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from Breakingviews:
Japanese economy needs nuclear second chance
By Christopher Swann
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
Japan needs to give nuclear energy a second chance. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s goal of weakening the yen will make electricity even pricier in a country that imported over 80 percent of its energy even before the Fukushima disaster in 2011.
In September 2012 the government of former PM Yoshihiko Noda finally bowed to the backlash against nuclear energy and set the goal of closing all Japan’s reactors by 2040. Abe, who took office in December, wants to turn public opinion the other way again. In reality, his expansionary economic plan essentially requires it.
The nuclear industry’s share of Japanese electricity generation dived from an average of 30 percent between 1987 and 2011 to just 2 percent in 2012, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, as reactors were closed while new safety measures were put in place. Japan’s bill for energy imports spiked, with the cost of liquefied natural gas jumping 25 percent to $66 billion in 2012, according to the World Nuclear Association. Major regional utilities like Kansai Electric Power, meanwhile, hiked electricity prices by close to a fifth.
from The Great Debate:
Helping Iran safeguard its nuclear stockpile
Diplomats from six world powers are due back in Kazakhstan on Friday for talks with Iran about its controversial nuclear program. From the hawkish “bomb-bomb-bomb-Iran” crowd to the “jaw-jaw-not-war-war” folks, there is no shortage of ideas about how to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue.
Lost in the din is the prospect that the United Nations agency charged with monitoring Iran’s nuclear activities could settle the most pressing issue – by helping Iran convert its enriched uranium gas stockpile to safer metal form. If only the world powers will encourage it to do its job.
from The Great Debate:
Can diplomacy prevail with Iran?
New talks with Iran ended Wednesday with a surprising forward spin. More meetings are planned in the now decade-long American-led effort to ensure the Islamic Republic does not get nuclear weapons.
Iran must now accept or reject a proposal that offers some sanctions relief in return for Tehran’s reducing its stockpile of uranium enriched close to weapon-grade. This hopeful note – Tehran’s reaction was positive – comes as a showdown looms, because Iran continues to inch ever closer to being able to make a nuclear weapon.
from India Insight:
Kudankulam’s neighbours weigh nuclear power fears against living standards
Rani enters her home for the first time in more than a week. She switches on the light, but it doesn't work. Tsunami Colony, where she lives in the village of Idinthakari, has been deserted for months, and the electricity supply has been patchy.
The people who were living in the development fear that the police will return and ransack houses – as they reportedly have done to several places in the village. The residents prefer to sleep on the sand outside St. Lourdes church here in Idinthakari in Tamil Nadu, alongside people who have spent more than a year protesting the planned opening of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant, which sits about 2 kilometres away.
from India Insight:
An atom of doubt at the Kudankulam nuclear power plant
Opponents of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant, under construction in Tamil Nadu, are raising fresh questions about the plant's safety because of Indian government documents that they say reveal a problem in the design of one of the two reactors.
The reactor's design differs from the plan that Russia and India came up with when they agreed to build the reactor in 1988, according to the documents published by India's Atomic Energy Regulatory Board.
from The Great Debate:
Don’t forget Iran’s record of deception
Optimism that this week’s talks in Baghdad about Iran’s nuclear weapons program could produce a deal should be tempered with extreme skepticism and caution in light of the Islamic Republic’s long record of lies and deception.
The international media is awash with speculation that some kind of agreement is in the offing between the six nations that make up the so-called P5+1 (the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany) and the Iranians.
from The Great Debate UK:
Now is the time to not only maintain pressure on Iran, but increase it
By Charles Guthrie, Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank, Kristen Silverberg and Dr August Hanning. The opinions expressed are their own.
On May 23, 2012, the chief negotiators of the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany will meet their Iranian counterparts in Baghdad to discuss Iran’s nuclear programme. This follows last April’s meeting in Istanbul, when negotiations were resumed after more than a year’s inaction. This summit will test whether Iran is serious and whether concrete results can be achieved.
from Tales from the Trail:
Washington Extra – Going nuclear?
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission commissioner Kristine Svinicki (L) is seen here with Chairman Gregory Jaczko (C) and fellow commissioner George Apostolakis (R) listening to testimony at a meeting at the NRC's headquarters in Rockville, Maryland in this March 21, 2011 file photo. REUTERS/Larry Downing
Obama to renominate Republican to nuclear panel - President Obama will renominate Republican Kristine Svinicki to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, defying opposition from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a White House official told Reuters. Republicans want Svinicki, whose term as a commissioner expires in June, to stay on the panel and believe the process is being held up because she, along with three other commission members, accused the current NRC chairman, a Democrat, of bullying women. For more of this story by Jeff Mason and Roberta Rampton, read here.
from Breakingviews:
Kim Jong-un could thaw dictatorship into growth
By Martin Hutchinson
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
A limited nuclear deal with the United States suggests North Korea’s Kim Jong-un might be looking for a thaw. If the country’s basketball-loving young master really wants to build on that agreement and bring economic growth to his impoverished citizens, land reform would be a good place to start.
from Ian Bremmer:
Japan’s year of resilience
Almost a year on from a devastating earthquake and tsunami that left the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe in its wake, it’s fair to say Japan has experienced a crisis unlike any other since the 1945 bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended World War Two.
Over 13,000 people died from the quake, many from drowning. The final death toll, which will include those who were unable to receive proper medical care during the disaster, will be even higher. An estimated 100,000 children were uprooted from their homes after the quake, along with some 400,000 adults. And in the areas affected by fallout from the Fukushima nuclear disaster, cleanup work is really just beginning. With all of this coming in the teeth of the global economic crisis and Japan’s national industrial slowdown, the densely populated main island of Japan has not seen anything like this in decades.
