Yesterday, the government abruptly changed course, determining that it would not formally adopt that goal. The plan had drawn steep opposition from business groups and other communities who depend on local nuclear power plants for jobs and income. Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s cabinet stated it would take the 2040 goal “into consideration” but would only offer its formal endorsement for a vague promise to open discussions with local governments and international communities to decide Japan’s energy future.

At a news conference following the announcement, Tadashi Okamura, chairman of the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said the original goal “was not a viable option in the first place.”

While Japan has 54 nuclear reactors across the country, many have been shut down following the meltdowns at Fukushima. Now only two plants remain open.

Yet the government’s decision to essentially abandon its 2040 goal – a goal that many questioned in the first place as not specific enough, not ambitious enough, or too ambitious – has drawn plenty of criticism from skeptics. The promise to end dependence on nuclear energy was originally made in July 2011 by then Prime Minister Naoto Kan, but while Prime Minister Noda has said he wanted to reduce Japan’s nuclear energy capacity, he also made moves to restart the industry.

Many doubt whether the government can adequately regulate nuclear power production. Yukio Edano, minister of economy, trade and industry, said the government will help build “the highest-level regulations and disaster-preparedness plans in the world.”

While the world will have to wait and see if the Japanese government can live up to that high standard, countries everywhere should learn a lesson about the dangers of becoming too dependent on one form of energy – whatever form that is. Allowing nuclear energy to dominate its electricity supply has left the country’s entire economy vulnerable.

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Now, Reuters reports that two of nuclear’s biggest supporters, France and Japan, have essentially switched sides in the debate. In the wake of last year’s Fukushima disaster, Japan is phasing out its nuclear plants and increasing spending on renewable energy, while France plans to reduce its dependence on nuclear.

By the 2030s, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda says the island nation — which produced more than 10 percent of the world’s nuclear power in pre-Fukushima years — will be out of the nuclear industry. At the same time, it plans to triple the share of renewable resources so they contribute 30 percent of its energy needs.

French president Francois Hollande promises to cut the share of nuclear power in the country from a whopping 75 percent today to 50 percent by 2025. Hollande also called for a 40 percent cut in the European Union’s carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and a 60 percent cut by 2040.

Weighing in on the other side of the debate, the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned that it may be impossible to fill the gap left by nuclear power entirely with renewables and said the nations will inevitably end up using more fossil fuels. (Incidentally, the website of the journal Nature has an interesting set of charts showing IEA projections on fuel mix through 2035, as well as some other useful data.)

Luis Uriza of Bain & Co. told Reuters that natural gas is the most likely fuel to fill the void, which Japan already imports as a major energy source.

Germany, one of the most aggressive pursuers of alternative power, has backed away from nuclear since Fukushima, but it is still gets a large share of its power from fossil fuels.

Photo of nuclear power plant in Cattenom, France, courtesy of Stefan Kühn/Wikimedia

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Exelon, which owns about 2 percent of the country’s wind capacity, has been lobbying members of Congress to kill the tax credits. Company executives say the credits disrupt the energy market in a way that’s counterproductive for nuclear power. They argue that the credits have been intact long enough to jumpstart the industry. Extending them, the argument goes, would unfairly favor wind power over other clean energy options.

That viewpoint doesn’t jive with the majority of AWEA board members, who voted to oust the company last week. The trade group has recently made attempts to secure an extension of the wind tax credits the hallmark of its efforts to advance the wind power industry.

Exelon became a major player in American wind power generation when it bought John Deere Renewables in 2010. The company now runs more than 35 wind projects in 10 states. Its stake in wind power production is so valuable that the company, though deeply involved with nuclear power, earned a spot of AWEA’s board.

Despite the company’s support for wind production, Exelon officials claim the wind farm tax credits effectively lower the wholesale price of electricity. That’s not good for Exelon’s bottom line. The company operates 10 nuclear plants and 17 reactors that account for about 20 percent of the nation’s total nuclear capacity. It is also vested in fossil, hydro, biomass, landfill gas, wind and solar power production. Politico reports that Exelon’s CEO told investors it has more than $400 million marked for wind development that it will funnel to other projects if the tax credits run out.

The incentives for wind farms are set to expire Dec. 31. If reelected, President Barack Obama has said he would extend the tax incentive. Republican rival Mitt Romney, however, has said he would let it expire.

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The combination of ORNL’s high-capacity reusable adsorbents and a Florida company’s high-surface-area polyethylene fibers creates a material that can rapidly, selectively and economically extract valuable and precious dissolved metals from water. Since the 1960s, many adsorbent materials have been developed and evaluated, but none has emerged as being economically viable. The new adsorbents are made from small diameter, round or non-round fibers with high surface areas and excellent mechanical properties. By tailoring the diameter and shape of the fibers, researchers can significantly increase surface area and adsorption capacity.

“We have shown that our adsorbents can extract five to seven times more uranium at uptake rates seven times faster than the world’s best adsorbents,” said Chris Janke, one of the inventors and a member of ORNL’s Materials Science and Technology Division.

Though the laboratory’s new technology is significantly less expensive than past methods, ocean-harvested uranium would still cost about five times more than mined uranium.

The downsides of additional uranium

While non-fossil fuel energy sources are generally good, nuclear fission has its problems.

One major concern, even for some anti-renewable folks, is the potential danger of radioactive materials. We’ve seen three disasters in less than one century of nuclear fission energy generation. Last year we saw the devastating effects of the Fukushima disaster, following accidents at Chernobyl in 1986 and Three Mile Island in 1979. In addition to deaths from accidents, radioactive waste regularly released from the plants leads to increased cancer risk for anyone residing near a nuclear reactor.

An increased supply of uranium would fuel the anti-renewable energy crowd. There is an estimated 4.5 billion tons of uranium in the world’s oceans — enough to fuel the planet’s nuclear reactors for centuries. As long as there is supply, certain lawmakers will fight to utilize our resources and maintain existing nuclear reactors instead of building new renewable power plants.

Nuclear is great in that its power generation does not emit greenhouse gases. However, plenty of air pollution is created in the transporting process. If we utilize the ocean’s uranium supply, materials will have to be transported across half the country to reach certain areas.

It is also worth mentioning that nuclear reactors require an enormous amount of water. Considering this year’s drought is a sign of the new normal, continuing on the nuclear path could result in more power outages.

Main photo credit: Tobin/Flickr

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March 23, 1989, was a day that held great promise for two scientists working at the University of Utah, and for the world. That was the day Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann called a press conference to display the world-changing breakthrough of cold nuclear fusion, a bountiful and “free” source of energy.

Working in secret for more than five years using $100,000 of their own money, Pons and Fleischmann conducted their research in a basement laboratory at the University of Utah. At the March 1989 press conference, Pons and Fleischmann displayed “tabletop cold fusion,” a simple experiment involving an insulated glass jar with “heavy water” (deuterium oxide) inside. Immersed in the heavy water were two electrodes: one a coil of platinum wire, the other a rod of palladium. When a small voltage was applied to the electrodes, the deuterium oxide broke into its constituent parts of oxygen and deuterium, a form of hydrogen. Some of that hydrogen was absorbed into the palladium rod. Pons and Fleischmann believed that, after some time, this reaction would pack deuterium atoms so tightly in the palladium that fusion would occur.

Much excitement ensued after that press conference; scientists sought to replicate the ground-breaking results of the Pons-Fleischmann experiment. At first, many thought they had, but within a year or two the predominant result of most studies showed no signs of nuclear fusion.

Unfortunately for the pair of scientists, the excitement of releasing what they had hoped to be momentous breakthrough became an example of the dangers of “science by press release.” As the late scientist and astronomer Carl Sagan famously said, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” Pons and Fleischmann’s rush to reveal a breakthrough cast the pair from the scientific establishment, and cold fusion research slowed to a crawl. Even after being shunned by the scientific community, the duo continued to research and defend their theory.

Fleischmann “was an extraordinary genius” says his friend Michael Melich, a research professor of physics. The work of discovering cold fusion continues, but only on the periphery of mainstream science — much to the regret of Martin Fleischmann.

Main image credit: Paul Barker/Deseret News

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In 2011, the Swiss parliament decided not to build any more nuclear power plants after the Fukushima disaster in Japan. As nuclear currently supplies some 40 percent of the country’s energy needs, they are in search of ways to replace the energy source with cleaner alternatives. Solar is being debated as the front-runner to use as a replacement and plans are in the works to use the technology to replace at least one half the nuclear power used now. Representatives from the solar and the electricity industries are at odds as to whether it is viable, with solar industry insiders saying they can meet 20 percent of needs by 2025 and electric companies saying gas-fired plants are the way to go. However, the government doesn’t want to go with gas-fired plants as it won’t allow it to meet carbon emission reduction goals.

Also up for debate is whether solar power should be fully subsidized by the government in order to expedite installations or if electricity providers should play a wait and watch game to see if prices of photovoltaics come down anytime soon. Germany is heavily subsidizing renewables and have so far succeeded in setting a world record for solar power production, generating nearly 50 percent of the nation’s midday electricity demand in May. That’s the energy equivalent of 20 nuclear power plants operating at full capacity.

In order to garner support from its citizens, rooftop solar plants are being discussed as the way to move forward with solar energy plans. They are less intrusive (visually and spatially) than full-sized solar or wind farms and thus more acceptable to local residents. But solar won’t fulfill all the country’s energy needs and thus it will have to find additional ways to generate electricity if it is to meet its goal of getting off nuclear altogether.

“The other half of the energy currently supplied by nuclear power plants could be made up by using a mix of wind and biomass, and later, geothermal and small hydropower plants,” said Franz Baumgartner, a professor of renewable energies at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences. In winter, for example, the country would be hard pressed to generate enough electricity from solar power alone. Options would include importing energy created by wind farms in the Baltic Sea or from solar plants in the deserts of Africa.

However they make it happen, it is some very welcome news that Switzerland wants to replace nuclear energy with clean renewables.

[via swissinfo]

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