Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Nuclear power may be necessary for M'sia

 thestar: Wednesday March 23, 2011

By LEONG HUNG YEE
hungyee@thestar.com.my

.....“The right thing is not to do it (nuclear power) at all, but we have no choice. We still need to find
ways to meet demand. I don't think society is willing to accept any brownouts or electricity
disruptions,” Energy Commission (EC) chairman Tan Sri Dr Ahmad Tajuddin Ali said in an
interview with StarBiz.

As it stands now, 58% of power generated in the peninsular is from natural gas, with the
remainder coming from coal (37%) and hydro (5%).
Tajuddin said renewable energy at the moment is not enough to fulfil the energy demand.
He also said the generation cost of nuclear power was lower than that of solar energy. “That
(cost) is one thing. It is the availability of solar itself. Even if we cover the whole of Peninsular
Malaysia with solar panel it is still not enough.”

Monday, March 28, 2011

Copy From MBIPV Website : Feed-in Tariff (FiT)

For reference about FiT from MBIPV:

Summary:

a) As of end October 2010, Malaysia has:
• 40 MW grid-connected power from Biomass;
• 1.7 MW from Biogas;
• 8 MW from Mini-hydro;
• 7 MW from Solid waste; and
• 1.5 MW from Solar PV

b) The following RE resources will be eligible for FiT:
• Biomass (including solid waste);
• Biogas (including landfill gas & sewage);
• Small-hydro; and
• Solar PV.

c) Solar PV 4kw to 30Mw / RM1.23 to RM0.85 : add RM0.26 for BIPV - in building structure. 21 years

Update on the Feed-in Tariff (FiT):
On 15th December 2010, the Renewable Energy Bill  (RE Bill) was presented into Parliament for its first reading. The Bill for Sustainable Energy Development Authority (SEDA Bill) Malaysia was also successfully presented in the same session.
The second and third readings of both the RE and SEDA Bills are scheduled to take place in April 2011. After the Bills have been passed in Parliament, they will be gazetted for enactment. SEDA Malaysia will then be legally established. The Feed-in tariff is envisaged to be implemented by mid-2011.
Resources for FiT:
The Final Report on National Renewable Energy Policy and Action Plan (Hadri et al, submitted to KeTTHA on 18th April 2009)
 Feed-in Tariff for Renewable Energies by Mr. Hans-Josef Fell, German Parliamentarian, Green Party (2MB)

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Nuclear energy tough call for M'sian Govt

Do you think leaders will listen to people opinion?  Errrr! yeah, they do! they do! Surrender become looser, proceed will surely win...

Thestar: Tuesday March 15, 2011

PETALING JAYA: The Government will have to make a tough call now on whether to proceed with its plans to build nuclear plants locally, or look at other renewable energy sources, considering the explosion and radioactive leakage at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan.
Analysts contacted by StarBiz said the Government should re-look at other energy sources such as solar or wind as renewable energy options as oppose to narrowing it down to just nuclear energy.
“Considering what has happened in Japan, where people are potentially exposed to radiation leaks, these are serious issues to consider before embarking on the local nuclear project,” said a local research analyst.
Another local analyst covering the utilities sector said that while Malaysia was not subjected to natural disasters such as earthquakes, Malaysia was still open to calamities such as severe floods.
Plans to have nuclear plants locally in slightly over a decade have drawn strong criticisms in the last couple of days, in light of explosions that have happened at a nuclear plant in north-eastern Japan as a consequence of an earthquake and tsunami that took place last Friday.
Several political parties and various groups have urged the government to see whether there is a real need and necessity for a nuclear power plant in the country.
A local daily reported yesterday, citing Energy, Green Technology and Water Minister Datuk Seri Peter Chin Fah Kui, that the Government would not rush to build nuclear plants in the country until all safety aspects and public feedback were considered.
Malaysia plans to build two nuclear power plants that will generate 1,000 MW each with the first plant ready for operation in 2021. The second plant is expected to be ready a year later.
Bernama had reported in December quoting Chin that the Government would engage an international consultant to evaluate the location and requirement for such plants to be built.
The evaluation should be completed by 2013 or 2014 and to call for tenders by 2016. Malaysia heavily relies on gas and coal for its electricity supply as it was the Government's policy to reduce reliance on fossil fuel. Gas accounted for 64% of the country's energy generation while the remainder came from coal.
Chin had also said then that hydro power could assume a prominent role but more so for Sabah and Sarawak while other energy sources such as biomass and wind were too minimal while solar was a good potential but the technology was still very expensive.
Bloomberg reported yesterday that Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said he had instructed nuclear power agencies to carry out a safety review of the country's reactors in light of explosions at a stricken plant in Japan, including the possible impact of a major natural disaster

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Tsunami: Japan Nuclear Plant Hitted. Bad News!

Risk for power, do we need urgently nuclear plant for Malaysia?
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJ1wFkayp20

IWAKI, Japan – An explosion at a nuclear power station Saturday destroyed a building housing the reactor, but a radiation leak was decreasing despite fears of a meltdown from damage caused by a powerful earthquake and tsunami, officials said.
Government spokesman Yukio Edano said the explosion destroyed the exterior walls of the building where the reactor is placed, but not the actual metal housing enveloping the reactor.
That was welcome news for a country suffering from Friday's double disaster that pulverized the northeastern coast, leaving at least 574 people dead by official count.
The scale of destruction was not yet known, but there were grim signs that the death toll could soar. One report said four whole trains had disappeared Friday and still not been located. Local media reports said at least 1,300 people may have been killed.
Edano said the radiation around the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant had not risen after the blast, but had in fact decreased. He did not say why that was so.
Officials have not given specific radiation readings for the area, though they said they were elevated before the blast: At one point, the plant was releasing each hour the amount of radiation a person normally absorbs from the environment each year.
Virtually any increase in ambient radiation can raise long-term cancer rates, and authorities were planning to distribute iodine to residents in the area, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Iodine counteracts the effects of radiation.
The pressure in the reactor was also decreasing after the blast, according to Edano.
The explosion was preceded by puff of white smoke that gathered intensity until it became a huge cloud enveloping the entire facility, located in Fukushima, 20 miles (30 kilometers) from Iwaki. After the explosion, the walls of the building crumbled, leaving only a skeletal metal frame.
Tokyo Power Electric Co., the utility that runs the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, said four workers suffered fractures and bruises and were being treated at a hospital.
Click image to see photos of quake, tsunami damage

AP/The Yomiuri Shimbun, Masamine Kawaguchi
"We have confirmed that the walls of this building were what exploded, and it was not the reactor's container that exploded," said Edano.
The trouble began at the plant's Unit 1 after the massive 8.9-magnitude earthquake and the tsunami it spawned knocked out power there, depriving it of its cooling system.
The concerns about a radiation leak at the nuclear power plant overshadowed the massive tragedy laid out along a 1,300-mile (2,100-kilometer) stretch of the coastline where scores of villages, towns and cities were battered by the tsunami, packing 23-feet (7-meter) high waves.
It swept inland about six miles (10 kilometers) in some areas, swallowing boats, homes, cars, trees and everything else.
"The tsunami was unbelievably fast," said Koichi Takairin, a 34-year-old truck driver who was inside his sturdy four-ton rig when the wave hit the port town of Sendai.
"Smaller cars were being swept around me," he said. "All I could do was sit in my truck."
His rig ruined, he joined the steady flow of survivors who walked along the road away from the sea and back into the city on Saturday.
Smashed cars and small airplanes were jumbled up against buildings near the local airport, several miles (kilometers) from the shore. Felled trees and wooden debris lay everywhere as rescue workers coasted on boats through murky waters around flooded structures, nosing their way through a sea of debris.
According to official figures, 586 people are missing and 1,105 injured. In addition, police said between 200 and 300 bodies were found along the coast in Sendai, the biggest city in the area near the quake's epicenter.
The true scale of the destruction was still not known more than 24 hours after the quake since washed-out roads and shut airports have hindered access to the area. An untold number of bodies were believed to be buried in the rubble and debris.
Meanwhile, the first wave of military rescuers began arriving by boats and helicopters.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan said 50,000 troops joined rescue and recovery efforts, aided by boats and helicopters. Dozens of countries also offered help. President Barack Obama pledged U.S. assistance following what he called a potentially "catastrophic" disaster. He said one U.S. aircraft carrier was already in Japan and a second was on its way. Washington has also dispatched urban search and rescue teams, according to U.S. Ambassador John Roos.
More than 215,000 people were living in 1,350 temporary shelters in five prefectures, or states, the national police agency said. Since the quake, more than 1 million households have not had water, mostly concentrated in northeast. Some 4 million buildings were without power.
About 24 percent of electricity in Japan is produced by 55 nuclear power units in 17 plants and some were in trouble after the quake.
Japan declared states of emergency at two power plants after their units lost cooling ability.
Although the government spokesman played down fears of radiation leak, the Japanese nuclear agency spokesman Shinji Kinjo acknowledged there were still fears of a meltdown.
A "meltdown" is not a technical term. Rather, it is an informal way of referring to a very serious collapse of a power plant's systems and its ability to manage temperatures.
Yaroslov Shtrombakh, a Russian nuclear expert, said a Chernobyl-style meltdown was unlikely.
"It's not a fast reaction like at Chernobyl," he said. "I think that everything will be contained within the grounds, and there will be no big catastrophe."
In 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear reactor exploded and caught fire, sending a cloud of radiation over much of Europe. That reactor — unlike the Fukushima one — was not housed in a sealed container, so there was no way to contain the radiation once the reactor exploded.
The reactor in trouble has already leaked some radiation: Before the explosion, operators had detected eight times the normal radiation levels outside the facility and 1,000 times normal inside Unit 1's control room.
An evacuation area around the plant was expanded to a radius of 12 miles (20 kilometers) from the six miles (10 kilometers) before. People in the expanded area were advised to leave quickly; 51,000 residents were previously evacuated.
"Everyone wants to get out of the town. But the roads are terrible," said Reiko Takagi, a middle-aged woman, standing outside a taxi company. "It is too dangerous to go anywhere. But we are afraid that winds may change and bring radiation toward us."
The transport ministry said all highways from Tokyo leading to quake-hit areas were closed, except for emergency vehicles. Mobile communications were spotty and calls to the devastated areas were going unanswered.
Local TV stations broadcast footage of people lining up for water and food such as rice balls. In Fukushima, city officials were handing out bottled drinks, snacks and blankets. But there were large areas that were surrounded by water and were unreachable.
One hospital in Miyagi prefecture was seen surrounded by water. The staff had painted an SOS on its rooftop and were waving white flags.
Technologically advanced Japan is well prepared for quakes and its buildings can withstand strong jolts, even a temblor like Friday's, which was the strongest the country has experienced since official records started in the late 1800s. What was beyond human control was the killer tsunami that followed.
Japan's worst previous quake was a magnitude 8.3 temblor in Kanto that killed 143,000 people in 1923, according to the USGS. A magnitude 7.2 quake in Kobe killed 6,400 people in 1995.
Japan lies on the "Ring of Fire" — an arc of earthquake and volcanic zones stretching around the Pacific where about 90 percent of the world's quakes occur, including the one that triggered the Dec. 26, 2004, Indian Ocean tsunami that killed an estimated 230,000 people in 12 countries. A magnitude-8.8 quake that shook central Chile in February 2010 also generated a tsunami and killed 524 people.
___
Kageyama reported from Tokyo. Associated Press writers Malcolm J. Foster, Mari Yamaguchi, Tomoko A. Hosaka and Shino Yuasa in Tokyo, Jay Alabaster in Sendai, and Sylvia Hui in London also contributed.