Japan's Nuclear reboot: Curtailing LNG

[OVERKILL]

https://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL3N1VL2WF

Quote
TOKYO, Aug 31 (Reuters) - Japan's consumption of liquefied natural gas (LNG) is set to fall as the country's nuclear reactors restart, with output from atomic power set for its highest since the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster.

Kansai Electric Power will restart the 870-megawatt (MW) No. 4 reactor at its Takahama station later on Friday, a spokesman told Reuters.

The Kansai restart followed Kyushu Electric Power bringing back the 890-MW No. 2 reactor at its Sendai plant on Wednesday. Kyushu now has four reactors running.

Each returning reactor will cut demand for LNG by as much as 1 million tonnes a year, said Kosho Tamura, a gas analyst at Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corp.

The return of Japan's nuclear capacity should lead to lower imports of fossil fuels, especially LNG. While that is a positive for Japan's utilities, especially as LNG prices are near four-year highs in Asia, the loss of Japanese demand could undermine the demand outlook for the global market.

Japan is the world's biggest buyer of LNG.

"It's a good thing that the power utilities in western Japan have restarted nuclear plants, which is leading to the cuts in fossil fuel costs, primarily LNG, through the continued operations of nuclear plants," said Tomoko Murakami, manager of the nuclear energy group at the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan (IEEJ).

Kansai is Japan's second-largest utility by sales and was the most reliant on nuclear power before the March 2011 Fukushima disaster, when a nuclear power plant owned by Tokyo Electric Power suffered meltdowns after an earthquake and tsunami.

Before the disaster, Japan had the world's third-largest reactor fleet which provided about one-third of its electricity. But the plants were shut down for relicensing after Fukushima highlighted regulatory failings.

Kansai will have three units operating and expects to have another reactor at Takahama restarted in November after shutting it down earlier this month for maintenance and refuelling, its spokesman said.

Those three units will save about $1.5 billion in fuel costs each year they are running, the Kansai spokesman said, declining to comment on what fuels it would substitute.

Operating Kyushu's nuclear units will save the company about $2.2 billion in annual costs based on current LNG prices, its spokeswoman said.

With two more reactors likely to restart by the end of the year, when Japan enters its peak demand period, as much as 9 million tonnes of LNG demand could be replaced by nuclear operations.

The country's use of LNG in power generation has been declining this year as more reactors return. In June, LNG imports fell to the lowest monthly amount since May 2016 and for the year through to July are down 2.4 percent.

The Fukushima disaster sparked the country's worst energy crisis in the post-war period, forcing it to import record amounts of LNG and driving prices to record highs. Utilities also turned to cheaper coal imports.

 

[d00df00d]

Good.

 

[bullwinkle]

Hopefully they've learned to get their backup generators out of tsunami range! Any idea what Japan does with their spent nuclear fuel? I can't imagine there's any salt mines there to stick it in.

 

[OVERKILL]

They are working on a myriad of solutions involving reprocessing and recycling, as we are here in Canada. Presently they appear to be pursuing extremely high temp SMR's that could conceivably run on waste and generate hydrogen in enough volume to make it a viable transportation fuel.

 

[Snagglefoot]

They shut down those reactors to deal with the shell shocked population. I don't blame them. Time is a great healer and they are slowly bringing the safer ones back on. It was bound to to happen.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted by Snagglefoot
They shut down those reactors to deal with the shell shocked population. I don't blame them. Time is a great healer and they are slowly bringing the safer ones back on. It was bound to to happen.


They all had to be recertified to the new "post Fukushima" safety standards. Ours all flew through that with flying colours BTW, here in Ontario.

 

[gathermewool]

Originally Posted by d00df00d
Good.


+1
Originally Posted by OVERKILL
Originally Posted by Snagglefoot
They shut down those reactors to deal with the shell shocked population. I don't blame them. Time is a great healer and they are slowly bringing the safer ones back on. It was bound to to happen.


They all had to be recertified to the new "post Fukushima" safety standards. Ours all flew through that with flying colours BTW, here in Ontario.


How many Tsunamis do you guys see in Toronto? Ground motion???

There are certain standards that should be met (like, don't have your EDG's below flood level!!!); however, I can see how many might demand the highest level of protection, instead of the most prudent. In other words, near where we live doesn't need to satisfy the same ground motion criteria as a nuke plant built near ground faults. This, in turn, affects tsunami risk. I'm not say we don't need to prepare for flooding and massive storm surge; however, we don't need to add a sea wall around a NH plant, like is required for a similar plant in Japan.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted by gathermewool
Originally Posted by d00df00d
Good.


+1
Originally Posted by OVERKILL
Originally Posted by Snagglefoot
They shut down those reactors to deal with the shell shocked population. I don't blame them. Time is a great healer and they are slowly bringing the safer ones back on. It was bound to to happen.


They all had to be recertified to the new "post Fukushima" safety standards. Ours all flew through that with flying colours BTW, here in Ontario.


How many Tsunamis do you guys see in Toronto? Ground motion???

There are certain standards that should be met (like, don't have your EDG's below flood level!!!); however, I can see how many might demand the highest level of protection, instead of the most prudent. In other words, near where we live doesn't need to satisfy the same ground motion criteria as a nuke plant built near ground faults. This, in turn, affects tsunami risk. I'm not say we don't need to prepare for flooding and massive storm surge; however, we don't need to add a sea wall around a NH plant, like is required for a similar plant in Japan.


LOL, yeah, I know, but I recall the protocol and it was a bit amusing of course given ours are all outside areas of significant fault activity and you aren't getting a Tsunami on Lake Ontario or Lake Huron. I don't believe any of our plants required updates to become "post-Fukushima compliant" as the systems in place were already more than adequate. But then, CANDU design is also rather different

But I do believe there is a "common sense" component to what was required as well. We didn't have to build sea walls for the reasons you've mentioned for example. But generator placement and the like was important.

For the sake of providing too much information

, here's Pickering's intake setup, there are two intakes, one for A and one for B, A is the one closer to the inlet behind the levy. The outlets are on either side of the facility, one for each bank of 4:

And here's Darlington, which is significantly newer. It's inlet is BEHIND the plant. I have no idea where the outlet is.

And then there's Bruce, which has two setups a bit more similar to Darlington:

 

[PandaBear]

Originally Posted by OVERKILL
They are working on a myriad of solutions involving reprocessing and recycling, as we are here in Canada. Presently they appear to be pursuing extremely high temp SMR's that could conceivably run on waste and generate hydrogen in enough volume to make it a viable transportation fuel.


That's why they are really pushing for hydrogen fuel cell.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted by PandaBear
Originally Posted by OVERKILL
They are working on a myriad of solutions involving reprocessing and recycling, as we are here in Canada. Presently they appear to be pursuing extremely high temp SMR's that could conceivably run on waste and generate hydrogen in enough volume to make it a viable transportation fuel.


That's why they are really pushing for hydrogen fuel cell.


Exactly

 

[jhellwig]

Originally Posted by gathermewool
Originally Posted by d00df00d
Good.


+1
Originally Posted by OVERKILL
Originally Posted by Snagglefoot
They shut down those reactors to deal with the shell shocked population. I don't blame them. Time is a great healer and they are slowly bringing the safer ones back on. It was bound to to happen.


They all had to be recertified to the new "post Fukushima" safety standards. Ours all flew through that with flying colours BTW, here in Ontario.


How many Tsunamis do you guys see in Toronto? Ground motion???

There are certain standards that should be met (like, don't have your EDG's below flood level!!!); however, I can see how many might demand the highest level of protection, instead of the most prudent. In other words, near where we live doesn't need to satisfy the same ground motion criteria as a nuke plant built near ground faults. This, in turn, affects tsunami risk. I'm not say we don't need to prepare for flooding and massive storm surge; however, we don't need to add a sea wall around a NH plant, like is required for a similar plant in Japan.


It wasn't about tsunami or flood protection but Fukushima made it obvious that backup system protection needed to be reviewed in general. Any time there is a major failure the root cause analysis of it can bring up difficiencys no one thought could happen.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted by jhellwig
Originally Posted by gathermewool
Originally Posted by d00df00d
Good.


+1
Originally Posted by OVERKILL
Originally Posted by Snagglefoot
They shut down those reactors to deal with the shell shocked population. I don't blame them. Time is a great healer and they are slowly bringing the safer ones back on. It was bound to to happen.


They all had to be recertified to the new "post Fukushima" safety standards. Ours all flew through that with flying colours BTW, here in Ontario.


How many Tsunamis do you guys see in Toronto? Ground motion???

There are certain standards that should be met (like, don't have your EDG's below flood level!!!); however, I can see how many might demand the highest level of protection, instead of the most prudent. In other words, near where we live doesn't need to satisfy the same ground motion criteria as a nuke plant built near ground faults. This, in turn, affects tsunami risk. I'm not say we don't need to prepare for flooding and massive storm surge; however, we don't need to add a sea wall around a NH plant, like is required for a similar plant in Japan.


It wasn't about tsunami or flood protection but Fukushima made it obvious that backup system protection needed to be reviewed in general. Any time there is a major failure the root cause analysis of it can bring up difficiencys no one thought could happen unrelated to the main even.


They were well aware of the deficiency as GE had revised the site design later on that relocated the backup generators to behind the plant. This recommendation for revision to the site was given the Tepco ages before the disaster, along with an increase in the height of the sea wall but neither recommendation was followed.

While the increase in the height of the sea wall might have prevented a significant portion of the flooding including perhaps the sweeping away of the backup generator fuel tanks, the relocation of the backup generators to behind the facility would have almost guaranteed disaster avoidance.

So yes, it was a focus on backup system and redundancy protection and seeking out and quashing those vulnerabilities. But there had been concerns about Tsunami and flood protection pertaining to these systems at Fukushima and they were not addressed.

 

[irv]

Originally Posted by OVERKILL
Originally Posted by gathermewool
Originally Posted by d00df00d
Good.


+1
Originally Posted by OVERKILL
Originally Posted by Snagglefoot
They shut down those reactors to deal with the shell shocked population. I don't blame them. Time is a great healer and they are slowly bringing the safer ones back on. It was bound to to happen.


They all had to be recertified to the new "post Fukushima" safety standards. Ours all flew through that with flying colours BTW, here in Ontario.


How many Tsunamis do you guys see in Toronto? Ground motion???

There are certain standards that should be met (like, don't have your EDG's below flood level!!!); however, I can see how many might demand the highest level of protection, instead of the most prudent. In other words, near where we live doesn't need to satisfy the same ground motion criteria as a nuke plant built near ground faults. This, in turn, affects tsunami risk. I'm not say we don't need to prepare for flooding and massive storm surge; however, we don't need to add a sea wall around a NH plant, like is required for a similar plant in Japan.


LOL, yeah, I know, but I recall the protocol and it was a bit amusing of course given ours are all outside areas of significant fault activity and you aren't getting a Tsunami on Lake Ontario or Lake Huron. I don't believe any of our plants required updates to become "post-Fukushima compliant" as the systems in place were already more than adequate. But then, CANDU design is also rather different

But I do believe there is a "common sense" component to what was required as well. We didn't have to build sea walls for the reasons you've mentioned for example. But generator placement and the like was important.

For the sake of providing too much information

, here's Pickering's intake setup, there are two intakes, one for A and one for B, A is the one closer to the inlet behind the levy. The outlets are on either side of the facility, one for each bank of 4:

And here's Darlington, which is significantly newer. It's inlet is BEHIND the plant. I have no idea where the outlet is.

You'd be surprised how much money they spent on making Darlington "Fukushima Safe" It was done for no other reason other than public perception that this can't happen to us. What a complete farce and waste of money.

Darlingtons intake/outake is different than the Bruce and Pickering plants. Our intake is out in Lake Ontario roughly a kilometer. Pickering has a lot of fish issues and that is the reason why many fishermen have good luck fishing around the plant. It is warm there. I assume the Bruce has the same issue?
Here's some construction pics from back in the day that show the tunnel going out under Lake Ontario. I never got down there as it was off limits. It was built/dug/bored by Spino out of Quebec.
Also a few other pics and this link, which you have already likely seen.
https://www.opg.com/generating-powe...on-nuclear/Pages/darlington-nuclear.aspx

 

[OVERKILL]

irv, thanks for the pics! I have seen TONS from Bruce, as my buddy worked there, but not much from Darlington. I have heard however, that Darlington, albeit labelled "CANDU 6" was more almost CANDU 9, with the evolutionary upgrades it had over Bruce and Pickering.

I think, if you look at the Bruce pics, it has the same "canal" behind the plant that Darlington has, which Pickering doesn't. I had thought this was the intake on Darlington and that the outlet would be more front somewhere, unless that tunnel you referenced actually fills that lagoon behind the plant? In which case, is that the outlet channel in the right corner of the above pic?

I think the Bruce setup is quite similar:

You can see the canal like Darlington has in the rear, and the outflow there on the side. I am guessing it draws in a similar manner to Darlington.

Regarding the "Fukushima proofing" I know Bruce put on a bit of a show regarding that too, but my understanding (and please correct me if I'm wrong) is that much of that expense was training and process "work" and there wasn't much, if anything, spent on changes to the actual sites. I know Bruce has a couple of massive Rolls Royce jet turbine 20MW generators that they can fire up when needed as part of their redundancy plan, and that is, like with the other sites, on top of the batteries and other redundancies.

I believe also that Bruce B is unique in that it can function entirely disconnected from the gird, which made it instrumental in helping Ontario make a timely recovery from the massive power outage we had back early on in the 2000's. I heard from a guy that when it tripped and dumped steam that the sound was absolutely breathtaking.

 

[irv]

Originally Posted by OVERKILL
irv, thanks for the pics! I have seen TONS from Bruce, as my buddy worked there, but not much from Darlington. I have heard however, that Darlington, albeit labelled "CANDU 6" was more almost CANDU 9, with the evolutionary upgrades it had over Bruce and Pickering.

I think, if you look at the Bruce pics, it has the same "canal" behind the plant that Darlington has, which Pickering doesn't. I had thought this was the intake on Darlington and that the outlet would be more front somewhere, unless that tunnel you referenced actually fills that lagoon behind the plant? In which case, is that the outlet channel in the right corner of the above pic?

I think the Bruce setup is quite similar:

You can see the canal like Darlington has in the rear, and the outflow there on the side. I am guessing it draws in a similar manner to Darlington.

Regarding the "Fukushima proofing" I know Bruce put on a bit of a show regarding that too, but my understanding (and please correct me if I'm wrong) is that much of that expense was training and process "work" and there wasn't much, if anything, spent on changes to the actual sites. I know Bruce has a couple of massive Rolls Royce jet turbine 20MW generators that they can fire up when needed as part of their redundancy plan, and that is, like with the other sites, on top of the batteries and other redundancies.

I believe also that Bruce B is unique in that it can function entirely disconnected from the gird, which made it instrumental in helping Ontario make a timely recovery from the massive power outage we had back early on in the 2000's. I heard from a guy that when it tripped and dumped steam that the sound was absolutely breathtaking.


That outlet channel you're referencing in the pic is actually the harbor/docking area. That is where the Reactors came in on barges and were sunk to unload them. If you look to the left of that spot, you will see a small structure right where the water starts/ends in the lagoon. That area, (forget it's name?) is where it actually starts going under Lake Ontario and under the harbor. That water, the lagoon water, is filled via the intake a km out.

As far as what the Bruce did regarding Fukushima work, I have no idea? I know what we did was viewed mainly as silly little things (although very expensive) just to appease the public. They installed 2-3 foot high barriers in from of the overhead doors to the SG's (Standby gennies) and a few of those around the vacuum bldg. Like one can see, there are many more paths for water to get in than just those spots, but they sure look good.

I have about 1000 more pics at work on a file on my computer. The ones I posted tonight are just ones I sent home to show my Father as he was recently inquiring about the Spino tunnel.
This pic was taken back before I started in 83. I have many from back in 76/77 when they were planning the site and doing a bunch of blasting shortly after. I'll get those, and others when I return to work in the next little while.

P.S. Forgot to mention. In that link (the vid within) it stated the vacuum bldg took 6.5 days to pour. That is wrong, it took 9 days and I remember it vividly as we worked steady for 9 days straight doing 12 hr days.

 

[OVERKILL]

OK, I think we are on the same page

Both Bruce and Darlington appear to use the lagoon setup (you can see the lagoon inlet in the Bruce pic right where it appears to run into the road) seems like a significant departure from what they used at Pickering, though Bruce was an evolutionary step up from Pickering, so that makes sense. Be interesting to see how the length of the tunnel used at Bruce compares to the massive one you describe for Darlington.

Regarding the outflow, you can clearly see the outflows on both Bruce sites. I had apparently mistaken that small harbour at Darlington for its. They are also clearly visible at Pickering. So where is Darlington's outflow? Now you have me curious!

Would love to see some of these pics, Darlington is an amazing site, I still hope OPG manages to build "B", though it isn't looking promising.

And yeah, I don't think Bruce even did what you guys did with the "look at me!" barriers. It was more staff training and media stuff. The sites, as you noted, were already designed quite well from a vulnerability protection perspective. I remember reading the site plan for Pickering and was quite impressed by how many "what if" scenarios were considered.

 

[irv]

Originally Posted by OVERKILL
OK, I think we are on the same page

Both Bruce and Darlington appear to use the lagoon setup (you can see the lagoon inlet in the Bruce pic right where it appears to run into the road) seems like a significant departure from what they used at Pickering, though Bruce was an evolutionary step up from Pickering, so that makes sense. Be interesting to see how the length of the tunnel used at Bruce compares to the massive one you describe for Darlington.

Regarding the outflow, you can clearly see the outflows on both Bruce sites. I had apparently mistaken that small harbour at Darlington for its. They are also clearly visible at Pickering. So where is Darlington's outflow? Now you have me curious!

Would love to see some of these pics, Darlington is an amazing site, I still hope OPG manages to build "B", though it isn't looking promising.

And yeah, I don't think Bruce even did what you guys did with the "look at me!" barriers. It was more staff training and media stuff. The sites, as you noted, were already designed quite well from a vulnerability protection perspective. I remember reading the site plan for Pickering and was quite impressed by how many "what if" scenarios were considered.


I believe, but don't quote me, our cooling water discharge duct (diffuser, I think it's called?) is also out in the lake somewhere? When DNGS was built, environmental laws had changed significantly compared to the Bruce and especially Pickering.
They did not want this warm water near the shore but rather mixed more in with the colder water further out.

Speaking of DNGS B, I also don't think we'll see it in the foreseeable future, sadly, but I can't begin to imagine the hoops OPG would have to go through environmentally speaking alone just to get it built.
I am all for saving the environment and doing what we can do to preserve it, but some of these new regs/laws are just out of control, imo.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted by irv
Originally Posted by OVERKILL
OK, I think we are on the same page

Both Bruce and Darlington appear to use the lagoon setup (you can see the lagoon inlet in the Bruce pic right where it appears to run into the road) seems like a significant departure from what they used at Pickering, though Bruce was an evolutionary step up from Pickering, so that makes sense. Be interesting to see how the length of the tunnel used at Bruce compares to the massive one you describe for Darlington.

Regarding the outflow, you can clearly see the outflows on both Bruce sites. I had apparently mistaken that small harbour at Darlington for its. They are also clearly visible at Pickering. So where is Darlington's outflow? Now you have me curious!

Would love to see some of these pics, Darlington is an amazing site, I still hope OPG manages to build "B", though it isn't looking promising.

And yeah, I don't think Bruce even did what you guys did with the "look at me!" barriers. It was more staff training and media stuff. The sites, as you noted, were already designed quite well from a vulnerability protection perspective. I remember reading the site plan for Pickering and was quite impressed by how many "what if" scenarios were considered.


I believe, but don't quote me, our cooling water discharge duct (diffuser, I think it's called?) is also out in the lake somewhere? When DNGS was built, environmental laws had changed significantly compared to the Bruce and especially Pickering.
They did not want this warm water near the shore but rather mixed more in with the colder water further out.

Speaking of DNGS B, I also don't think we'll see it in the foreseeable future, sadly, but I can't begin to imagine the hoops OPG would have to go through environmentally speaking alone just to get it built.
I am all for saving the environment and doing what we can do to preserve it, but some of these new regs/laws are just out of control, imo.

Makes sense (the ducting relative to the newer regs).

I would expect the approved environmental assessment from 2013 would still be valid no? I know that was one of the big PO's for OPG and others, as they jumped through all the hoops to have the B site approved (again) and then McGuilty pulled the plug so he could get his buddies rich via wind turbines and solar panels.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted by irv


I believe, but don't quote me, our cooling water discharge duct (diffuser, I think it's called?) is also out in the lake somewhere? When DNGS was built, environmental laws had changed significantly compared to the Bruce and especially Pickering.
They did not want this warm water near the shore but rather mixed more in with the colder water further out.

Speaking of DNGS B, I also don't think we'll see it in the foreseeable future, sadly, but I can't begin to imagine the hoops OPG would have to go through environmentally speaking alone just to get it built.
I am all for saving the environment and doing what we can do to preserve it, but some of these new regs/laws are just out of control, imo.

FWIW, the Environmental Assessment for B is still good until 2022 and apparently OPG will be looking to extend it. It appears that the likely candidate, if built, will be a set of 4x CANDU 6's, so similar to what's there. I believe the idea of pursuing the ACR1000 is gone. Other option might be SMR's.

Also, I went through the EA and here's the details on the present inlet/outlet setup:

- Current intake duct is 700M extending straight out from the plant as per our discussion, at a depth of 10M
- Current outlet diffuser is 1.8Km out, run at an angle south-west

This setup limits the temperature plume to 2 degrees which, unlike Pickering, has an insignificant effect on fish.

The B site would likely be similar (though numerous designs were given consideration in the EA).

Pic of existing setup:

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted by OVERKILL
irv, thanks for the pics! I have seen TONS from Bruce, as my buddy worked there, but not much from Darlington. I have heard however, that Darlington, albeit labelled "CANDU 6" was more almost CANDU 9, with the evolutionary upgrades it had over Bruce and Pickering.

I think, if you look at the Bruce pics, it has the same "canal" behind the plant that Darlington has, which Pickering doesn't. I had thought this was the intake on Darlington and that the outlet would be more front somewhere, unless that tunnel you referenced actually fills that lagoon behind the plant? In which case, is that the outlet channel in the right corner of the above pic?

I think the Bruce setup is quite similar:

You can see the canal like Darlington has in the rear, and the outflow there on the side. I am guessing it draws in a similar manner to Darlington. .


My take from work on the coastal Oz stations.

The canal on the left is clearly flowing out...

The canal above it, with no obvious connection is the inlet, and will receive screened pumped water from somewhere remote...remote enough that there's no short circuit for the hot water.


Ours, they run a high level canal (pumped), and it gravitates through the condensers to the low level outlet canal.

Ours have atemperating overflows to let cold, unheated water into the outlet to control lagoon temperatures.