TEPCO to withdraw from Vietnam nuclear plant project

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) is set to withdraw from an overseas nuclear power plant construction project to concentrate on the crisis at the tsunami-hit Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant, the Mainichi Shimbun has learned.
TEPCO decided to exit a project by International Nuclear Energy Development of Japan Co. (JINED) to construct nuclear plants in Vietnam. The decision is likely to force the government to review its policy of promoting nuclear plant exports.
JINED was set up in October 2010 on the initiative of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), with the primary aim of winning a contract to build nuclear power stations in Vietnam.
It is owned by nine electric power companies, nuclear plant manufacturers Hitachi Ltd. and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and Innovation Network Corp. of Japan, a public-private joint venture.
TEPCO, which has a 20 percent stake in JINED, is the top shareholder, and had planned to operate and service nuclear reactors in Vietnam.
However, TEPCO's newly appointed president, Naomi Hirose, said the company has no choice but to abandon the plan due to the Fukushima nuclear crisis.
"TEPCO nuclear reactor engineers must concentrate on stabilizing and decommissioning the reactors at the plant over a long period. It's impossible to place priority on exporting nuclear plants if we are sacrificing the response to the crisis," he said.
Though it will maintain its stake in JINED, TEPCO will not dispatch engineers to Vietnam or give advice to workers at the project site.
In a separate nuclear plant construction project in the United Arab Emirates in 2009, Japanese bidders were defeated by their South Korean counterparts, which offered a price about 20 percent lower.
Industry insiders say the construction of nuclear power stations in quake-prone Japan is more expensive because of stepped up safety measures. Therefore, METI proposed that contractors offer to not only build nuclear plants but also to operate and service them in a package deal to make up for their higher prices.
JINED's winning of the contract in Vietnam is widely regarded as an example of successful marketing, and the company had intended to continue exporting nuclear power stations with cooperation from TEPCO.
However, since TEPCO has decided not to participate in such projects, it is feared Japanese companies will lose their edge.
The government is desperate to maintain JINED's superiority.
"We're considering asking Kansai Electric Power Co. to replace TEPCO as leader of the project," a METI source said.
If Japan fails to compensate for TEPCO's withdrawal, the Vietnamese government could cancel its contract with JINED, citing a change in contract terms, government sources said.

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20120628p2a00m0na010000c.html

Peace teaching

Daniel Schön, in his The Reflective Practitioner, began this conversation decades ago but universities can and must do much more to respond with innovation to provide our students experiential courses which challenge them to build community, create new knowledge which they truly own, and form relationships which can facilitate their conflict resolution careers. Lederach has used the metaphor of “web building” for community peace makers. Immersed in the field alongside practitioners, students can witness the web being built. Kolb’s classic Learning Cycle is a key theoretical underpinning here as well.

http://teachforpeace.blogspot.jp/

Article on Asian endangered languages

Going, Going, Gone: Five of Asia's Most Endangered Languages July 6th, 2012 by Sherley Wetherhold http://asiasociety.org/blog/asia/going-going-gone-five-asias-most-endangered-languages 2 inShare Last month, Google launched its interactive Endangered Languages Project site. The website aims to catalog and raise awareness about the world's endangered languages. Language bears centuries of cultural heritage, as well as valuable scientific, medical, and botanical knowledge, but experts believe only half of the 7,000 languages spoken today will make it to the end of the 21st century. Of the 3,054 endangered languages documented on the site so far, nearly half are in Asia. Here's a look at some of Asia's most endangered languages and their peoples. 1. Saaroa (Taiwan) Taiwan aborigines, Bunun tribe, Formosa [ca. 1900]. (Ralph Repo/Flickr) Southern Taiwan is home to 300 ethnic Saaroa, only six of whom are native speakers. The Saaroa and neighboring Kanakabu (who have eight native speakers left) assimilated into the Bunun, a larger minority group. Many of Taiwan's indigenous languages have similarities with the Austronesian languages of Polynesia and Micronesia. 2. Ainu (Japan) Japanese tourist with two Ainu in Hokkaido, date unknown. (Sgt. Steiner/Flickr) The Ainu, often noted for how hairy they are, call Japan's northernmost prefecture of Hokkaido, famous for its ski resorts and beer, home. In 2008, 140 years after the island's annexation and 109 years after they had their nationality taken away from them, the Japanese Diet officially recognized the Ainu as an indigenous people. The Ainu language is "critically endangered," meaning the "youngest speakers are grandparents and older, and they speak the language partially and infrequently." Some sources claim there may be fewer than ten Ainu speakers today. The Ainu traditionally practiced animism and had no written language. The Hokkaido Former Aborigines Protection Act of 1899 declared the Ainu to be Japanese people — banning the Ainu from speaking their language, practicing their religion and partaking in Ainu cultural activities. Official figures suggest that there are 24,000 Ainu living in Japan today, many of mixed ancestry, many more in denial of their roots for fear of discrimination. 3. Kusunda (Nepal) The last of the Kusundas. (Aashish Jha/Flickr) Earlier this year, it was reported that there is only one fluent Kusunda speaker left in the entire world. The two elderly Kusunda pictured above may be two of the last eight broken Kusunda speakers. The Kusunda people live in central Nepal and speak a language that is unlike any other in the world. Up until recently, the Kusunda were semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers. While Kusunda is one of a handful of language isolates, some theorists suggest that they migrated from Papua New Guinea. 4. Manchu (China) "Manchu Ladies of the Palace Being Warned to Stop Smoking [ca. 1910-1925]," Beijing, China. (F. Carpenter, restoration via Ralph Repo/Flickr) The last dynasts of Imperial China, the Manchus ruled China from 1644 to 1912. Today, there are ten million ethnic Manchus dispersed throughout China and the world, fewer than two dozen of who can speak Manchu. Many Manchus adopted Han Chinese surnames to escape persecution after the Chinese Revolution of 1911 and assimilated into mainstream Chinese society. 5. Jarawa (India) Jarawa, Andaman Islands, aken on january 5, 2007. (Christian Caron/Flickr) The Jarawa people are the indigenous people of India's Andaman Islands. Of the 300 Jarawa, there are between six and 31 native speakers of the language. Earlier this week, India's Supreme Court banned all commercial and tourism activity in the area, after human rights groups criticized the government for allowing local authorities to reap financial gains from "human safaris." Along with their (sometimes cruel) curiosity, outsiders expose the Jarawa to diseases their immune systems cannot fend off. In spite of this week's ban, however, the Andaman Trunk Road, an illegal highway that runs through their jungle home, has yet to be closed. Activists fear the Jarawa will go to the way of the Bo, a neighboring people who became extinct in 2010. Languages have been fading in and out of existence for centuries, but many of the peoples featured in this post have lost their languages because of cultural and political oppression. The Endangered Languages Project strives to celebrate and preserve the multiplicity of the world's tongues and give agency to humanity's range of lesser-known perspectives.

News about the Aotearoa-Ainu Mosir exchange

ＮＺでマオリと交流　平成２５年アイヌ派遣希望者を募集　 2012.6.7 21:44 　アイヌがニュージーランドの先住民族、マオリの文化や言語を学ぶ「アオテアロア・アイヌモシリ交流プログラム」が平成２５年１月２１日から１カ月、ニュージーランドで開かれる。現在、アイヌの参加者約１０人と、賛同者の寄付を募集している。 　同プログラムでは、ラタナ生誕祭などマオリの伝統行事に出席。またニュージーランドの公用語として指定されたマオリ語の復興の仕組みなどを学ぶ。同プログラム実行委員会では「まだアイヌであることを公にしていない方もぜひ参加してもらいたい」としている。参加の応募締め切りは今月３０日。 　渡航費用など約３００万円が必要で、賛同者からの寄付（個人１口１０００円）を受け付けている。問い合わせはメール（ａａｅｐ２０１２＠ｇｍａｉｌ．ｃｏｍ）で。 http://sankei.jp.msn.com/region/news/120607/tky12060721450021-n1.htm 「マオリに学んで」アイヌ民族をＮＺに派遣 2012年06月26日 ■ＮＺでの交流事業、参加者募る 　アイヌ民族の人々をニュージーランドに派遣し、先住民族マオリの先進的な取り組みを学んでもらおうと、「アオテアロア・アイヌモシリ交流プログラム実行委員会」がアイヌ民族の参加者を募集している。 　今年１月来日し、「アイヌ民族党」結党大会に出席したニュージーランド先住民族の政党「マオリ党」の国会議員が企画。来日時に交流したアイヌ民族の人たちが中心になって、日本側の実行委を立ち上げた。 　派遣は来年１月２１日から約１カ月。滞在費はマオリ側の受け入れ組織が、渡航費は実行委が資金を集めて負担するため、本人負担は雑費など５万円。現地ではマオリの重要な行事に参加したり、マオリ語の教育現場などを見たりしながら研修を行う。 　アイヌ民族であることを積極的に公表していない人にも、参加を呼びかけたいとしている。 　募集はアイヌ民族１０人程度。参加動機や思いを書いた千字以内の作文と履歴書による１次選考の後、７月２７日に東京で、７月３０日に札幌で面接による２次選考がある。応募締め切りは６月３０日（当日消印有効、ファクス可）。書類提出先は〒２５２・０１３５神奈川県相模原市緑区大島３３３６の１　島田あけみさん気付、実行委員会事務局（電話・ファクス０４２・７６３・６６０２）。メールの問い合わせは事務局（aaep2012@gmail.com）へ。

Japanese rally in N.Y. to slam reactors

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120710b4.html Kyodo NEW YORK — About 40 people, mainly from Japan, mounted an antinuclear rally in downtown New York on Saturday in what the organizers called a joint action with huge weekly demonstrations opposing nuclear energy near the prime minister's office in Tokyo. The demonstrators, including Akihiro Yamamoto, a 35-year-old musician from Tottori, marched through the streets in the city crowded with citizens and tourists holding a banner reading "Save Beautiful Japan No Nukes." Yamamoto said he had never organized a rally or even taken part in any before. "There are people in Japan who have risen up. We want to let people in New York know Japan does not want to keep atomic power plants," he said.

Renewable future and nuclear bansihment movies

Fukushima Never again by No Nukes Action Committee  and the Labor Video Project

Vietnam’s Nuclear Dreams Blossom Despite Doubts

HANOI, Vietnam — Inside an unheated classroom at the Institute for Nuclear Science and Technology here about 20 young government technicians from Vietnam’s incipient nuclear power industry kept on their winter jackets on the first morning of a 10-day workshop on radiation.

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A Japanese nuclear expert, far left, supervised a training course for students in Hanoi, Vietnam.

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Villagers in Tai An worry about a planned nuclear plant.

The workshop, sponsored by the semigovernmental Japan Atomic Energy Agency, started with Radiation Physics 101. The students then collected radiation samples with the help of Japanese specialists and analyzed them in a lab built by Japan.

“Nuclear power is important for Vietnam’s energy security, but, like fire, it has two sides,” said one of the students, Nguyen Xuan Thuy, 27. “We have to learn how to take advantage of its good side.”

As Vietnam prepares to begin one of the world’s most ambitious nuclear power programs, it is scrambling to raise from scratch a field of experts needed to operate and regulate nuclear power plants. The government, which is beefing up nuclear engineering programs at its universities and sending increasing numbers of young technicians abroad, says Vietnam will have enough qualified experts to safely manage an industry that is scheduled to grow from one nuclear reactor in 2020 to 10 reactors by 2030.

But some Vietnamese and foreign experts said that was too little time to establish a credible regulatory body, especially in a country with widespread corruption, poor safety standards and a lack of transparency. They said the overly ambitious timetable could lead to the kind of weak regulation, as well as collusive ties between regulators and operators, that contributed to the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan last year.

Hien Pham Duy, one of Vietnam’s most senior nuclear scientists and an adviser to government agencies overseeing nuclear power, said it had been his “dream for many years” to bring nuclear power to Vietnam. But he said the government’s plans were based on a “lack of vigorous assessment of the inherent problems of nuclear power, especially those arising in less developed countries.”

Like many Vietnamese, Mr. Hien, a former director of the Dalat Nuclear Research Institute, which houses Vietnam’s nuclear research reactor, pointed to the high rates of accidents on Vietnam’s roads as the most visible example of a “bad safety culture” that pervaded “every field of activity in the country.”

Tran Dai Phuc, a Vietnamese-French nuclear engineer who worked in the French nuclear industry for four decades and is now an adviser to Vietnam’s Ministry of Science and Technology, the ministry in charge of nuclear power, said potential problems were not related to the reactors’ technology but to the lack of “democracy as well as the responsibility of personnel, a culture of quality assurance and general safety regarding installation and impact on the environment.”

The Vietnamese government fears that the country’s strong economic growth will be jeopardized without the energy provided by nuclear plants. Vietnam, which relies mostly on hydroelectricity, is expected to become a net importer of energy in 2015. “One of the reasons for the introduction of nuclear power in Vietnam is the shortage of conventional fuel supply sources, including imported,” Le Doan Phac, deputy director general of the Vietnam Atomic Energy Agency, the government’s main nuclear research and development body, said in an e-mail message.

Russia and Japan have won bids to build Vietnam’s first two plants; South Korea is expected to be selected for the third.

For Japan, the contract was the fruit of years of high-level lobbying by its government and nuclear industry, which is threatened at home by a strong public reaction against nuclear power after the crisis last year. About 500 Vietnamese have gone through workshops by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency since 2001. Toshiba, a plant manufacturer, has also offered one-month courses since 2006 to win the construction contract.

Like Russia, which has pledged Vietnam loans of $8 billion to $9 billion to finance the first plant’s construction, Japan is expected to offer a package of low-interest loans through the Japan Bank of International Cooperation. Japan is expected to use its overseas development assistance to Vietnam to build roads, ports and other infrastructure to support the nuclear plant.

With the memories of the Fukushima disaster still raw in Japan, the Japanese government’s active role in selling nuclear plants to developing nations like Vietnam has drawn sharp criticism. Critics say that the government and nuclear industry’s joint efforts are reminiscent of the kind of collusive ties that led to the Fukushima disaster. The government’s low-interest loans — taxpayers’ money — will benefit only politically connected plant manufacturers, they say.

“When it comes to selling nuclear plants, it’s not a commercially viable business, so you invariably need the injection of public funds,” said Kanna Mitsuta, a researcher for bothFriends of the Earth Japan and Mekong Watch, a Japanese private organization.

Critics said that Japan and other nuclear powers were desperate to sell plants to developing nations as dreams of a nuclear renaissance in advanced economies have dried up since the Fukushima disaster.

After the Fukushima disaster, Tokyo abandoned plans to build 14 more reactors in Japan by 2030. Japan had 54 reactors before the disaster, but growing public opposition has now idled all but two.

“I don’t understand why Japan is striving to export to less developed countries something it’s rejected at home,” Mr. Hien, the nuclear scientist, said.

Japanese supporters of exports say that developing nations like Vietnam have the right to choose nuclear power to expand their economies, just as Japan did decades ago.

“They’ll just buy from another country” if Japan decides not to sell them nuclear plants, said Tadashi Maeda, an official at the Japan Bank of International Cooperation and a special adviser to the prime minister’s cabinet.

Human error contributed to the Fukushima disaster, Mr. Maeda said. But he added that unlike Japan, which was operating aging reactors at Fukushima, Vietnam will be receiving “state-of-the art reactors whose technological and safety level was completely different.”

But Mr. Tran, the Vietnamese-French adviser, said he harbored no doubts about Japanese technology. “That isn’t why we’re worried,” he said, pointing instead to Vietnam’s capacity to manage and regulate one of the world’s most complex industries. “It’s the politics of management. When a nuclear reactor is running, the regulators must be independent and firm and vigilant.”

Vietnam will need hundreds of experts with years of experience to regulate its nuclear industry, Mr. Tran said. In the Vietnam Agency for Radiation and Nuclear Safety, the main regulatory authority, “There are currently only 30 people qualified to analyze safety reports with some assistance of experts,” he said.

In Tai An, the village in central Vietnam selected as the site for the Japanese nuclear plant, about half a dozen randomly interviewed residents said they were anxious about plans to relocate the village’s 700 households to a spot a couple of miles north. The villagers, most of whom are fishermen or grape growers, said earnings from farming had sharply increased in recent years since Tai An was connected to running water from a new reservoir nearby.

They said they feared that the new location’s proximity to a nuclear plant would jeopardize their grape farming and fishing.

“I don’t know anything about nuclear plants,” said Pham Phong, 43, a grape farmer who, in one of the most telling examples of rising incomes in Southeast Asia, upgraded from a cheap Chinese-made motorcycle to a shiny new Japanese Yamaha late last year. “But I saw Fukushima on television, and I’m worried.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/02/world/asia/vietnams-nuclear-dreams-blossom-despite-doubts.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Troubles at a 1960s-Era Nuclear Plant in California May Hint at the Future

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/05/us/san-onofre-could-hint-at-a-non-nuclear-future.html?_r=2

SAN ONOFRE STATE BEACH, Calif. — More than seven million people live within 50 miles of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, which is about halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego. But for decades, residents here largely accepted, if not exactly embraced, the hulking nuclear plant perched on the cliffs above this popular surfing beach as a necessary part of keeping the lights on in a state that uses more electricity than all of Argentina.

“I don’t think about it too much,” said David Vichules, 55, who has been surfing here since before the plant opened in 1968. “I guess it’s risk and benefit.”

All that changed, however, after the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown in Japan last year, followed in January by a small leak of radioactive steam here caused by the deterioration of steam tubes that had been damaged by vibration and friction. The twin generators at the San Onofre plant have been off-line for five months, and the plant has subsequently become a point of contention in the fight over nuclear power in the United States.

The leak has galvanized opposition to the nuclear plant among local residents, who are calling for San Onofre to remain shuttered for good.

Antinuclear activists from across the country have seized on problems at San Onofre as an opportunity to push California toward a future without nuclear power.

“A lot of people have gotten involved since Fukushima, and now especially since San Onofre has been closed,” said Gary Headrick, the founder of San Clemente Green, a local environmental organization. “It’s really not worth living with this risk. We should shut it down.”

The plant will remain shut through at least the end of the summer while the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Southern California Edison, the utility company that operates it, investigate the cause of the leak from the steam tubes.

Officials have said repeatedly that the generators will restart only if they are deemed safe.

Still, any efforts to permanently close the nuclear plant face the ever-growing appetite for electricity in Southern California. San Onofre, the largest power plant in the region, produced 2,200 megawatts, enough to power 1.4 million homes, and also helps import power to the region.

The absence of these reactors is being felt now as Southern California moves into the hot summer months. Two retired generators from a natural gas plant have been temporarily fired up, and state energy officials have encouraged the public to conserve energy during peak hours.

Without any power from San Onofre, a severe heat wave could bring rolling blackouts, but state energy officials said they expected to get through the summer without problems.

“If we have a high-heat wave, and we don’t get cooperation from the public, we could have issues,” said Stephen Berberich, president of the California Independent System Operator, a nonprofit agency that manages the flow of electricity in the state.

In 2009 and 2010, Southern California Edison spent nearly $700 million — financed by ratepayers — to install two new steam generators, which were supposed to keep San Onofre’s aging reactors running well into the future.

But in June, federal regulatory officials announced that faulty computer modeling caused the generators’ steam tubes to deteriorate much more quickly than expected, which led to the leak in January.

Lara Uselding, a spokeswoman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, called the leaks “unprecedented,” and said there was no plan for when the plant might be allowed to restart or what fixes would have to be made before then. Southern California Edison declined to make a spokesman available and responded to questions with a short written statement. “There is no timeline on safety,” it said.

Local and national antinuclear activists say they will be satisfied only when the nuclear plant is shut down for good.

Maria Mattioli, 44, is one of the area residents who have spoken to government officials in municipalities around the plant in recent months, urging them to lobby federal regulators to keep the plant closed.

“I think it’s very important that we take a very close look at San Onofre and possibly shut it down,” Ms. Mattioli said. “My heart says shut it down. I don’t want to uproot myself and move to Arizona or somewhere else.”

Damon Moglen, a spokesman for Friends of the Earth, notes that California already has a law that prevents the construction of nuclear reactors, and said the shutdown at San Onofre gives the state an opportunity to prepare for the day when both its nuclear plants are shut down.

“You cannot run San Onofre and Diablo Canyon forever,” Mr. Moglen said, referring to the state’s only other nuclear plant, in San Luis Obispo County. “California could be the first really big state to come to grips with a post-nuclear energy program.”

For the moment, though, California energy officials may have few options aside from nuclear power — which remains relatively inexpensive to produce and does not add to greenhouse gases — especially if they hope to meet aggressive goals for reducing the state’s carbon emissions by 2020.

“We are really faced with a choice, at least in the next decade,” said Per Peterson, a professor of engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. “Do we turn off nuclear plants first, or do we turn off coal plants first? You have to do one or the other.”