Great Physicists: Mechanics - Galileo Galilei

Using Great Physicists: The Life and Times of Leading Physicists from Galileo to Hawking by William Cropper as a springboard, I'll share biographies (written for the copyright-free Wikipedia) of those individuals, here.

Galileo Gallilei
Galileo Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642), commonly known as Galileo, was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations, and support for Copernicanism. Galileo has been called the "father of modern observational astronomy", the "father of modern physics", the "father of science", and "the Father of Modern Science". Stephen Hawking says, "Galileo, perhaps more than any other single person, was responsible for the birth of modern science."

The motion of uniformly accelerated objects, taught in nearly all high school and introductory college physics courses, was studied by Galileo as the subject of kinematics. His contributions to observational astronomy include the telescopic confirmation of the phases of Venus, the discovery of the four largest satellites of Jupiter (named the Galilean moons in his honour), and the observation and analysis of sunspots. Galileo also worked in applied science and technology, inventing an improved military compass and other instruments.

Galileo's championing of Copernicanism was controversial within his lifetime, when a large majority of philosophers and astronomers still subscribed to the geocentric view that the Earth is at the centre of the universe. After 1610, when he began publicly supporting the heliocentric view, which placed the Sun at the centre of the universe, he met with bitter opposition from some philosophers and clerics, and two of the latter eventually denounced him to the Roman Inquisition early in 1615.

In February 1616, although he had been cleared of any offence, the Catholic Church nevertheless condemned heliocentrism as "false and contrary to Scripture", and Galileo was warned to abandon his support for it—which he promised to do. When he later defended his views in his most famous work, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, published in 1632, he was tried by the Inquisition, found "vehemently suspect of heresy", forced to recant, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest.

Early Life
Galileo was born in Pisa (then part of the Duchy of Florence), Italy, the first of six children of Vincenzo Galilei, a famous lutenist, composer, and music theorist, and Giulia Ammannati. Four of their six children survived infancy, and the youngest Michelangelo (or Michelagnolo) also became a noted lutenist and composer.

Galileo's full name was Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei. At the age of 8, his family moved to Florence, but he was left with Jacopo Borghini for two years. He then was educated in the Camaldolese Monastery at Vallombrosa, 35 km southeast of Florence.

Although a genuinely pious Roman Catholic, Galileo fathered three children out of wedlock with Marina Gamba. They had two daughters, Virginia in 1600 and Livia in 1601, and one son, Vincenzo, in 1606. Because of their illegitimate birth, their father considered the girls unmarriageable. Their only worthy alternative was the religious life. Both girls were sent to the convent of San Matteo in Arcetri and remained there for the rest of their lives. Virginia took the name Maria Celeste upon entering the convent. She died on 2 April 1634, and is buried with Galileo at the Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence. Livia took the name Sister Arcangela and was ill for most of her life. Vincenzo was later legitimized and married Sestilia Bocchineri.

Career as a scientist
Although he seriously considered the priesthood as a young man, he enrolled for a medical degree at the University of Pisa at his father's urging. He did not complete this degree, but instead studied mathematics.

Galileo was also studious of disegno, a term encompassing fine art, and in 1588 attained an instructor position in the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in Florence, teaching perspective and chiaroscuro [study of light and dark in paintings]. Being inspired by the artistic tradition of the city and the works of the Renaissance artists, Galileo acquired an aesthetic mentality. While a young teacher at the Accademia, he began a life-long friendship with the Florentine painter Cigoli, who included Galileo's lunar observations in one of his paintings.

In 1589, he was appointed to the chair of mathematics in Pisa. In 1591 his father died and he was entrusted with the care of his younger brother Michelagnolo. In 1592, he moved to the University of Padua, teaching geometry, mechanics, and astronomy until 1610.[19] During this period Galileo made significant discoveries in both pure fundamental science (for example, kinematics of motion and astronomy) as well as practical applied science (for example, strength of materials and improvement of the telescope). His multiple interests included the study of astrology, which at the time was a discipline tied to the studies of mathematics and astronomy.

Galileo, Kepler and theories of tides
Cardinal Bellarmine had written in 1615 that the Copernican system could not be defended without "a true physical demonstration that the sun does not circle the earth but the earth circles the sun". Galileo considered his theory of the tides to provide the required physical proof of the motion of the earth. This theory was so important to Galileo that he originally intended to entitle his Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems the Dialogue on the Ebb and Flow of the Sea.[ The reference to tides was removed by order of the Inquisition.

For Galileo, the tides were caused by the sloshing back and forth of water in the seas as a point on the Earth's surface speeded up and slowed down because of the Earth's rotation on its axis and revolution around the Sun. Galileo circulated his first account of the tides in 1616, addressed to Cardinal Orsini. His theory gave the first insight into the importance of the shapes of ocean basins in the size and timing of tides; he correctly accounted, for instance, for the negligible tides halfway along the Adriatic Sea compared to those at the ends. As a general account of the cause of tides, however, his theory was a failure.

If this theory were correct, there would be only one high tide per day. Galileo and his contemporaries were aware of this inadequacy because there are two daily high tides at Venice instead of one, about twelve hours apart. Galileo dismissed this anomaly as the result of several secondary causes, including the shape of the sea, its depth, and other factors.[24] Against the assertion that Galileo was deceptive in making these arguments, Albert Einstein expressed the opinion that Galileo developed his "fascinating arguments" and accepted them uncritically out of a desire for physical proof of the motion of the Earth.

Galileo dismissed as a "useless fiction" the idea, held by his contemporary Johannes Kepler, that the moon caused the tides. Galileo also refused to accept Kepler's elliptical orbits of the planets, considering the circle the "perfect" shape for planetary orbits.

Controversy over comets and The Assayer
In 1619, Galileo became embroiled in a controversy with Father Orazio Grassi, professor of mathematics at the Jesuit Collegio Romano. It began as a dispute over the nature of comets, but by the time Galileo had published The Assayer (Il Saggiatore) in 1623, his last salvo in the dispute, it had become a much wider argument over the very nature of science itself. Because The Assayer contains such a wealth of Galileo's ideas on how science should be practised, it has been referred to as his scientific manifesto.

Early in 1619, Father Grassi had anonymously published a pamphlet, An Astronomical Disputation on the Three Comets of the Year 1618, which discussed the nature of a comet that had appeared late in November of the previous year. Grassi concluded that the comet was a fiery body which had moved along a segment of a great circle at a constant distance from the earth, and since it moved in the sky more slowly than the moon, it must be farther away than the moon.

Grassi's arguments and conclusions were criticized in a subsequent article, Discourse on the Comets, published under the name of one of Galileo's disciples, a Florentine lawyer named Mario Guiducci, although it had been largely written by Galileo himself. Galileo and Guiducci offered no definitive theory of their own on the nature of comets, although they did present some tentative conjectures that are now known to be mistaken.

In its opening passage, Galileo and Guiducci's Discourse gratuitously insulted the Jesuit Christopher Scheiner, and various uncomplimentary remarks about the professors of the Collegio Romano were scattered throughout the work. The Jesuits were offended, and Grassi soon replied with a polemical tract of his own, The Astronomical and Philosophical Balance, under the pseudonym Lothario Sarsio Sigensano, purporting to be one of his own pupils.

The Assayer was Galileo's devastating reply to the Astronomical Balance. It has been widely regarded as a masterpiece of polemical literature, in which "Sarsi's" arguments are subjected to withering scorn. It was greeted with wide acclaim, and particularly pleased the new pope, Urban VIII, to whom it had been dedicated.

Galileo's dispute with Grassi permanently alienated many of the Jesuits who had previously been sympathetic to his ideas, and Galileo and his friends were convinced that these Jesuits were responsible for bringing about his later condemnation. The evidence for this is at best equivocal, however.

Controversy over heliocentrism
Biblical references Psalm 93:1, 96:10, and 1 Chronicles 16:30 include text stating that "the world is firmly established, it cannot be moved." In the same manner, Psalm 104:5 says, "the Lord set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved." Further, Ecclesiastes 1:5 states that "And the sun rises and sets and returns to its place" etc.

Galileo defended heliocentrism, and claimed it was not contrary to those Scripture passages. He took Augustine's position on Scripture: not to take every passage literally, particularly when the scripture in question is a book of poetry and songs, not a book of instructions or history. He believed that the writers of the Scripture merely wrote from the perspective of the terrestrial world, from that vantage point that the sun does rise and set. Another way to put this is that the writers would have been writing from a phenomenological point of view, or style.

By 1616 the attacks on the ideas of Copernicus had reached a head, and Galileo went to Rome to try to persuade the Catholic Church authorities not to ban Copernicus' ideas. In the end, Cardinal Bellarmine, acting on directives from the Inquisition, delivered him an order not to "hold or defend" the idea that the Earth moves and the Sun stands still at the centre.

The decree did not prevent Galileo from discussing heliocentrism hypothesis (thus maintaining a facade of separation between science and the church). For the next several years Galileo stayed well away from the controversy. He revived his project of writing a book on the subject, encouraged by the election of Cardinal Maffeo Barberini as Pope Urban VIII in 1623. Barberini was a friend and admirer of Galileo, and had opposed the condemnation of Galileo in 1616. The book, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, was published in 1632, with formal authorization from the Inquisition and papal permission.

Dava Sobel explains that during this time, Urban had begun to fall more and more under the influence of court intrigue and problems of state. His friendship with Galileo began to take second place to his feelings of persecution and fear for his own life. At this low point in Urban's life, the problem of Galileo was presented to the pope by court insiders and enemies of Galileo. Coming on top of the recent claim by the then Spanish cardinal that Urban was soft on defending the church, he reacted out of anger and fear. This situation did not bode well for Galileo's defense of his book.

Earlier, Pope Urban VIII had personally asked Galileo to give arguments for and against heliocentrism in the book, and to be careful not to advocate heliocentrism. He made another request, that his own views on the matter be included in Galileo's book. Only the latter of those requests was fulfilled by Galileo. Whether unknowingly or deliberately, Simplicio, the defender of the Aristotelian Geocentric view in Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, was often caught in his own errors and sometimes came across as a fool.

Indeed, although Galileo states in the preface of his book that the character is named after a famous Aristotelian philosopher (Simplicius in Latin, Simplicio in Italian), the name "Simplicio" in Italian also has the connotation of "simpleton".[48] This portrayal of Simplicio made Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems appear as an advocacy book: an attack on Aristotelian geocentrism and defence of the Copernican theory.

Unfortunately for his relationship with the Pope, Galileo put the words of Urban VIII into the mouth of Simplicio. Most historians agree Galileo did not act out of malice and felt blindsided by the reaction to his book. However, the Pope did not take the suspected public ridicule lightly, nor the Copernican advocacy. Galileo had alienated one of his biggest and most powerful supporters, the Pope, and was called to Rome to defend his writings.

With the loss of many of his defenders in Rome because of Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Galileo was ordered to stand trial on suspicion of heresy in 1633. The sentence of the Inquisition was in three essential parts:

Galileo was found "vehemently suspect of heresy", namely of having held the opinions that the Sun lies motionless at the centre of the universe, that the Earth is not at its centre and moves, and that one may hold and defend an opinion as probable after it has been declared contrary to Holy Scripture. He was required to "abjure, curse and detest" those opinions.

He was sentenced to formal imprisonment at the pleasure of the Inquisition. On the following day this was commuted to house arrest, which he remained under for the rest of his life.

His offending Dialogue was banned; and in an action not announced at the trial, publication of any of his works was forbidden, including any he might write in the future.[

According to popular legend, after recanting his theory that the Earth moved around the Sun, Galileo allegedly muttered the rebellious phrase "And yet it moves," but there is no evidence that he actually said this or anything similar. The first account of the legend dates to a century after his death.

After a period with the friendly Ascanio Piccolomini (the Archbishop of Siena), Galileo was allowed to return to his villa at Arcetri near Florence in 1634, where he spent the remainder of his life under house arrest. Galileo was ordered to read the seven penitential psalms once a week for the next three years. However his daughter Maria Celeste relieved him of the burden after securing ecclesiastical permission to take it upon herself.

It was while Galileo was under house arrest that he dedicated his time to one of his finest works, Two New Sciences. Here he summarized work he had done some forty years earlier, on the two sciences now called kinematics and strength of materials. This book has received high praise from Albert Einstein. As a result of this work, Galileo is often called the "father of modern physics". He went completely blind in 1638 and was suffering from a painful hernia and insomnia, so he was permitted to travel to Florence for medical advice.

Death
Galileo continued to receive visitors until 1642, when, after suffering fever and heart palpitations, he died on January 8, 1642, at age 77. The Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinando II, wished to bury him in the main body of the Basilica of Santa Croce, next to the tombs of his father and other ancestors, and to erect a marble mausoleum in his honour.

These plans were scrapped, however, after Pope Urban VIII and his nephew, Cardinal Francesco Barberini, protested, because Galileo was condemned by the Catholic Church for "vehement suspicion of heresy". He was instead buried in a small room next to the novices' chapel at the end of a corridor from the southern transept of the basilica to the sacristy.[61] He was reburied in the main body of the basilica in 1737 after a monument had been erected there in his honour.

Scientific methodsGalileo made original contributions to the science of motion through an innovative combination of experiment and mathematics. More typical of science at the time were the qualitative studies of William Gilbert, on magnetism and electricity. Galileo's father, Vincenzo Galilei, a lutenist and music theorist, had performed experiments establishing perhaps the oldest known non-linear relation in physics: for a stretched string, the pitch varies as the square root of the tension.

These observations lay within the framework of the Pythagorean tradition of music, well-known to instrument makers, which included the fact that subdividing a string by a whole number produces a harmonious scale. Thus, a limited amount of mathematics had long related music and physical science, and young Galileo could see his own father's observations expand on that tradition.

Galileo is perhaps the first to clearly state that the laws of nature are mathematical. In The Assayer he wrote "Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe ... It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometric figures;...."

His mathematical analyses are a further development of a tradition employed by late scholastic natural philosophers, which Galileo learned when he studied philosophy. Although he tried to remain loyal to the Catholic Church, his adherence to experimental results, and their most honest interpretation, led to a rejection of blind allegiance to authority, both philosophical and religious, in matters of science. In broader terms, this aided the separation of science from both philosophy and religion; a major development in human thought.

By the standards of his time, Galileo was often willing to change his views in accordance with observation. In order to perform his experiments, Galileo had to set up standards of length and time, so that measurements made on different days and in different laboratories could be compared in a reproducible fashion. This provided a reliable foundation on which to confirm mathematical laws using inductive reasoning.

Galileo showed a remarkably modern appreciation for the proper relationship between mathematics, theoretical physics, and experimental physics. He understood the parabola, both in terms of conic sections and in terms of the ordinate (y) varying as the square of the abscissa (x). Galilei further asserted that the parabola was the theoretically ideal trajectory of a uniformly accelerated projectile in the absence of friction and other disturbances. He conceded that there are limits to the validity of this theory, noting on theoretical grounds that a projectile trajectory of a size comparable to that of the Earth could not possibly be a parabola,[68] but he nevertheless maintained that for distances up to the range of the artillery of his day, the deviation of a projectile's trajectory from a parabola would only be very slight.

Wisconsin nuclear plant on the auction block

Reuters: Wisconsin nuclear plant on the auction block
Reuters) - One of America's oldest nuclear power plants is up for sale.

Dominion Resources said on Thursday it wants to sell its Kewaunee Power Station north of Manitowoc, Wisconsin.

The Virginia-based power producer did not say what it expected the plant to fetch in the current marketplace, where the ongoing crisis in Japan has fanned fears of the risks associated with nuclear technology.

Dominion bought the 38-year-old plant in 2005 for $220 million as the first step in what it hoped would be an expansion into the Midwest. But the company was outbid by rivals when other plants in the region came on the auction block.

Its CEO Tom Farrell said Thursday that "without the other units, the strategic rationale to continue to own Kewaunee is diminished, and we believe it is time to pursue a sale."

Kewaunee, located on the shores of Lake Michigan near Door County, a region often referred to as the Cape Cod of the Midwest, was originally licensed in 1973.

Earlier this year, it received a 20-year license renewal from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in February.

Last August, months before the earthquake and tsunami in Japan crippled the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant in Japan, the NRC published a report on the risk posed by earthquakes to the country's 104 nuclear power plants.

The commission said Kewaunee had a 1-in-83,333 chance each year of suffering the kind of seismic-triggered damage to its reactor core that caused the explosion at the Fukushima Dai-ichi and released radioactive contaminants into the atmosphere.

Fifty-six of the 104 nuclear reactors in the United States were ranked at greater risk than Kewaunee for earthquake-related damage to their nuclear cores, according to the NRC, and 47 were deemed at less risk.

Fukushima Won’t Stop World’s Largest Nuclear Facility

IPSNews.com: Fukushima Won’t Stop World’s Largest Nuclear Facility
NEW DELHI, Apr 29, 2011 (IPS) - While the Fukushima tragedy has not deterred India from going ahead with building the world’s largest nuclear power facility at Jaitapur on the western coast, the government has announced a tighter safety regime for its ambitious nuclear power programme.

Following a high-level meeting convened by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, a government statement said that the "Jaitapur project would be implemented in a phased manner with two 1,650 Mw reactors to begin with."

The statement said that a comprehensive environmental impact assessment of these reactors, to be imported from France, will be done when they become operational by 2019.

Originally the Jaitapur project, in western Maharashtra state, was to have been commissioned in 2018 with the French Areva supplying six 1,650 Mw reactors at a cost estimated to be not less than 12 billion dollars. Areva will also supply the uranium to fuel the reactors.

Environment minister Jairam Ramesh said at a press conference that followed Singh’s meeting, that each reactor will have its own independent safety systems and be operated and maintained separately.

"Fukushima," said Ramesh, "saw the cascading failure of one reactor after another, and that is what caused much of the public concern on Jaitapur."

More importantly, the government announced that it would legislate to create an autonomous Nuclear Regulatory Authority of India to replace the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), long under criticism for lacking independence from the country’s powerful and secretive Department of Atomic Energy.

"This is a welcome development," said A. Gopalakrishnan, a nuclear scientist and former AERB chairman who, for years, has been carrying on a crusade against the secret functioning of India’s nuclear establishment.

Gopalakrishnan told IPS that he hoped the promised legislation would be "purposeful and bring in sufficient transparency and accountability since that was the best way to prevent future Fukushimas."

According to Gopalakrishnan several of India’s own nuclear "incidents" were covered up simply because the civilian nuclear sector falls under the Official Secrets Act that goes back to colonial times.

"India should ideally model the new regulatory body on the French Nuclear Safety Authority," Gopalakrishnan said.

The government said in its statement that it would it would seek assistance from the Operational Safety Review Team of the International Atomic Energy Association and that "the best available expertise will be used to ensure the highest levels of safety."

As for dealing with local protests around Jaitapur led by groups supporting the interests of farmers and fishermen, the government said it would shortly be announcing a new compensation package for those displaced through land acquisition for the nuclear park.

"A generous new compensation package has been worked out by the (Maharashtra) state government and the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) and will be announced soon," the statement said.

Last week, clashes between protesters and police had resulted in the death of one villager and injuries to 20 others. The regional Shiv Sena political party has also pitched in to declare that it would not allow any nuclear park to come up in Maharashtra.

Last month, a mammoth petition signed by eminent citizens was sent to the prime minister, calling for an independent safety review of nuclear installations in India and, pending that, a moratorium on further nuclear activities.

Signatories to the petition included former Indian navy chief Lakshminarayan Ramdas, former vice- chancellor of Delhi University, Deepak Nayyar, historians Romila Thapar, Mushirul Hasan and Ramachandra Guha, economists Amit Bhaduri and Jean Dreze as well as writers Arundhati Roy and Nayantara Sehgal.

Ramdas told IPS that centralised energy generation through nuclear power encouraged secrecy and fostered "the creation of a vested interests in an unaccountable, undemocratic and technocratic elite."

However, the government reiterated plans to quadruple nuclear power output from the current 4,650 Mw to 20,000 Mw by 2020, saying that the country’s energy needs were vast and that it viewed nuclear energy as an important and clean energy option.

India’s existing 20 nuclear reactors are small, indigenously built and have low output, accounting for less than three percent of total power capacity.

This situation, blamed on a technology and materials embargo imposed on India for clandestinely exploding a nuclear device in 1974, changed after the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers group (NSG) of nations allowed a special India-specific waiver to allow this country, which is not signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to resume international nuclear commerce.

This was followed by the conclusion of the landmark Indo-U.S. Civilian Nuclear Cooperation Agreement of 2008. Gopalakrishnan said while he supported "necessary forward movement" in scaling up nuclear power, he was opposed to the Jaitapur project because it was based on political considerations overlooking safety concerns around Areva’s untested "Evolutionary Pressurised Reactors (EPR)".

The world's first EPR reactor, being constructed in Olkiluoto, Finland, is mired in litigation over safety issues. A second one at Flamanville in Normandy in France has also come up against safety issues raised by the French regulator, threatening Areva’s future.

"The Areva deal was a reward for the support that France gave for the special waiver given to India by the NSG," Gopalakrishnan said.

Nuclear Future Is Now Because That’s Where Profit Is for Exelon: Real M&A

Bloomberg: Nuclear Future Is Now Because That’s Where Profit Is for Exelon: Real M&A

Exelon Corp. (EXC) is trying to pull off its largest takeover by acquiring more nuclear power plants -- less than two months after the industry’s worst disaster since Chernobyl.

The biggest U.S. operator of nuclear power facilities agreed to purchase Constellation Energy Group Inc. (CEG) of Baltimore for about $7.9 billion in stock, giving the Chicago-based company stakes in five more reactors. Including net debt, the transaction would be Exelon’s first acquisition over $1 billion since 2002 after three deals fell apart in the past seven years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

While Exelon faces its biggest decline in earnings in a decade next year as higher-priced power contracts that it sold expire, Constellation’s nuclear assets will help Exelon boost profitability as environmental regulations increase costs for energy producers that own coal plants, according to Manulife Asset Management U.S. LLC’s Greg Phelps. The takeover, which will mark the end of John Rowe’s 11-year stint as Exelon’s chief executive officer, comes as the partial meltdown of Japan’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant in March prompts rivals such as NRG Energy Inc. (NRG) to halt plans to build new reactors.

“It’s a bet on nuclear,” said Mark Bronzo, who helps manage $26 billion at Security Global Investors in Irvington, New York. The deal will allow the companies to “focus their energy and intention on those areas that will have a chance to make the greatest profit margins. It makes sense because there’s no appetite for people to build new nuclear plants,” he said.

Acquisition Cost
Paul Elsberg, a spokesman for Exelon, said the deal helps the company diversify its operations because it will acquire Constellation’s retail utility business in addition to the reactors. Larry McDonnell, a spokesman for Constellation, didn’t respond to phone calls and an e-mail seeking comment.

Including net debt of $2.65 billion, the acquisition value of Constellation was about $10.2 billion when it was announced April 28, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Constellation shareholders will get 0.93 Exelon shares for each share owned, or about $38.59 each based on Exelon’s closing price April 27.

The bid was 16 percent higher than Constellation’s average share price in the 20 days prior to the announcement and would enable Constellation’s investors to recoup all their losses in the past year, the data show.

Rowe, 65, plans to retire when the deal closes, according to the statement, handing over control of the combined entity to Christopher Crane, Exelon’s 52-year-old chief operating officer. Current Constellation Chairman and CEO Mayo Shattuck III, 56, will become executive chairman.

Earnings Outlook
Exelon’s per-share profit will decline 25 percent in 2012, according to analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg, on expectations lower energy prices will trim revenue on future power contracts, said William Costello, a Dallas-based utility analyst and fund manager at Westwood Holdings Group Inc., which oversees $10 billion.

Natural gas futures have fallen more than 60 percent since July 2008, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

While Exelon said the Constellation deal will reduce its reliance on nuclear power, buying the nuclear assets now will strengthen Exelon’s dominance in the industry and bolster its profit as the economic recovery gathers pace and fuels demand for electricity, according to Security Global’s Bronzo.

Exelon earned 25.8 cents before interest and taxes for every dollar of revenue in the past 12 months, 46 percent higher than the average operating margin for U.S. integrated electric companies with market values greater than $1 billion, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Best in Class
Constellation’s 6.7 percent operating margin was the lowest among the group, dragged down by its retail utility business and its nuclear assets that weren’t as well managed as Exelon’s, said Westwood’s Costello. The company wrote down the value of its plants co-owned with Paris-based Electricite de France SA in the third quarter of 2010, leading to a $1.41 billion loss.

“Exelon is probably the best nuclear power operator, so they can improve those operations,” Costello said. “They will be able to really help the Constellation team and run the assets a little bit better.”

The nuclear business may also benefit from the Obama administration’s attempt to impose stricter rules for air pollution. The Environmental Protection Agency last month proposed regulations limiting toxins such as mercury, arsenic and acid gases spewed from coal-fired power plants.

Clean Energy Benefit
The proposed rule may cost as much as $100 billion for the industry to comply, according to the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, a Washington-based coalition of companies such as Atlanta-based Southern Co. (SO), the biggest utility owner by market value.

Constellation and Exelon were among companies that praised the EPA’s proposal. The Obama administration has identified energy sources such as nuclear, natural gas, wind and solar as “clean” because they produce lower emissions of carbon dioxide and other pollutants than sources such as coal or oil.

Exelon alone will earn an additional $800 million a year by 2015 because of the environmental regulations forcing the closure of coal-fired power plants, said Hugh Wynne, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.

The Constellation deal is valued at 6.9 times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $1.48 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. If the acquisition is successful, it would be the cheapest takeover of an integrated electric utility since 2001, the data show.

‘Cheap Side’
Exelon estimates cost and revenue benefits of the combination at $200 million next year, rising to $260 million after 2013, enough to boost profit by more than 5 percent that year, the company said yesterday on a conference call.

“They saw Constellation’s entire nuclear power generating fleet as being priced on the cheap side,” Manulife’s Phelps said.

Exelon’s deal comes after setbacks to nuclear reactor projects amid concern about the safety of atomic power.

NRG Energy, the largest U.S. independent power producer, this month halted its plans to build two new reactors at a Texas nuclear plant. The Princeton, New Jersey-based company cited diminished prospects after a March 11 earthquake and tsunami knocked out cooling systems at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Dai- Ichi plant, leading to the spread of radiation across parts of northern Japan.

More than 50,000 households were forced to evacuate and Tepco may face compensation claims of as much as 11 trillion yen ($135 billion), Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America Corp. estimates.

‘Game Changer’
The No. 4 reactor of Chernobyl exploded 25 years ago this week, sending a radiation plume across Europe from what is now Ukraine. The meltdown killed at least 31 plant workers and firefighters in three months and forced the evacuation of a quarter of a million people in what was then the Soviet Union.

“The meltdown in Japan was a game changer,” said Matt McCormick, a money manager for Cincinnati-based Bahl & Gaynor Inc., which oversees $3.6 billion. “Right now, people are going to be overly cautious.”

Still, “as energy and commodity prices increase, nuclear is something that logically would come more to the forefront,” he said.

Constellation’s retail-utility business may help offset profit declines before energy prices recover.

Regulatory Hurdles
Exelon, which benefits from higher power prices, can protect itself during periods of low prices with Constellation’s retail business. At that division, earnings rise when prices are down, according to Angie Storozynski, a New York-based analyst for Macquarie Capital USA.

The acquisition still faces regulatory hurdles as the companies seek approval from utility overseers in Maryland, New York and Texas, in addition to federal regulators, Exelon said yesterday. Maryland officials have twice blocked takeovers of Constellation. The two companies are prepared for seven months of negotiations in Maryland, according to Shattuck.

“Most people recognize -- shareholders, regulatory authorities -- that the combined company is probably better,” said Security Global’s Bronzo. “It probably puts both companies on more solid footing. The approval will be very time consuming, but it will get done.”

Overall, there have been 8,062 deals announced globally this year, totaling $800.4 billion, a 24 percent increase from the $645.5 billion in the same period in 2010, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Nuclear watchdog groups slam New Mexico plutonium plan

Reuters: Nuclear watchdog groups slam New Mexico plutonium plan

(Reuters) - The U.S. government should rethink plans for a multi-billion dollar plutonium complex at Los Alamos after the recent nuclear catastrophe in Japan and the discovery of increased seismic risk in New Mexico, nuclear watchdog groups said.

A hearing is set for Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque on a lawsuit filed by the Los Alamos Study Group seeking to block any further design, construction or funding of the proposed Chemical and Metallurgy Research Replacement Nuclear Facility until adequate studies of environmental impact and alternatives are complete.

"The real question is whether Los Alamos and the country need this facility at all," asked Greg Mello, executive director of the Los Alamos Study Group. "Between now and 2023, this facility will generate nothing but cost to national security, to the environment, and to the taxpayer, no matter what design they choose. So the point is: Why build it?"

Los Alamos National Laboratory spokesman Kevin Roark said the proposed nuclear facility would replace existing capability at the old Chemical and Metallurgy Research building, which is a chemistry laboratory used to make sure plutonium is weapons grade and for ongoing quality control.

The new building would support the plutonium processing facility, which is used for manufacturing plutonium, stockpile surveillance, plutonium heat source fabrication for deep-space NASA missions, and other research and development involving nuclear materials, Roark said.

Federal officials say that the new complex is necessary to support nuclear security missions, including non-proliferation and counter-terrorism.

The project "is an important part of our effort to invest in the future, build a 21st-century nuclear security enterprise, implement the president's nuclear security agenda, and improve the way the (National Nuclear Security Administration) does business," said Josh McConaha, deputy director of public affairs for the administration.

But critics such as Jay Coughlin, executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, say that seismic issues are a "very serious concern."

The laboratory recently released the results of a seismic analysis done in 2007 that showed "that a large earthquake that might occur in north-central New Mexico every 2,500 years could cause significant damage to some parts of the facility."

Lab officials say appropriate safety measures will be implemented as the project moves forward.

"Everyone at Los Alamos is committed to the safety of our workforce, our facilities, and the community we call home," said Bob McQuinn, the lab's associate director for nuclear and high hazard operations. "While the latest calculations revealed some new areas to improve, we will quickly incorporate those into our ongoing facility improvement activities."

Los Alamos, located 35 miles northwest of Santa Fe, is the home of the world's first atomic bomb, created through the top-secret Manhattan Project during the early part of World War II. The first bomb was tested at the Trinity site in south-central New Mexico in July 1945; two atomic bombs were then dropped on Japan the following month. To this day, New Mexico maintains the nation's largest nuclear weapons arsenal.

Mello's group says that recent cost-cutting proposals at the lab involve eliminating essential safety features.

In the event of an earthquake and inadequate safety features, highly carcinogenic plutonium smoke could escape the building, rendering the land beneath the plume too contaminated for use.

"It would be like a dirty bomb," Mello said.

Ghost Town Bears Witness to Lasting Nuclear Scourge

New York Times: Ghost Town Bears Witness to Lasting Nuclear Scourge
Twenty-five years ago, the world’s worst nuclear accident literally erupted at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union.

Yet when a heedless experiment with fuel rods caused the No. 4 reactor at Chernobyl to blow, there was no public echo. No cellphones or social networks relayed the news, as they would today.

It took the official news agency TASS three days to acknowledge, in terse sentences, that there had been an accident.

In the end, the impact of Chernobyl proved too great even for the Soviet state apparatus. Mikhail S. Gorbachev, then the leader, was trying to open up his country and eventually used the enormity of the accident to get the Soviet media to tell a bit more of the dreadful truth.

For six weeks now, the unfolding calamity at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan, stricken in a record earthquake and tsunami, has stirred memories of Chernobyl. In particular, the stream of changing information, soaring or plunging radiation levels and doubts about the openness of the Japanese operator and government recall the questions posed in 1986 by that unseen plume of radiation that eventually traveled westward around the world.

Images of the ghost town of Pripyat, once home to 50,000 people, reinforce the lesson learned anew in Japan: Humans can fashion both wonder and horror with technology.

Japan is wealthier and more cohesive than the Soviet Union was then, or Ukraine is now. But, as Japanese scarred by the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki know, money and comfort do not dispel the lingering effects of nuclear disaster.

Only after the radiation spewing from Chernobyl set off alarms at the Forsmark nuclear plant in Sweden, 1,200 kilometers, or about 750 miles, to the northwest, did Soviet officials even acknowledge an accident. Today, the Ukrainian authorities are vocal in pleading, at an international meeting in Kiev last week, for hundreds of millions of dollars for the next stage of the unceasing containment of Chernobyl: a new sarcophagus to reinforce the now cracked one built by tens of thousands of workers in 1986.

Outside, twisted dolls on broken kindergarten cots remind us there was life here — once.

In Japan’s Nuclear Nexus, Safety Is Left Out

New York Times: In Japan’s Nuclear Nexus, Safety Is Left Out
TOKYO — Given the fierce insularity of Japan’s nuclear industry, it was perhaps fitting that an outsider exposed the most serious safety cover-up in the history of Japanese nuclear power. It took place at Fukushima Daiichi, the plant that Japan has been struggling to get under control since last month’s earthquake and tsunami.

In 2000, Kei Sugaoka, a Japanese-American nuclear inspector who had done work for General Electric at Daiichi, told Japan’s main nuclear regulator about a cracked steam dryer that he believed was being concealed. If exposed, the revelations could have forced the operator, Tokyo Electric Power, to do what utilities least want to: undertake costly repairs.

What happened next was an example, critics have since said, of the collusive ties that bind the nation’s nuclear power companies, regulators and politicians.

Despite a new law shielding whistle-blowers, the regulator, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, divulged Mr. Sugaoka’s identity to Tokyo Electric, effectively blackballing him from the industry. Instead of immediately deploying its own investigators to Daiichi, the agency instructed the company to inspect its own reactors. Regulators allowed the company to keep operating its reactors for the next two years even though, an investigation ultimately revealed, its executives had actually hidden other, far more serious problems, including cracks in the shrouds that cover reactor cores.

Investigators may take months or years to decide to what extent safety problems or weak regulation contributed to the disaster at Daiichi, the worst of its kind since Chernobyl. But as troubles at the plant and fears over radiation continue to rattle the nation, the Japanese are increasingly raising the possibility that a culture of complicity made the plant especially vulnerable to the natural disaster that struck the country on March 11.

Already, many Japanese and Western experts argue that inconsistent, nonexistent or unenforced regulations played a role in the accident — especially the low seawalls that failed to protect the plant against the tsunami and the decision to place backup diesel generators that power the reactors’ cooling system at ground level, which made them highly susceptible to flooding.

A 10-year extension for the oldest of Daiichi’s reactors suggests that the regulatory system was allowed to remain lax by politicians, bureaucrats and industry executives single-mindedly focused on expanding nuclear power. Regulators approved the extension beyond the reactor’s 40-year statutory limit just weeks before the tsunami despite warnings about its safety and subsequent admissions by Tokyo Electric, often called Tepco, that it had failed to carry out proper inspections of critical equipment.

The mild punishment meted out for past safety infractions has reinforced the belief that nuclear power’s main players are more interested in protecting their interests than increasing safety. In 2002, after Tepco’s cover-ups finally became public, its chairman and president resigned, only to be given advisory posts at the company. Other executives were demoted, but later took jobs at companies that do business with Tepco. Still others received tiny pay cuts for their role in the cover-up. And following a temporary shutdown and repairs at Daiichi, Tepco resumed operating the plant.

In a telephone interview from his home in the San Francisco Bay Area, Mr. Sugaoka said, “I support nuclear power, but I want to see complete transparency.”

Revolving Door
In Japan, the web of connections between the nuclear industry and government officials is now popularly referred to as the “nuclear power village.” The expression connotes the nontransparent, collusive interests that underlie the establishment’s push to increase nuclear power despite the discovery of active fault lines under plants, new projections about the size of tsunamis and a long history of cover-ups of safety problems.

Just as in any Japanese village, the likeminded — nuclear industry officials, bureaucrats, politicians and scientists — have prospered by rewarding one another with construction projects, lucrative positions, and political, financial and regulatory support. The few openly skeptical of nuclear power’s safety become village outcasts, losing out on promotions and backing.

Until recently, it had been considered political suicide to even discuss the need to reform an industry that appeared less concerned with safety than maximizing profits, said Kusuo Oshima, one of the few governing Democratic Party lawmakers who have long been critical of the nuclear industry.

“Everyone considered that a taboo, so nobody wanted to touch it,” said Mr. Oshima, adding that he could speak freely because he was backed not by a nuclear-affiliated group, but by Rissho Kosei-Kai, one of Japan’s largest lay Buddhist movements.

“It’s all about money,” he added.

At Fukushima Daiichi and elsewhere, critics say that safety problems have stemmed from a common source: a watchdog that is a member of the nuclear power village.

Though it is charged with oversight, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency is part of the Ministry of Trade, Economy and Industry, the bureaucracy charged with promoting the use of nuclear power. Over a long career, officials are often transferred repeatedly between oversight and promotion divisions, blurring the lines between supporting and policing the industry.

Influential bureaucrats tend to side with the nuclear industry — and the promotion of it — because of a practice known as “amakudari,” or descent from heaven. Widely practiced in Japan’s main industries, amakudari allows senior bureaucrats, usually in their 50s, to land cushy jobs at the companies they once oversaw.

According to data compiled by the Communist Party, one of the fiercest critics of the nuclear industry, generations of high-ranking officials from the ministry have landed senior positions at the country’s 10 utilities since Japan’s first nuclear plants were designed in the 1960s. In a pattern reflective of the clear hierarchy in Japan’s ministries and utilities, the ministry’s most senior officials went to work at Tepco, while those of lower ranks ended up at smaller utilities.

At Tepco, from 1959 to 2010, four former top-ranking ministry officials successively served as vice presidents at the company. When one retired from Tepco, his junior from the ministry took over what is known as the ministry’s “reserved seat” of vice president at the company.

In the most recent case, a director-general of the ministry’s Natural Resources and Energy Agency, Toru Ishida, left the ministry last year and joined Tepco early this year as an adviser. Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s government initially defended the appointment but reversed itself after the Communist Party publicized the extent of amakudari appointments since the 1960s. Mr. Ishida, who would have normally become vice president later this year, was forced to step down last week.

Kazuhiro Hasegawa, a spokesman for Tepco, denied that it was an amakudari appointment, adding that the company simply hired the best people. The company declined to make an executive available for an interview about the company’s links with bureaucrats and politicians.

Lower-ranking officials also end up at similar, though less lucrative, jobs at the countless companies affiliated with the power companies, as well as advisory bodies with close links to the ministry and utilities.

“Because of this collusion, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency ends up becoming a member of the community seeking profits from nuclear power,” said Hidekatsu Yoshii, a Communist Party lawmaker and nuclear engineer who has long followed the nuclear industry.

Collusion flows the other way, too, in a lesser-known practice known as “amaagari,” or ascent to heaven. Because the regulatory panels meant to backstop the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency lack full-time technical experts, they depend largely on retired or active engineers from nuclear-industry related companies. They are unlikely to criticize the companies that employ them.

Even academics who challenge the industry may find themselves shunned. As Japan has begun looking into the problems surrounding collusion since March 11, the Japanese news media has highlighted the discrimination faced by academics who raised questions about the safety of nuclear power.

In Japan, research into nuclear power is financed by the government or nuclear power-related companies. Unable to conduct research, skeptics, especially a group of six at Kyoto University, languished for decades as assistant professors.

One, Hiroaki Koide, a nuclear reactor expert who has held a position equivalent to assistant professor for 37 years at Kyoto University, said he applied unsuccessfully for research funds when he was younger.

“They’re not handed out to outsiders like me,” he said.

In the United States, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the main regulatory agency for the nuclear power industry, can choose from a pool of engineers unaffiliated with a utility or manufacturer, including those who learned their trade in the Navy or at research institutes like Brookhaven or Oak Ridge.

As a result, the N.R.C. does not rely on the industry itself to develop proposals and rules. In Japan, however, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency lacks the technical firepower to draw up comprehensive regulations and tends to turn to industry experts to provide that expertise.

The agency “has the legal authority to regulate the utilities, but significantly lacks the technical capability to independently evaluate what they propose” said Satoshi Sato, who has nearly 30 years’ experience working in the nuclear industry in the United States and Japan. “Naturally, the regulators tend to avoid any risk by proposing their own ideas.”

Inspections are not rigorous, Mr. Sato said, because agency inspectors are not trained thoroughly, and safety standards are watered down to meet levels that the utilities can financially bear, he and others said.

Dominion in Parliament

The political establishment, one of the great beneficiaries of the nuclear power industry, has shown little interest in bolstering safety. In fact, critics say, lax oversight serves their interests. Costly renovations get in the way of building new plants, which create construction projects, jobs and generous subsidies to host communities.

The Liberal Democrats, which governed Japan nearly without interruption from 1955 to 2009, have close ties to the management of nuclear industry-related companies. The Democratic Party, which has governed since, is backed by labor unions, which, in Japan, tend to be close to management.

“Both parties are captive to the power companies, and they follow what the power companies want to do,” said Taro Kono, a Liberal Democratic lawmaker with a reputation as a reformer.

Under Japan’s electoral system, in which a significant percentage of legislators is chosen indirectly, parties reward institutional backers with seats in Parliament. In 1998, the Liberal Democrats selected Tokio Kano, a former vice president at Tepco, for one of these seats.

Backed by Keidanren — Japan’s biggest business lobby of which Tepco is one of the biggest members — Mr. Kano served two six-year terms in the upper house of Parliament until 2010. In a move that has raised eyebrows even in a world of cross-fertilizing interests, he has returned to Tepco as an adviser.

While in office, Mr. Kano led a campaign to reshape the country’s energy policy by putting nuclear power at its center. He held leadership positions on energy committees that recommended policies long sought by the nuclear industry, like the use of a fuel called mixed oxide, or mox, in fast-breeder reactors. He also opposed the deregulation of the power industry.

In 1999, Mr. Kano even complained in Parliament that nuclear power was portrayed unfairly in government-endorsed school textbooks. “Everything written about solar energy is positive, but only negative things are written about nuclear power,” he said, according to parliamentary records.

Most important, in 2003, on the strength of Mr. Kano’s leadership, Japan adopted a national basic energy plan calling for the growth of nuclear energy as a way to achieve greater energy independence and to reduce Japan’s emission of greenhouses gases. The plan and subsequent versions mentioned only in broad terms the importance of safety at the nation’s nuclear plants despite the 2002 disclosure of cover-ups at Fukushima Daiichi and a 1999 accident at a plant northeast of Tokyo in which high levels of radiation were spewed into the air.

Mr. Kano’s legislative activities drew criticism even from some members of his own party.

“He rewrote everything in favor of the power companies,” Mr. Kono said.

In an interview at a Tepco office here, accompanied by a company spokesman, Mr. Kano said he had served in Parliament out of “conviction.”

“It’s disgusting to be thought of as a politician who was a company errand boy just because I was supported by a power company and the business community,” Mr. Kano said.

So entrenched is the nuclear power village that it easily survived postwar Japan’s biggest political shake-up. When the Democratic Party came to power 20 months ago, it pledged to reform the nuclear industry and strengthen the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.

Hearings on reforming the agency were held starting in 2009 at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, said Yosuke Kondo, a lawmaker of the governing Democratic Party who was the ministry’s deputy minister at the time. But they fizzled out, he said, after a new minister was appointed in September 2010.

The new minister, Akihiro Ohata, was a former engineer at Hitachi’s nuclear division and one of the most influential advocates of nuclear power in the Democratic Party. He had successfully lobbied his party to change its official designation of nuclear power from a “transitional” to “main” source of energy. An aide to Mr. Ohata, who became Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism in January, said he was unavailable for an interview.

As moves to strengthen oversight were put on the backburner, the new government dusted off the energy plan designed by Mr. Kano, the Tepco adviser and former lawmaker. It added fresh details, including plans to build 14 new reactors by 2030 and raise the share of electricity generated by nuclear power and minor sources of clean energy to 70 percent from 34 percent.

What is more, Japan would make the sale of nuclear reactors and technology the central component of a long-term export strategy to energy-hungry, developing nations. A new company, the International Nuclear Energy Development of Japan, was created to do just that. Its shareholders were comprised of the country’s nine main nuclear plant operators, three manufacturers of nuclear reactors and the government itself.

The nuclear power village was going global with the new company. The government took a 10 percent stake. Tepco took the biggest, with 20 percent, and one of its top executives was named the company’s first president.

Anti-nuclear protesters demonstrate in Austria on eve of Chernobyl disaster anniversary

Xinhua News: Anti-nuclear protesters demonstrate in Austria on eve of Chernobyl disaster anniversary
VIENNA, April 25 (Xinhua) -- Two anti-nuclear protests took place in two cities of Austria on Monday, on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and after Japan's nuclear accident at Fukushima.

More than 700 protesters gathered in the downtown of Vienna for a peaceful protest against the use of nuclear energy in the country, holding posters and shouting slogans such as "Shut down now" and "Stop nuclear power".

A number of Austrian politicians, including Austrian chancellor and chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Austria Werner Faymann, chairman of the Austrian Green Party Eva Glawischnig and officials of the Austrian People's Party participated in the demonstration.

On the rally site, Faymann criticized that the opinion of nuclear power as a controllable technology was "cynical" and pointed that the nuclear lobby would just wait until the issue of nuclear disasters disappears.

Glawischnig said the demonstration was a joint and international movement reflecting the general will. She also expressed the hope that the nuclear accident in Fukushima could become a turning point of the European energy policy. "The nuclear industry must be stopped," she said.

Klaus Kastenhofer, director of the Austrian environmental protection organization Global 2000, recalled Austria's indirect participation in the nuclear power industry, saying that the Fukushima accident is a wake-up call for Austria despite a country without nuclear power plants.

Another anti-nuclear rally took place in Salzburg, the fourth largest city of Austria, on the same day, Austrian Broadcasting ( ORF) reported.

The Global 2000 organized the two anti-nuclear protests in Vienna and Salzburg, aiming to use the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster as an opportunity to call on all mankind to fight against nuclear power.

It has estimated that some 2,000 and 5,000 people would participate at the demonstrations. But the actual attendance was much smaller than expected.

Japan’s Cherry Blossoms Bloom, but Nuclear Fears Keep Tourists Away

The New York Times: Asia Pacific: Japan’s Cherry Blossoms Bloom, but Nuclear Fears Keep Tourists Away
MIHARU, Japan — This weeping cherry tree has stood here for a thousand years, local farmers say, blossoming every year despite blizzards, earthquakes and, now, a nuclear disaster.

The town, however, may not be as resilient. The hundreds of thousands of people who come here each cherry blossom season to view the prized tree, one of the three oldest in the country and a designated national monument, are largely staying away this year, scared off by the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, just 30 miles away.

“This tree has lived through many disasters,” said Masayoshi Hashimoto, 85, a local vegetable farmer whose produce has also been rendered largely unsalable by the radioactive plume. “It may survive the nuclear accident,” he said, “but the town may not.”

Sakura, or cherry blossom season, reaches its peak this week along the Tohoku coast, a region still reeling from the March 11 quake, tsunami and accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. Tohoku’s famous sakura trees usually draw hundreds of thousands of visitors, many from greater Tokyo, bringing precious tourist income to villages and towns that have little industry to speak of.

Even though many cherry trees in the disaster zone have survived, it will very likely take years to rebuild the tourism industry, officials warn. The troubles are many: severe damage to the tourism infrastructure, fears of heightened radiation levels in areas around Fukushima and an overall plunge in travelers in a country still shell-shocked by its worst disaster since World War II. JTB Corporation, Japan’s largest travel agency, said last week that it expected travel to fall 28 percent during a holiday period known as Golden Week, which starts this month.

Damage to tourism in the area adds to the woes of a local economy that has suffered severe blows: many fishing and farming communities were decimated in the tsunami, and many of the factories in the region are struggling to rebuild or restart production lines.

In Miharu, the weeping sakura has been an important source of income for an aging farming community. About 300,000 people descended on the town to view the 40-foot tree last year, spending generously at local inns and eateries, as well as on produce.

This year, the town expected the number of visitors to fall by about 80 percent. Though the town is not affected by the evacuation zone, which is now a 12-to-18-mile radius around the Fukushima plant, visitors “are playing it safe and staying away,” said Susumu Yamaguchi, a tourism official at Miharu’s town hall. “It’s a big blow for us,” he said.

In a bid to attract visitors, the town abolished its usual $3.60 viewing fee and went on a media offensive. “There won’t be any crowds this year, no traffic jam,” Miharu’s mayor, Yoshinori Suzuki, told a local paper last week.

Helped by sunny weather on Sunday, the tree attracted a larger-than-expected throng of visitors, though still far fewer than usual, according to officials.

Asuka Kimura, 29, a homemaker and mother of four from nearby Iwaki City, said that the thrill of an outing to see the cherry tree at Miharu had outweighed concerns over radiation. “I’ve had the kids play indoors for so long,” she said. “Today we’re spending the day outside, just for the day.”

The town has been desperate to protect its prized tree. Visitors were scarce during World War II, elders recall, but villagers still tended to the tree, preparing for the return to more peaceful times. Five years ago, when a blizzard threatened to overwhelm the tree, local farmers lovingly brushed off the snow and erected wooden supports to keep its branches from breaking.

They again raced to the tree after the devastating March 11 quake, which damaged some homes in the area. The tree remained intact and was far enough inland to escape the tsunami, but the bad news came the next day as the plant spewed radioactive steam toward the town. Local inns, which had been booked solid with reservations ahead of the sakura season, were inundated with cancellations.

Still, as the trees bloom, sometimes amid mountains of rubble, they have become symbols of resilience.

“These cherry trees blossom each year despite any catastrophe,” said Noriyuki Kasai, the mayor of Hirosaki, a city on the edge of the disaster zone, some 400 miles north of Tokyo. Though the city and its 2,600 cherry trees escaped the brunt of the damage, far fewer visitors are expected this season. “Like the trees, we will also recover,” he said.

Tepco Fails to Get Assurance on Restarting Second Fukushima Nuclear Plant

Bloomberg: Tepco Fails to Get Assurance on Restarting Second Fukushima Nuclear Plant
Tokyo Electric Power Co., the company at the center of Japan’s nuclear disaster, failed to get an assurance from Fukushima prefecture’s governor that a second plant in the area can be restarted.

Tokyo Electric President Masataka Shimizu met Governor Yuhei Sato in the prefectural office in Fukushima city earlier today to apologize for the accident, said Katsuhiro Kiko, a spokesman at the local government. Shimizu, who was refused meetings with the governor on April 11 and March 22, outlined plans to bring the crisis under control.

Sato told reporters after the meeting that Tepco can’t restart nuclear power plants without safety guarantees, according to Kiko.

Tepco, as the company is called, is trying to contain radiation spewing from its Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant after a magnitude-9 quake on March 11 unleashed a tsunami that flooded the station, knocking out cooling systems. Its second plant in the prefecture was safely shut down in the disaster and accounts for about 7 percent of Tepco’s capacity.

The central government today started enforcing a no-entry zone within 20 kilometers (12 miles) of Dai-Ichi as a public health measure after residents returned to the area to check their homes. Dai-Ichi is located about 220 kilometers north of Tokyo. Tepco’s Fukushima Dai-Ni plant is about 11 kilometers south of the Dai-Ichi plant.

Order to Leave
The order went into effect at midnight, the Japanese government said in a statement. Residents in areas outside the zone where radiation has been detected have been given till the end of May to leave, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said today.

An earlier directive asking about 80,000 residents living within the 20-kilometer radius to evacuate wasn’t legally binding. Some have returned to the area to collect belongings and check their properties against the advice of officials. One person per household will be allowed to return to their homes for two-hour periods to retrieve possessions, Edano said yesterday.

Tepco has been pouring millions of liters of water to cool the reactors and spent fuel after the accident, which has flooded basements and trenches near the buildings that house them. Some highly contaminated water leaked into the sea and the utility has dumped less-toxic fluids into the ocean.

About 520,000 liters (137,000 gallons) of water with a level of radioactivity that was 20,000 times the legal limit leaked into the ocean between April 1 and 6, Junichi Matsumoto, a Tepco general manager, said yesterday at a briefing in the Japanese capital.

Radiation Leak
The amount of radiation discharged in the leakage was 4,700 terabecquerels of iodine-131, cesium-137 and cesium-134, according to a statement from Tepco.

Basements and trenches around the reactor buildings are also flooded with radioactive water, preventing repairs to the electrical equipment and cooling systems.

Tepco started pumping contaminated water out of trenches near one of the reactor buildings, Matsumoto said on April 19. The company aims to move 10 million liters of the contaminated water to a storage unit and expects to complete the transfer in 26 days.

About 690,000 liters was pumped out by 7 a.m. today, spokesman Tetsuya Terasawa said at a briefing in Tokyo.

Tepco will build a seawall to protect its biggest atomic power station from a tsunami like the one that knocked out the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant.

Crisis Rating
Tepco plans to construct a wall to a height of 15 meters (50 feet) above sea level off the coast of its Kashiwazaki Kariwa plant northwest of Tokyo, spokeswoman Ai Tanaka said by phone. Three of seven reactors remain shut at the station after an earthquake in 2007 caused radiation leaks.

Japan’s government last week raised the severity rating of the Fukushima crisis to the highest on an international scale, the same level as the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. The station, which has withstood hundreds of aftershocks, may release more contamination than Chernobyl before the crisis is contained, Tepco officials said.

The company won’t get approval to start the remaining reactors at Kashiwazaki until it resolves the crisis in Fukushima, a local government official said on April 6.

Tepco said on April 13 it wants permission to restart the remaining idled reactors at the Kashiwazaki plant, the world’s biggest atomic power station, to meet potential shortfalls after losing generating capacity in the disaster.

Tepco has been criticized by the government for responding too slowly to the crisis that unfolded at Fukushima after the tsunami washed ashore. The company also received criticism for the way it responded to the quake that hit near the Kashiwazaki station in 2007.

Kashiwazaki should be shut permanently, a group of scientists said one month after the 6.6-magnitude earthquake hit the area.

How a federal court battle in Vermont could recast nuclear power

Christian Science Monitor: How a federal court battle in Vermont could recast nuclear power
A utility company has challenged a state’s sovereignty over nuclear power plants within its borders, in a case whose eventual outcome could ripple across the nation.

The owner of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant – a subsidiary of New Orleans-based Entergy Corporation – sued Vermont yesterday in federal court, to prevent the state from forcing the 39-year-old power plant to cease operation next March.

Whoever prevails, the precedent could affect the relicensing process for aging reactors nationwide, legal experts agree. There are 104 nuclear reactors, now operating in 31 states across the country, that collectively provide about 20 percent of the nation’s electricity. As costs for new construction of a nuclear power plant skyrocket, Entergy is only one of a long line of utilities seeking federal permits to extend – by 20 years – the 40-year licenses held by more than three-quarters of existing reactors.

"This will likely be a landmark case, establishing a dividing line between federal government and states over nuclear issues," says Boris Mamlyuk, an assistant professor at Ohio Northern University College of Law, who has written about the case. "It also holds potential – if the ruling goes for Vermont – to help revive the nuclear safety debate in the US on a major scale."

The case, he and others note, is heightened by public concern over the Fukushima accident and the safety of 28 existing plants in the US with the same design as the Japanese plant – including the Vermont Yankee plant. Some question whether federal oversight is adequate, since the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) granted a new federal license to the plant – over Vermont's protests – even as the Fukushima crisis was unfolding.

“NRC violated the law by re-licensing the Vermont Yankee reactor at the same time it launched an investigation into whether US safety and environmental standards are strong enough, in light of the Fukushima accident," says Diane Curran, a Washington attorney representing several groups seeking an NRC review of relicensing.

Under existing law, states have definite – if strictly limited – rights regarding nuclear power plants. These included a say in the siting, economics, transmission, aesthetics and other issues. States do not have authority over safety and licensing. That resides squarely with the federal government.

The Vermont case could reinforce those states’ rights, expand them – or see them overturned entirely. Entergy argues the federal government has near-complete control over the licensing of nuclear power plants. If the case rises to the US Supreme Court, as some suspect it might, the ruling could sharply curb federal say on nuclear power plants inside state lines.

“Litigation is by far the least-preferred approach,” said Richard Smith, president of Entergy Wholesale Commodities, in a statement. “But it is clear our disagreement with the state of Vermont on the scope of its authority over Vermont Yankee cannot be resolved between the two parties."

There are unique issues, too. Unlike other states, Vermont negotiated a 2002 agreement with Entergy, which it amended in 2006, giving the state authority to grant – or not – a state permit, if the company sought to relicense the plant. Last year, the state senate voted 26 to 4 to refuse a new state permit, citing radioactive leaks that went unreported and the collapse of a Vermont Yankee cooling tower in 2007, among other concerns.

Despite these unique elements, Mr. Mamlyuk, Ms. Curran, and other experts say the decision appears to fall under precedent set by a 1983 Supreme Court case in which California succeeded in blocking Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) from building new nuclear plants, due to lack of nuclear-waste storage. The case also established "federal preemption" – and the supremacy of federal oversight of nuclear licensing and safety matters.

"If this case were to change the 1983 court decision, then every state would lose the power they've had since joining the union," says Michael Dworkin, former chairman of the Vermont Public Service Board. "We're talking about a state's power over land use and all powers not expressly taken away by Congress. That's what's at stake if the company convinces the Supreme Court to take away those powers currently granted."

Peter Bradford is less sure the case outcome could broaden state power, but agrees it could provoke Congress to set new terms for the collision between nuclear-power jurisdiction and states’ rights.

"This is probably the first major litigation involving [federal] preemption in years," says Mr. Bradford, a former NRC member and former chair of the Maine and New York utility commissions. "It will present some big questions for Congress to solve, no matter the outcome of this case."

STP plant expansion loses NRG as investor

www.CHron.com (San Antonio Express News): STP plant expansion loses NRG as investor

NRG Energy will no longer invest in the South Texas Project nuclear expansion near Bay City and will write down its investment in the face of deeply diminished prospects for the project since Japan's worst-ever nuclear accident.

"The project is not dead," CEO David Crane said Tuesday, "but it's not moving forward at this point, and to be frank, under the current circumstances, the reality of it moving forward in the foreseeable future is not high."

The company plans to record a first-quarter pretax charge of roughly $481 million from Nuclear Innovation North America, its joint venture with Toshiba Corp., NRG said.

NINA will continue to seek an operating license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Crane said, as well as federal loan guarantee from the Department of Energy.

Crane said he can envision a time when the project, with a license and loan guarantee in hand, will be attractive to new investors.

Toshiba, which holds a 12 percent stake in NINA, will take over the costs to continue to pursue the NRC license. But Crane acknowledged that any roadblocks in that process could cause Toshiba to drop its funding.

CPS Energy, which retains a 7.6 percent stake in the expansion, said it will continue to support efforts to secure the federal loan guarantee and operating license. It stopped its investment, which totaled about $386 million, more than a year ago.

The municipal-owned utility would receive $80 million from NRG if the project receives the loan guarantee.

Spokeswoman Lisa Lewis said it's too soon to tell whether CPS will ultimately lose its investment. She noted that there were times during the development of STP's original two reactors when the project looked dead, only to be revived by new partners and new circumstances.

CPS is a 40 percent owner in STP 1 and 2; Austin Energy owns 16 percent and NRG has 44 percent.

Foes still fighting license
Anti-nuclear activists cheered Tuesday's announcement, but expressed dismay that NRG didn't pull the plug entirely.

Karen Hadden of the SEED Coalition, an Austin-based environmental group, said her organization and others would continue to fight the project's licensing efforts.

NRG recognized last month that it likely lost a major investor in the expansion after Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima Daiichi plant was crippled by a tsunami spawned by an earthquake. NRG indefinitely suspended all detailed engineering work and other pre-construction activities.

That reduced the workforce on the project from 1,000 to about 350.

Crane said many of those were engineers working for other partners, and so he did not know how many would be retained after Tuesday's announcement.

NINA will keep three employees on the project, he said.

The South Texas Project Nuclear Operating Co. had about 120 workers assigned to the expansion at its peak; the number is now 24.

Tokyo Electric Power's president confirmed Monday, according to a story on Nikkei.com, that the company will reconsider its overseas business strategy as it focuses on bringing the damaged reactors under control.

Robots Find High Radiation as Tepco Lays Out Plan to End Crisis

Bloomberg BusinessWeek: Robots Find High Radiation as Tepco Lays Out Plan to End Crisis
April 19 (Bloomberg) -- Robots sent into two buildings at Japan’s crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear station detected radiation still too toxic for humans as the plant operator set out a plan to end the crisis in six to nine months.

Measurements show one hour inside the No. 3 reactor building would expose humans to more than one-fifth of the radiation Japan has said is the most workers can endure in a year, the atomic safety agency said yesterday. People haven’t been in the buildings since a 15-meter (49-foot) surge following a magnitude-9 quake on March 11 knocked out cooling equipment, sparking the worst disaster since Chernobyl in 1986.

A sustained drop in radiation at the tsunami-damaged plant could be achieved within three months, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said in a statement laying out its plans. Following that, a cold shutdown, where core reactor temperatures fall below 100 degrees Celsius (212 degrees Fahrenheit), may be achieved within six months, it said.

The six-to-nine month timeframe “seems mindbogglingly long given the urgency,” said Michael Friedlander, a nuclear engineer who is chief risk officer at APG Asset Management in Hong Kong. The utility should aim to have the crisis in hand in two to three months, he said. “They’re managing expectations and don’t want to make a commitment they can’t deliver on.”

In the next three months, Tepco, as the utility is known, plans to fill the reactor containment vessels at the No. 1 and No. 3 units with water, the company said in its April 17 statement. The utility will seal the vessel of the No. 2 reactor, which is likely damaged, before flooding it.

Leaking Into Sea

“If we flood the damaged vessel, the leak of contaminated water will increase,” Tepco Vice President Sakae Muto told reporters in Tokyo April 17. “We will continue injecting water with care and monitor the volume of water leaked.”

The water pumped so far has overflowed into basements and trenches, with some of it leaking into the ocean.

“It is vitally important that Tepco succeeds in shifting the cooling process to a closed loop system,” said Philip White, international liaison officer at the Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center in Tokyo. “In the current situation, where water poured in one end leaks out the other, there is the constant danger that highly radioactive water will run off into the sea.”

Seventy percent of people in Japan disapprove of the way Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s government has handled the nuclear crisis, the Nikkei newspaper said yesterday, citing a telephone survey it carried out with TV Tokyo Corp. Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the plan outlined by Tepco to end the nuclear crisis is “an important step.”

Robots, Radiation

Two iRobot Corp. robots sent April 17 to check whether humans could reenter the site found radiation levels as high as 49 millisieverts per hour in the No. 1 reactor building, and up to 57 millisieverts in the No. 3 building, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said.

The cumulative maximum level for nuclear workers was raised to 250 millisieverts from 100 millisieverts by Japan’s health ministry on March 15. Exposure totaling 100 millisieverts over a year is the lowest level at which any increase in cancer is evident, according to the World Nuclear Association in London.

Tepco shares fell 0.4 percent to 467 yen in Tokyo yesterday. The stock is down almost 80 percent since the quake and tsunami, which left about 28,000 people dead or missing.

Tepco plans to inject nitrogen into the containment vessels of the No. 2 and No. 3 reactors by the end of April, Muto said. The utility injected the inert gas into the No. 1 unit this month to prevent hydrogen explosions.

‘Makes No Sense’

“Injecting nitrogen doesn’t hurt, but it makes no sense -- it just makes it look like you’re doing something,” said Friedlander, who spent 13 years working in nuclear plant management in the U.S. “It’s a question of resources and the people; those people could be better utilized.”

Three to six months after the initial phase of its plan, Tepco will attempt a cold shutdown of reactors No. 1, 2 and 3, the company said. Reactors 4, 5 and 6 were shut at the time of the disaster. The utility will also cover the No. 1, 3 and 4 reactor buildings as a temporary measure to reduce radiation emissions after the structures were damaged by hydrogen blasts last month, according to the statement.

Japan’s government plans to tell families evacuated from the area within ninth months whether they can return home, Trade Minister Banri Kaieda said in a briefing in Tokyo.

The government this month widened a 20-kilometer evacuation zone to include the towns of Iitate, Katsurao and Namie. Radiation no longer poses “significant” health risks beyond an 80-kilometer radius, the U.S. State Department said.

Entergy Corp. sues to keep Vermont Yankee open

www.chron.com: Entergy Corp. sues to keep Vermont Yankee open
MONTPELIER, Vt. — The owners of Vermont's troubled nuclear plant sued state officials Monday to stop them from closing the plant down next year, setting up a court fight about who has jurisdiction — the state or federal nuclear regulators.

Entergy Corp. has a new federal license in hand for the Vermont Yankee power plant, but state officials are vowing to shut it down next year. The company's federal lawsuit says Vermont's law giving it the power to block relicensing violates the Atomic Energy Act and the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Vermont contends it has the power to say no to a new operating permit for the 38-year-old plant, which sits on the banks of the Connecticut River in Vernon. Its current permit expires in March 2012. Last year, the state Senate voted 26-4 against allowing continued operation. Gov. Peter Shumlin is a staunch critic and wants it shut down.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted the plant a new 20-year license last month, saying it could keep operating until 2032.

New Orleans-based Entergy, which has battled with state officials since the discovery of radioactive tritium last year, now says the state doesn't have the authority to prevent continued operation.

The civil suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Burlington by subsidiaries Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee and Entergy Nuclear Operations, names Gov. Peter Shumlin, state Attorney General William Sorrell and the members of the state Public Service Board as defendants.

"The question presented by this case is whether the state of Vermont ... may effectively veto the federal government's authorization to operate the Vermont Yankee Station through March 21, 2032," the lawsuit says. "The answer is no."

Shumlin didn't immediately respond to requests for comment Monday. He scheduled an afternoon news conference.

In a conference call, Entergy Corp. executive Richard Smith said the company didn't want to resort to litigation but felt it had to.

"We believe we have made every reasonable effort to accommodate the state of Vermont and its officials while allowing for the continued operation Vermont Yankee, an outcome that benefits all stakeholders, including Vermont consumers and the approximately 650 men and women who work at the plant," he said.

Vermont officials say state law gives the Legislature the say-so on Yankee's bid for a 20-year license extension.

"They're disobeying the law and they're asking the court to sanction their illegal activity," said Sandra Levine, senior staff attorney for the Conservation Law Foundation, a New England environmental advocacy group.

Germany reaffirms nuclear retreat

IrishTimes.com: Germany reaffirms nuclear retreat

A MONTH after her spectacular U-turn on nuclear energy, Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday gave her officials six weeks to formulate a new national power plan for renewable and gas energy.

After regional election losses thanks to public anxiety over Fukushima, the chancellor admitted yesterday the days of nuclear power in Germany were numbered.

“We all want out of nuclear energy as soon as possible and make the switch to supplying renewable energy,” said Dr Merkel, adding there “is political will to speed things up”.

Six months ago, the German leader mothballed an existing plan to wind down nuclear power plants by 2022. Dr Merkel said it was necessary to extend the life of nuclear plants for another decade beyond that date at least to serve as a “bridging technology” until the renewables sector matured.

Everything changed after Fukushima, when the German leader moved quickly to close seven ageing nuclear plants to permit security tests. They are unlikely to return to the national grid.

Ms Merkel summoned governors of all federal states that have nuclear plants to Berlin yesterday and agreed to seal a deal by June.

Most details of the plan have yet to be drawn up, but a draft has plans for a €5 billion programme to boost renewable energy production. It is likely to include new legislation to speed up planning for renewable energy facilities.

Germany already generates some 17 per cent of its electricity from renewables, a total it wants to increase to 40 per cent by 2020.

Shares in Germany’s big four energy companies fell yesterday in otherwise buoyant trading as investors reacted to the uncertainty. They have launched a legal challenge to the shutdown of the seven plants and have stopped paying into a renewable energy research fund established last October.

Nuclear Power's Little Problems

The Atlantic: Nuclear Power's Little Problems
The Tennessee Valley Authority announced today that they were considering upgrading some of their facilities in wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Three of the TVA's six nuclear reactors have the same design as the Japanese plants. The big changes appear to be reducing the amount of spent fuel kept in pools and adding backup generation.

But it's the little changes that the TVA is considering that are most interesting because of the problem set that they imply. The Times lays them out: "...improving electrical switchyards to make them more resistant to earthquakes, adding small generators to recharge cellphone batteries and keep the lights on, and reinforcing the pipes that provide cooling water to spent fuel pools."

Think about the problems they're trying to solve with these changes. Any part of the grid could get knocked and cause trouble. That's an appropriately high-tech problem. But look at the others: cellphone charging, lights and leaky pipes. In some other setting, problems with these things would be mildly important. At a nuclear power plant, they could make responding to a disaster difficult or help cause one. And it's these small safety problems that make current-gen nuclear power difficult. Every single little thing has to work just right.

Nuclear Inspectors’ May be Limited on U.S. Review, Markey Says

Bloomberg: Nuclear Inspectors’ May be Limited on U.S. Review, Markey Says
U.S. nuclear inspectors examining domestic power plants amid a reactor crisis in Japan may keep some findings secret, which might undermine confidence in the agency’s work, Representative Edward Markey said.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is reviewing how the reactors would cope if struck by a natural disaster. The 90-day review was triggered when Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant in Japan was crippled by fires, explosions and radiation leaks after a magnitude-9 earthquake and tsunami on March 11.

NRC inspectors are examining U.S. reactors’ ability to withstand disasters that “have already been contemplated” as well as those that are worse than expected, Markey said today in a letter to agency Chairman Gregory Jaczko.

The inspectors have been told to limit their public findings to assessing safety measures for anticipated events, Markey said, without identifying the source for the information. The potential impact of disasters that exceed a reactor’s design “would be entered into a private NRC database and kept secret,” Markey said.

“These limitations, if true, severely undermine my confidence” in the NRC’s safety review, Markey said.

The agency “always documents any inspection findings of importance, although reports dealing with security-related information are not made public,” Scott Burnell, an NRC spokesman, said in an e-mail. The agency’s review will include open meetings “and its results will be publicly available,” he said.

U.S. Should Halt Approvals for Nuclear Reactors, Groups Say

Bloomberg: U.S. Should Halt Approvals for Nuclear Reactors, Groups Say

The U.S. should suspend licensing decisions for new and existing nuclear plants while it investigates Japan’s reactor crisis, environmental groups said.

The groups seek a “credible Three Mile Island-style review” of Japan’s failed reactors and implications for U.S. safety, lawyer Diane Curran said today on a conference call.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission should “immediately suspend all licensing activities,” Curran said, speaking for 45 groups and individuals including the Knoxville, Tennessee-based Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research of Takoma Park, Maryland, and San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace.

The NRC is conducting a two-step safety review of U.S. nuclear plants after a magnitude-9 earthquake and tsunami on March 11 crippled Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant in Japan with fires, explosions and radiation leaks.

A 90-day review that started last month will identify near- term changes that might be needed at U.S. reactors, NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko said April 12. It would be followed by a six- month examination based on additional information on the Japanese reactor crisis, Jaczko said.

The NRC can order U.S. plants to add safeguards during the review, he said. New-reactor applications and proposals to extend licenses can be reviewed because the agency’s processes “are robust enough to deal with the new issues” that may arise after the Japanese nuclear disaster, he said.

After a 1979 accident resulting in a partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant near Middletown, Pennsylvania, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter appointed an independent commission to conduct a six-month investigation.

On March 25, the New York-based Natural Resources Defense Council urged President Barack Obama to appoint a similar panel to investigate Japan’s nuclear crisis and implications for U.S. reactor safety. The NRC should suspend work on license renewals for reactors in earthquake-prone areas until the investigation is finished, the NRDC wrote to Obama.

New York’s Nuclear Future That Might Have Been

The New York Times: City Room: New York’s Nuclear Future That Might Have Been
The year was 1962, and nuclear power was in the ascendant.

A handful of atomic plants had opened across the country, with more in the pipeline. Across the ocean, a depressed coal town in the Japanese prefecture of Fukushima had welcomed overtures from Tokyo Electric to build a nuclear generating station, and the utility was surveying the site.

Thirty miles north of New York City, the Consolidated Edison Company’s Indian Point plant, the nation’s biggest, had just achieved a sustained chain reaction and was about to go online.

But Con Ed had more ambitious plans. On Dec. 10, it applied to the Atomic Energy Commission to build the world’s largest nuclear plant, with a capacity of a thousand megawatts, more power than all the other atomic plants in the United States put together.

The plant, Con Ed said, would rise on the East River waterfront in Long Island City, Queens, less than two miles from Times Square.

The idea of siting a mammoth nuclear generator in the heart of New York City seems preposterous now, and increasingly so.


Neal Boenzi/The New York Times

In 1963, demonstrators marched in City Hall Plaza to protest the proposed nuclear power plant in Queens. Click to enlarge.At the time, while controversial, it was not unthinkable.

Around the world, governments were contemplating nuclear plants in or near big cities, weighing the remote risk of catastrophe against the higher long-run cost and air pollution associated with conventional plants: the unknown devil against the known.

And the world watched as the yearlong struggle, now all but forgotten, over Con Ed’s proposed Ravenswood nuclear plant played out.

On a snowy night in February 1963, more than 250 people crowded into a church auditorium a few blocks from the plant site in the middle-and-working-class neighborhood of Ravenswood for the first community meeting on the project. The Queens borough president, Mario J. Cariello, set the tone, thundering, to cheers and applause, “I was opposed to this project, I am opposed, and I will continue in that stand until convinced otherwise.”

If Con Ed was cowed, it did not let on. In April, the utility’s chairman, Harland C. Forbes, told a Congressional committee that “one or two people have raised some question about the genetic effects of radiation and so forth.” Such concerns were “rather silly,” Mr. Forbes said.

“It seems to me,” he said, “that the public in general has reached the point where it has accepted nuclear plants as a matter of course.”

But a former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, David E. Lilienthal, told the same committee, “I would not dream of living in the borough of Queens if there were a large atomic power plant in that region, because there is an alternative — a conventional thermal power plant as to which there are no risks.”

Con Ed officials noted that there were already two large oil-fired plants at its Ravenswood site; building another would worsen air pollution. If nuclear power were to compete with conventional power, Con Ed said, plants had to be built in the areas they served. Building a nuclear reactor the size of Ravenswood at Indian Point, the utility said, required transmission lines that would tack $75 million onto the reactor’s $175 million price, an increase of 40 percent.

In May, the Democratic leader of the City Council introduced a bill to ban commercial nuclear power in New York City. At a hearing on the bill, six women and a man picketed outside. One carried a sign that read, “Atomic power plants increase the toll of deformed, stillborn and mentally retarded children.”

In June, the City Council heard more than seven hours of testimony on the ban. A city utility commissioner called it “repressive and shortsighted.” The chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, Glenn T. Seaborg, questioned the measure’s legality. A state senator from Queens, Seymour R. Thaler, told the Council, “The mind of man has not yet invented an accident-proof piece of mechanical equipment.”

All told, 29 people testified against the ban; 30 testified in favor. Out in City Hall Plaza, the growing crowd of picketers now had a name: Canpop, the Committee Against a Nuclear Power Plant in New York City.

In Washington, the Atomic Energy Commission harbored doubts. In August, it sent Con Ed a list of safety questions about the plant. The commission’s 1962 siting guidelines were deliberately ambiguous. On one hand, they called for a one-mile unpopulated zone around a nuclear plant, and low population density within a 16-mile radius. (More than five million people lived or worked within five miles of the Ravenswood site.) But the guidelines also noted that applicants were “free — and indeed encouraged” to argue for exceptions.

Con Ed had boasted that the shielding for its pressurized water reactor, featuring a concrete igloo 167 feet high and 7 feet thick, encased in another shell of thick concrete, could withstand a complete meltdown or a jetliner crash.

The plant’s neighbors remained unimpressed. “We think one of the threats is a decline in property values, and that is a factor,” Irving Katz, a founder of Canpop and a biochemist, told The Times in an October 1963 article. “But really it comes down to this — when we look out of our windows and see those two stacks up there, we are frightened. And our women are frightened.”

On Dec. 9, Con Edison told the commission it would modify its plans to include “additional engineering safeguards.”

Instead, on Jan. 6, 1964, Con Ed withdrew its Ravenswood application. It said it had made arrangements to buy hydroelectric power from Canada instead, a move that “had absolutely nothing to do with the public opposition to the proposal.” The cost of building transmission lines was suddenly not a factor.

Con Ed was not done trying to build a nuclear plant in the city, though. In 1968, it floated a plan to build an underground reactor — “because it would provide the nth degree of safety” — beneath an abandoned hospital site at the south end of Welfare Island, now Roosevelt Island, a few hundred feet from the Ravenswood plants and that much closer to the East Side of Manhattan. It went nowhere.

In 1970, the utility proposed nuclear plants on man-made islands several miles off Coney Island and Staten Island, built of solid waste and each crowned with four thousand-megawatt reactors.

That proposal, too, was blocked by public opposition. But J. Samuel Walker, a former historian for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said that neither one ever had a chance of getting approved.

“Ravenswood was kind of a test case,” Mr. Walker said. After that, the atomic commission “agreed on kind of an informal rule. They wouldn’t allow a plant any closer to a city than Indian Point.”