. No meltdowns, no increase in fossil consumption.

[Systematic Chaos]

4. I think the point is, if it were really that easy, they'd have DONE it by now.

The fact that it isn't happening the way you want it to points -- in my humble opinion, mind you -- much more to general impracticality and logistical nightmares than a grand conspiracy between fossil fuel and nuclear companies to keep us trapped between their two options.

You can disagree with me all you want but it's going to take a lot to convince me that renewables will ever play a bigger potential or actual role than nuclear energy which is regulated with an iron hand and absent the laxness and corruption which have caused each of the major disasters thus far.

In other words, if we can't keep nuclear power as safe as it should be, we have nobody to blame but ourselves and no knights in shining armor to save us.

[kristopher]

5. Your opinion is ill informed and totally ignores the history of energy

It is demonstrably incorrect when the history of the development of the various technologies are reviewed. Labeling it "a grand conspiracy" is nothing more than an underhanded attempt to dismiss the relationship of the technologies and the economic niches available to each during their development and growth. The fact is that nuclear and coal are large scale centralized sources of generating electricity and trillions of dollars are in their future if that system endures.

Another fact is that when all evidence and knowledge of the *currently available technologies* is laid on the table and the most effective, efficient system is designed from scratch, it will be a distributed grid based on renewables that will emerge each and every time the exercise is accomplished.

Vested economic interests are the only thing that preserves and perpetuates the system you are so fond of.

And the FACT is that we cannot keep nuclear "as safe as it should be" because we are humans designing and operating a complex system. We, and our systems, ALWAYS fail. We, and our systems, are not perfect.

And whether you believe it or now, when these two pro-traditional agencies are forced to admit what they have, it is time for you to accept it and get behind the effort - if you really do give a damn about the planet, that is. For example, the wind turbines installed just in the last two years are actually producing the same amount of electricity as 29 nuclear power plants would actually produce. 29 in two years with NONE of the associated problems of nuclear.

1)

Solar May Produce Most of World’s Power by 2060, IEA Says
By Ben Sills
Aug 29, 2011 8:10 AM GMT-0400


Solar generators may produce the majority of the world’s power within 50 years, slashing the emissions of greenhouse gases that harm the environment, according to a projection by the International Energy Agency.

Photovoltaic and solar-thermal plants may meet most of the world’s demand for electricity by 2060 -- and half of all energy needs -- with wind, hydropower and biomass plants supplying much of the remaining generation, Cedric Philibert, senior analyst in the renewable energy division at the Paris-based agency, said in an Aug. 26 phone interview.

“Photovoltaic and concentrated solar power together can become the major source of electricity,” Philibert said. “You’ll have a lot more electricity than today but most of it will be produced by solar-electric technologies.”

The solar findings, set to be published in a report later this year, go beyond the IEA’s previous forecast, which envisaged the two technologies meeting about 21 percent of the world’s power needs in 2050. The scenario suggests investors able to pick the industry’s winners may reap significant returns as the global economy shifts away from fossil fuels....

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-29/solar-may-produce-most-of-world-s-power-by-2060-iea-says.html

2)

Nuclear power may halve market share by 2050 - IAEA

VIENNA | Tue Sep 20, 2011 10:46pm IST

<snip>

...even in the high-growth scenario the market share will not change much from last year's 13.5 percent of total electricity generation, rising to 14 percent in 2030 before falling to 13.5 percent in 2050, the IAEA forecast said.

This reflects an anticipated rapid increase in total electricity output in the world over the coming four decades -- expected to more than triple by 2050.

As a result, the share for nuclear power could fall even if the sector's total output rises significantly.

In the IAEA's low projection, the share of nuclear power would fall to 11.8 percent in 2030 and to 6.2 percent in 2050...

http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/09/20/idINIndia-59451520110920

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x311585

[Systematic Chaos]

6. Your copy and paste is totally copy and paste and totally copies and pastes the copy and paste...

...of copy and paste.

Oh, and "vested economic interests" are also behind the ridiculous rate of turnover of wind turbines (which, given a large enough deployment, will start killing lots of people in addition to birds in their normal course of operation when they spin out of control and go all splody), and the Chinese "cancer villages" caused in no small part by electronic and solar panel manufacturing facilities.

I do believe that would then allow me to point out to you that the renewables paradigm is just as human, and therefore prone to failure.

Furthermore, I've mentioned now for years that I live in extremely sunny Las Vegas. I've posted here in the past about how, in my travels about town, I've encountered very little solar deployment in this city. Other than a few new homes in the McMansion districts which might have had small solar arrays on their roofs, and some comical little solar structure on the edge of the UNLV campus about a block from where I live, I don't know of one major construction project which has a solar array capable of completely powering a facility, be it a hotel, big box store or what have you.

This is the awesome UNLV solar...thing:



It hasn't changed a bit since the website devoted to it just sorta up and died four years or so ago:

http://www.solar.unlv.edu/

That's the Las Vegas creme de la creme, right there. Please spend the next few minutes acting suitably awed and amazed.

It's really a shame that I hate this fucking shit hole of a town, can't wait until I can afford to leave it, and do my best to not follow the insipid events of our local scene. Because if I gave two shits about the place I would have definitely heard about our very own "Death Ray" (tm) before tonight:

http://freakyphenomena.com/news/las-vegas-hotels-accidental-death-ray

Now that's some funny shit right there.

But hey, at least in my search for something -- anything -- about just one hotel which has embraced solar for backup power rather than banks of huge, obnoxious diesel generators, I did manage to come across this whiz-bang-whoop-de-shit article about "some hotel" here in town which has a bunch of golly-gaga-gee-whiz solar panels on top.

http://www.peachygreen.com/solar-power/stay-at-a-solar-powered-hotel

Now if only they would actually name the establishment. But, from the picture it looks like some smaller place nowhere near the Strip or downtown, and those solar panels are probably just powering the lights in the parking garage or some shit like the other examples in the article. The whole thing is rather laughably unimpressive.

[txlibdem]

7. So, let's weigh the outcome: Less Nuclear = MORE coal and natural gas

That answers that.

[kristopher]

8. No, the severity of one accident results in emergency shutdown of nearly entire nuclear fleet

If they had invested in renewable generation to the same extent as nuclear, the Tohoku Disaster would not have become a Nuclear Energy Nightmare and the country would be well on their way forward.

[txlibdem]

9. invest in renewable generation to the same extent as nuclear

We both agree... as long as you add "zero subsidies or tax breaks for fossil fuels Coal, Oil and Natural Gas."