Power in the rising sun

The theme behind these stories is the energy situation in Japan since the Fukushima disaster last year. In the aftermath of the destruction a report was quickly compiled for the Japanese Govt. outlining the possible worst case scenarios and actions that might need to be taken.

Report on Japan nuclear crisis said millions might need to leave homes; gov’t kept it secret
Associated Press, January 25

The Japanese government’s worst-case scenario at the height of the nuclear crisis last year warned that tens of millions of people, including Tokyo residents, might need to leave their homes, according to a report obtained by The Associated Press. But fearing widespread panic, officials kept the report secret.

It also casts doubt about whether the government was sufficiently prepared to cope with what could have been an evacuation of unprecedented scale.

Mythonium

Easier to create than Unobtainium, and with a longer half life than any of the transactinides, it is a powerful and necessary element in any public relations effort.

Myth creation is common during a crisis. Some of them are deconstructed below.

The first major myth concerns Japanese technological prowess. As a nation the Japanese have a strong technological history, but they are not alone in  having a long cultural history of avoiding (or outright denying) uncomfortable “truths”.

The first article below is an extensive cut and paste from the New York Times (follow the link for the complete story). I have edited out more from the start of the original piece and highlighted some of the more boring technical or “factual” statements that normally get relegated to the bottom of the journalists pyramid.

‘Safety Myth’ Left Japan Ripe for Nuclear Crisis

Norimitsu Onishi, NYTime, 24 June

SHIKA, Japan — Near a nuclear power plant facing the Sea of Japan, a series of exhibitions in a large public relations building here extols the virtues of the energy source with some help from “Alice in Wonderland.”

“It’s terrible, just terrible,” the White Rabbit says in the first exhibit. “We’re running out of energy, Alice.”

A Dodo robot figure, swiveling to address Alice and the visitors to the building, declares that there is an “ace” form of energy called nuclear power. It is clean, safe and renewable if you reprocess uranium and plutonium, the Dodo says.

“Wow, you can even do that!” Alice says of nuclear power.

See more images at Building Japan’s Nuclear ‘Safety Myth’ also from the NY Times

Over several decades, Japan’s nuclear establishment has devoted vast resources to persuade the Japanese public of the safety and necessity of nuclear power. Plant operators built lavish, fantasy-filled public relations buildings that became tourist attractions. Bureaucrats spun elaborate advertising campaigns through a multitude of organizations established solely to advertise the safety of nuclear plants. Politicians pushed through the adoption of government-mandated school textbooks with friendly views of nuclear power.

The result was the widespread adoption of the belief — called the “safety myth” — that Japan’s nuclear power plants were absolutely safe. Japan single-mindedly pursued nuclear power even as Western nations distanced themselves from it.

As the Japanese continue to search for answers to the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, some are digging deep into the national psyche and examining a national propensity to embrace a belief now widely seen as irrational.

Because of this widespread belief in Japanese plants’ absolute safety, plant operators and nuclear regulators failed to adopt proper safety measures and advances in technology, like emergency robots, experts and government officials acknowledge.]

Banri Kaieda, who runs the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, which oversees the nuclear industry, said at a news conference at an International Atomic Energy Agency meeting in Vienna on Monday. “It’s a fact that there was an unreasonable overconfidence in the technology of Japan’s nuclear power generation.”

With radiation levels too high for workers to approach the reactors, the Japanese authorities floundered. They sent police trucks mounted with water cannons — equipment designed to disperse rioters — to spray water into the reactor buildings. Military helicopters flew over the buildings, dropping water that was scattered off course by strong winds, in a “performance, a kind of circus” that was aimed more at reassuring an increasingly alarmed Japanese population and American government, said Kenichi Matsumoto, an aide to Prime Minister Naoto Kan.

Japan lacked some of the basic hardware to respond to a nuclear crisis and, after initial resistance, had to look abroad for help. For a country proud of its technology, the low point occurred on March 31 when it had to use a 203-foot-long water pump — shipped from China…

But perhaps more than anything else, the absence of one particular technology was deeply puzzling: emergency robots.

Japan, after all, is the world’s leader in robotics. It has the world’s largest force of mechanized workers. Its humanoid robots can walk and run on two feet, sing and dance, and even play the violin. But where were the emergency robots at Fukushima?

The answer is that the operators and nuclear regulators, believing that accidents would never occur, steadfastly opposed the introduction of what they regarded as unnecessary technology.

“The plant operators said that robots, which would premise an accident, were not needed,” said Hiroyuki Yoshikawa, 77, an engineer and a former president of the University of Tokyo, Japan’s most prestigious academic institution. “Instead, introducing them would inspire fear, they said. That’s why they said that robots couldn’t be introduced.”

The rejection of robots, Mr. Yoshikawa said, was part of the industry’s overall reluctance to improve maintenance and invest in new technologies.

“That’s why the safety myth wasn’t just an empty slogan,” said Mr. Yoshikawa, now the director general of the Center for Research and Development Strategy at the Japan Science and Technology Agency. “It was a kind of mind-set that rejected progress through the introduction of new technology.”

After Chernobyl, the nuclear establishment made sure that Japanese kept believing in safety.

The plant operators built or renovated the public relations buildings — called “P.R. buildings” — attached to their plants. Before Chernobyl, the buildings were simple facilities intended to appeal to “adult men interested in technical matters,” said Noriya Sumihara, an anthropologist at Tenri University who has researched the facilities. Male guides wearing industrial uniforms took visitors around exhibits consisting mostly of wall panels.

But after Chernobyl, the facilities were transformed into elaborate theme parks geared toward young mothers, the group that research showed was most worried about nuclear plants and radiation, Mr. Sumihara said. Women of childbearing age, whose presence alone was meant to reassure the visitors, were hired as guides.

In Higashidori, a town in northern Japan, one of the country’s newest P.R. buildings is built on the theme of Tonttu, a forest with resident dwarfs. The buildings also holds events with anime characters to attract children and young parents…

Here in Shika, more than 100,000 guests last year visited the P.R. building where Alice discovers the wonders of nuclear power. The Caterpillar reassures Alice about radiation and the Cheshire Cat helps her learn about the energy source.

The nuclear establishment also made sure that government-mandated school textbooks underemphasized information that could cast doubt on the safety of nuclear power. In Parliament, the campaign was led by Tokio Kano, a Tepco vice president who became a lawmaker in 1998.

In 2004, under the influence of Mr. Kano and other proponents of nuclear power, education officials ordered revisions to textbooks before endorsing them. In one junior high school social studies textbook, a reference to the growing antinuclear movement in Europe was deleted. In another, a reference to Chernobyl was relegated to a footnote.

The nuclear establishment itself came to believe its own safety myth and “became entangled in its own net,” said Hitoshi Yoshioka, an author of a book on the history of Japan’s nuclear power and a member of a panel established by the prime minister to investigate the causes of the Fukushima disaster.

Will these events mark a transition to more questioning approach by the public to the otherwise supine acceptance of authoritarian opinion?

Survey shows disappointment, anger among Fukushima evacuees

Asahi Shimbun (Asahi.com), 25 June.

Disappointment toward Tokyo Electric Power Co. for its failure to guard the safety of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant and anger at the central government's inept handling of the accident.

Those are the two major themes that emerge from the results of an interview survey of 407 evacuees from the Fukushima nuclear accident.

About 90,000 Fukushima residents have evacuated because of the nuclear accident, with about a third of that number moving outside of the prefecture entirely.

While TEPCO may have provided many Fukushima residents with jobs, the nuclear accident has turned many evacuees against nuclear energy.When asked their opinion on the use of nuclear energy, 70 percent of respondents said they were opposed while 26 percent said they were in favor of nuclear energy.While the survey methods and sample sizes are different, those results are much more anti-nuclear than a nationwide poll conducted by The Asahi Shimbun in June in which 37 percent favored the use of nuclear energy and 42 percent opposed it.

Having young children was an obvious reason for not wanting to return to Fukushima.

A 37-year-old woman left her home in Minami-Soma with her husband and one-year-old son even before the region was designated as a potential emergency evacuation zone.

Whenever her son has health problems because of the unaccustomed evacuation life, the woman blames herself for giving birth at such a difficult time.

"No matter how much they say it is safe, there is no way we can believe them ever again," the woman said.The deep disappointment felt by many of the respondents is due to the fact that many believed TEPCO and other experts who repeatedly said Japan's nuclear power plants were safe and that no accident would ever occur.

Anger at the central government was due in major part to the confusion over evacuation instructions in the immediate aftermath of the accident.

A number of evacuees said they were given conflicting or incomplete instructions that made it difficult to understand where they should flee to.

A 72-year-old woman said, "Information that radioactive materials had spewed from the plant was only transmitted later. If I had known about it earlier, I would have evacuated much farther away."

A woman in her 60s from Namie said, "Not being informed about radiation, I was told to go to a location that had dangerously high levels of radiation."

As a result of such experiences, a total of 80 percent of respondents said the government's response was either totally inappropriate or somewhat inappropriate.

With life in evacuation centers now exceeding three months, close to half of the respondents said their health had worsened as a result.

When workers are put at risk they must be hailed as heros, whether they had a choice or not or new the risks.

Japan's 'throwaway' nuclear workers

Reuters, 24 June.

A decade and a half before it blew apart in a hydrogen blast that punctuated the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, the No. 3 reactor at the Fukushima nuclear power plant was the scene of an earlier safety crisis.

Then, as now, a small army of transient workers was put to work to try to stem the damage at the oldest nuclear reactor run by Japan's largest utility.

At the time, workers were racing to finish an unprecedented repair to address a dangerous defect: cracks in the drum-like steel assembly known as the "shroud" surrounding the radioactive core of the reactor.

But in 1997, the effort to save the 21-year-old reactor from being scrapped at a large loss to its operator, Tokyo Electric, also included a quiet effort to skirt Japan's safety rules: foreign workers were brought in for the most dangerous jobs, a manager of the project said.

"It's not well known, but I know what happened," Kazunori Fujii, who managed part of the shroud replacement in 1997, told Reuters. "What we did would not have been allowed under Japanese safety standards."

The previously undisclosed hiring of welders from the United States and Southeast Asia underscores the way Tokyo Electric, a powerful monopoly with deep political connections in Japan, outsourced its riskiest work and developed a lax safety culture in the years leading to the Fukushima disaster, experts say.

The repeated failures that have dogged Tokyo Electric in the three months the Fukushima plant has been in crisis have undercut confidence in the response to the disaster and dismayed outside experts, given corporate Japan's reputation for relentless organization.

Hastily hired workers were sent into the plant without radiation meters. Two splashed into radioactive water wearing street shoes because rubber boots were not available. Even now, few have been given training on radiation risks that meets international standards, according to their accounts and the evaluation of experts.

The workers who stayed on to try to stabilize the plant in the darkest hours after March 11 were lauded as the "Fukushima 50" for their selflessness. But behind the heroism is a legacy of Japanese nuclear workers facing hazards with little oversight, according to interviews with more than two dozen current and former nuclear workers, doctors and others.

And finally,

Report From Tokyo: No News Is Good News?

Huffington Post, 23 June

Controlling information flow in a crisis is crucial to its outcome. So it should come as no surprise that much information received about how the crisis at Fukushima unfolded has been kept away from traditional and social media as long as possible. In the end, however, the truth does come out.

One of my favorite truths this week was the acknowledgment by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) that 69 workers who worked at reactor #1 at the Daiichi Fukushima nuclear power plant in March "cannot be found." This means that these individuals, who may have been exposed to high doses of radiation, cannot be located for testing. Was this a case of "sloppy paperwork" or something else? Either way, one wonders how long and why this was kept from the public eye.

While many are no longer surprised to see this sort of thing occurring in Japan, it becomes even less palatable when it happens on the global stage. Take the case of International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) recent decision to hold talks about the Fukushima disaster behind closed doors.

But the picture emerging after three months of radiation release is nothing to laugh about. The June 17th edition of Science magazine reports that radioactive cesium (both 134 and 137) has spread over 100 miles from the plant and now affects an area southwest of the reactors with a large pocket of contamination further south to the outskirts of Tokyo.Not telling the truth gives traditional and social media pundits much to write about and makes the pain last longer when it is revealed. Let us hope that more of those with inside knowledge prioritize the people more than they do their entrenched interests.

For an amusing expat view from Japan of the events try Spike Japan. Read the article about Pluto kun (Plutonium Child) and the bizarre world of TEPCO PR aimed specifically at children  After the earthquake: So farewell then, Plutonium kun.

“I’m hardly absorbed by your stomach or intestines and I’m expelled by your body, so in fact I can’t kill people at all”.

Energy Easter Eggs

For those not away enjoying a little holiday here are some Easter energy links.  I make no particular recommendations they just look interesting. There is no guarantee on the links, these things tend to expire after 3 months or so (or earlier). Most of these titles have been published in the last few years. The reviews are clipped from the site where I found the links – could be from Amazon.

 

Nuclear Energy   Link 1          Link 2	In order to understand the contribution that nuclear power makes today and its potential for the future, one must appreciate the various branches of physics, engineering, mathematics, economics, and the environment, as well as the way that power is supplied to the grid. It also helps to apply the same ideas and standards to the evaluation of competing technologies. Neither an endorsement nor a condemnation of nuclear power, "Nuclear Energy" provides objective information that is accessible - assuming only a modest knowledge of high school algebra on the part of the reader - and broad in scope.
Double or Quits: The Future of Civil Nuclear Energy   Link 1          Link 2	This text, the culmination of a two-year study, provides a dispassionate and objective assessment of the major disputes on the future role of this controversial fuel. Decision makers and their advisers, as well as proponents and opponents of the fuel, should find that this book provides clarification of the main issues influencing the future of nuclear energy: relative economics, public perceptions and the process of decision making, nuclear research and development, waste management, reprocessing and proliferation, nuclear safety and nuclear power and the Kyoto Protocol.
Safety and Security of Commercial Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage Link 1          Link 2	The information provided in this book examines the risks of terrorist attacks using these materials for a radiological dispersal device. "Safety and Security of Commercial Spent Nuclear Fuel" is an unclassified public summary of a more detailed classified book.  A propagating fire in a pool could release large amounts of radioactive material, but rearranging spent fuel in the pool during storage and providing emergency water spray systems would reduce the likelihood of a propagating fire even under severe damage conditions.  Although dry casks have advantages over cooling pools, pools are necessary at all operating nuclear power plants to store at least the recently discharged fuel.
Solar Energy: Renewable Energy and the Environment     Link 1	Covers solar energy resources, thermal and photovoltaic systems, and the economics involved in using solar energy. It provides background theory on solar energy as well as useful technical information for implementing solar energy applications. The book details the strengths, weaknesses, and applications of solar power generation technologies. It discusses the design and implementation of often-overlooked solar technologies, such as solar water pumping, distillation, detoxification, refrigeration, and village power. The text also examines photovoltaic power and how it is best suited for remote-site applications with small to moderate power requirements. Includes  real-world case studies, and lessons learned from technical failures.
Harnessing Renewable Energy in Electric Power Systems Link 1          Link 2	Drawing on both economic theory and the experiences of the United States and EU member states, Harnessing Renewable Energy addresses the key questions surrounding renewable energy policies. How appropriate is the focus on renewable power as a primary tool for reducing greenhouse gas emissions? If renewable energy is given specific support, what form should that support take? What are the implications for power markets if renewable generation is widely adopted? Thorough and well-evidenced, this book will be of interest to a broad range of policymakers, the electric power industry, and economists who study energy and environmental issues.
Solar Energy Engineering: Processes and Systems   Link 1          Link 2	The range of solar cells spans different materials and different structures in the quest to extract maximum power from the device while keeping the cost to a minimum. Devices with efficiency exceeding 30% have been demonstrated in the laboratory. The book includes all areas of solar energy engineering. All subjects are presented from the fundamental level to the highest level of current research. The book includes subjects such as energy related environmental problems, solar collectors, solar water heating, solar space heating and cooling, industrial process heat, solar desalination, photovoltaics, solar thermal power systems and modelling of solar systems including the use of artificial intelligence systems in solar energy systems modelling and performance prediction.
Wind Energy Engineering   Link 1          Link 2	Comprehensive details on effectively using wind energy as a viable and economical energy source. Featuring a the book covers physics, meteorology, aerodynamics, wind measurement, wind turbine specifications, electricity, and integration with the grid. Filled with diagrams, tables, charts, graphs, and statistics, this is a definitive reference to current and future developments in wind energy. The business of wind energy worldwide Wind energy basics Meteorological properties of wind and air Advanced topics in resource assessment, including wake, losses, and uncertainty Wind turbine components Deploying wind turbines in the grid Environmental impacts Financial modeling, planning, and execution
Wind Energy Explained: Theory, Design and Application Link 1	2nd Edition Text book includes up-to-date data, diagrams, illustrations and thorough new material on: the fundamentals of wind turbine aerodynamics wind turbine testing and modeling wind turbine design standards offshore wind energy special purpose applications, such as energy storage and fuel production. This book offers a complete examination of one of the most promising sources of renewable energy and is a great introduction to this cross-disciplinary field for practicing engineers.
Renewable Energy, 4th Ed: Physics, Engineering, Environmental Impacts, Economics & Planning Link 1          Link 2	A true shelf reference, providing a thorough overview of the entire renewable energy sphere, while still functioning as a go-to information source for professionals and students when they need answers about a specific technical issue.  Structured around three parts in order to assist readers in focusing on the issues that impact them the most for a given project or question. PART I covers the basic scientific principles behind all major renewable energy resources, such as solar, wind and biomass. PART II provides in-depth information about how these raw renewable sources can actually be converted into useful forms, transmitted into the grid and stored for future utilization. PART III undertakes the aspects of energy planning, environmental impacts and socio-economic issues on regional and global levels.
Renewable Energy Cannot Sustain a Consumer Society Link 1          Link 2	It is widely assumed that our consumer society can move from   using fossil fuels to using renewable energy sources while maintaining the   high levels of energy use to which we have become accustomed. This book   details the reasons why this almost unquestioned assumption is seriously   mistaken.  Chapters on wind, photovoltaic and solar thermal sources argue that these   are not able to meet present electricity demands, let alone future demands.   The   planet's capacity to produce biomass is far below what would be required to  meet the demand for liquid fuel.   Chapter 6 explains why it is not likely that there will ever be a hydrogen   economy. Chapter 9 explains why nuclear energy is not the answer.  The discussion is then extended beyond energy to deal with the ways in   which our consumer society is grossly unsustainable and unjust.

Just as a footnote, a search at Amazon for Molten Salt Reactor suggests that while this design is promoted as 'inherently safe', the required engineering talent to build and operate them is probably very thin. The few texts on this topic appear to be at least 20-30 (or more) years old. This suggests that, in spite of the scientific research this complex technology is very immature. By the time the first commercial prototype reactor is built 10 - 20 years may have passed. To go any faster would require the "learning by doing" approach adopted at Fukushima.
Also read the interesting perspective of Kurt Cobb: The Nuclear Industry's Wrong Turn.

Pontificating from a distance

There have been a few “I/my relatives are in Japan… and I’m/they’re not scared” type stories doing the rounds (one even became famous) but this one posted by The ABC had what I thought was a more human feel, focusing not on the technological aspects or the statistical minutiae of the likelihood of increased cancer. Truth is, normal average people don’t think like a nuclear technician lecturing the public about the irrationality of their fears.

Nuclear Shake Ups

A few quick articles before I go off and do something more productive.

[Updated]
Some newer articles added at end and then we need a change of topic.

Germany Plans Reunification-Style Speed to Build Grids for Cleaner Energy

Bloomberg, March 21

Germany may accelerate power-line projects to transmit more renewable energy to consumers after Japan’s nuclear disaster rattled voters in Europe’s biggest electricity market.

The Economy Ministry is preparing to use fast-track powers last exercised in 1990 when a newly united Germany had to build transportation infrastructure as fast as possible to replace crumbling roads in the east and improve connections in the country, according to a ministry document obtained by Bloomberg News. Control over power grids would be taken by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government from states and local councils.

“The scale of the challenge is comparable with infrastructure needs after reunification,” according to the document, an outline for a draft to be presented to the cabinet in two days. Power storage sites will be exempted from paying grid fees for 20 years rather than the current 10.

Merkel last year agreed to extend the life of Germany’s nuclear reactors in return for receiving 15 billion euros from their owners to help build the grids. The plan also commits the four main utilities to pay a nuclear tax from this year through 2016 of 2.3 billion euros annually.

Another 5 billion euros was earmarked for offshore wind parks. The steps cumulatively aim to speed Germany’s target of generating 80 percent of energy from renewable means by 2050.

The US and Australia have similar geo-political attributes.

The Political Demise of Nuclear Power in the U.S

Huffington Post, March 21

While there may be good reasons for nuclear power to be used as a bridge fuel to a renewable energy future, I am confident that nuclear power is politically dead in the United States. This makes the research and development of alternative energy and carbon capture and storage that much more important and urgent. It also means that environmentalists who have either reluctantly or enthusiastically embraced nuclear power as a form of carbon free energy should move on to other solutions. The catastrophe in Japan will not soon be forgotten, and it will shape the politics of nuclear power plant siting for decades.

This analysis is based on a few fundamental facts of American political structure. Despite the strength of our national government, this remains a federal system of divided power. States retain sovereignty, and we have a deeply rooted tradition of local control of land use. Our national elected leaders pay a great deal of attention to geography and to opinion leaders at the community level.

The "Not-in-my Backyard" (NIMBY) syndrome is not a passing fad in American politics; it is a central element of land use politics in communities throughout this country. While it is true that the definition of a noxious facility varies from place to place, no one doubts the ability of an American locality to veto a land use they do not like.

The images of earthquake and tsunami damage will be combined with the nuclear accident and form a single image in the public's mindset about nuclear power.

And in a country that has trouble maintaining roads (at least where I am) never mind the drainage system…

Courting Chernobyl in Ring of Fire Is Lunacy: William Pesek

Bloomberg, 20 March

Here a word for Indonesia as it mulls a nuclear future: Don’t!

The News on coal

In light of the recent news about the sell off of NexGen and the curtailing of funding for 'Carbon Capture and Sequestration' (CCS) News Limited continues to pump out coal stories. From the business section...

Coal to remain backbone of power generation
Geoff Hiscock, Dec 22nd.

Despite rapid growth in renewable power sources such as hydro, wind and solar, coal will remain the backbone of electricity generation for the next 25 years, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

A drop in coal-fired power generation in the advanced economies of the OECD between now and 2035 will be offset by big increases elsewhere, especially in China, where 600 gigawatts (GW) of new coal-fired capacity will be added. That figure exceeds the current capacity of the United States, Europe and Japan, the IEA says in its latest World Energy Outlook.

The IEA’s projections underpin the growing push by China and India to secure long-term coal supplies from around the world. As part of that drive, Chinese and Indian private and state-owned corporations are seeking to invest in Australian coal projects.

The world’s largest coal producer, Coal India Ltd, is also on the hunt for Australian mines, with Peabody Energy’s Wilkie Creek mine in Queensland a possible investment. CIL is held 90 per cent by the Indian government.

Late last year, China’s Yanzhou Coal Mining agreed to pay $3.5 billion for Felix Resources, which produces thermal and coking coal from four sites in New South Wales and Queensland.

Yes, that IEA... does that mean if the IEA made a lower projection then China and India wouldn't 'push'?

Given that Felix means 'happy', it might be a good strategy for smaller miners to rename themselves to something including the words 'dragon', 'lucky' or the number 8.
Meanwhile, over at the Courier Mail we have;

Anna Bligh culls coal to fund solar
Patrick Lion, Dec 25th.
ANNA Bligh has secretly stripped $100 million from her highly touted clean-coal fund to bankroll a new solar push while publicly claiming she was still committed to cleaning up the state's coal industry.

The Sunday Mail has learnt the Premier recently redirected one-third of the clean coal allocation in the Queensland Future Growth Fund towards the development of two new commercial-scale solar power projects.

The move, a significant shift in Labor's energy policy, emerged one week after revelations the Government would walk away from state-owned clean coal company ZeroGen and scrap its planned $4.3 billion power plant in central Queensland.

In a statement, Ms Bligh yesterday confirmed the re-direction from the clean coal fund to the Solar Flagships Projects, saying it would help develop two new solar plants that power over 50,000 homes.

Defending the ZeroGen decision last weekend, Ms Bligh said she was still committed to clean coal and would "keep $50 million" in the clean coal fund.

But The Australian, in an 'exclusive' no less, paints Anna Bligh as a nuclear advocate;

Anna Bligh opens door to nuclear power
EXCLUSIVE: Jamie Walker and Imre Salusinszky

ANNA Bligh has backed calls for the Labor Party to review its policy on nuclear power.

The Queensland Premier has warned that renewable sources cannot meet the surging demand for baseload electricity.

Ms Bligh and ALP national president said development of the only other viable alternative energy, hydro-electricity, had been hamstrung by resistance to new dams.

Ms Bligh said pointedly that "parts of the environment movement" had shifted on the nuclear option, and now supported it as an abatement measure for climate change.

Ms Bligh said other renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, could not produce sufficient baseload power. "I think it is perfectly understandable why nuclear comes on to the agenda . . . as people are genuinely looking for what is a cleaner alternative," she told The Australian.

"And I think it is quite interesting that's now coming as much from some parts -- not all, but some parts -- of the environmental movement, as it is from other parts of the energy sector..

However, Ms Bligh cautioned that any discussion about nuclear power for Australia remained theoretical, and not just because the cost was "prohibitive".

"I think there are still very genuinely held concerns about safety, and in an environment . . . where we have other alternatives then I think the prospect of one (a nuclear power plant) in an Australian context in the near future is very slim."

"It's not something on my agenda for the next election . . . it's the sort of thing, frankly, I don't have any intention of revisiting."

Jamie and Imre must use a different dictionary to me, they (or their editor) seem to have interpreted Ms Blighs peek through the door in a very exclusive manner. However, notice that peoples concerns are not genuine, just genuinely held.