How the Yakuza and Japan's Nuclear Industry Learned to Love Each Other - The Atlantic Wire

CarolLogan · 2012-05-24T11:50:15.907289+00:00

In Japan the utilization rate of nuclear is currently 0%.

Maslo55 · 4 days

Given the current economic situation it is brilliant, amazing and really outstanding.

See for example the Reuters article:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/15/us-eurozone-economy-idUSBRE84E0A420120515

Maslo55 · 4 days

Wrong. It is fine.

For a quartly rate this is perfectly fine. Compare the US number, which is usually given as annually rate.

Britain shrank 0.2% quartely (0.8 annually). France had zero growth.

Maslo55 · 4 days

We have strong growth.

Maslo55 · 4 days

In France many markets are protected against foreign competition. The electricity industry is a state monopoly. The important companies like EDF is government owned. The ruling class is from a few universities and divides the jobs between them in politics and state-owned industries. Prices are not set by a market, but by policies. Thus the electricity price for private owners is part of social welfare. For industrial owners it is set in such a way that they survive, regardless what happens on the world market.

In Germany things don't work that way. There is a sense that it is necessary to keep aluminum production in Germany, because it is important for the industry. Thus the high taxes could be lowered or it could helped with investments to reduce the electricity consumption. But that would only make sense if it makes the aluminum industry survive. If it just extends the lifetime for a year or so, then it would not be useful. There might be other countries where the conditions for such an industry is better - for example in Norway using its hydro electricity.

Maslo55 · 4 days

Dream on. The exports are on the highest level ever. The southern countries were not contributing much to this. Greece is a tiny country. Growth is looking good. The finance minister is very happy about taxes.

You seem to live in an alternate reality.

Maslo55 · 5 days

Where the money would come from? You make it seem as prices are just some arbitrary numbers that can be set at will.

Like in France?

Yes, it would not happen overnight, as Germany is a very industrialised country for now. But no electricity usually means no industry.

'No electricity'? When will Germany have 'no electricity'? Tell me!

Germany already has high costs: energy is highly taxed, high wages, extensive social benefits, ... Last quarter Germany had the all-time highest export numbers. Ever. Last year we had the highest export per year, ever. Something like a trillion Euros.

If anything, renewable energy will add to this. Exports are nicely growing.

Maslo55 · 5 days

Wrong, Germany has been exporter for decades. When we had the Deutsche Mark. The German industry knows how to deal with that.

Second, when the currency is higher valued, the imports get cheaper. This makes the products cheaper to produce.

Maslo55 · 5 days

This is again seen through the tainted glasses of the nuclear industry who knows little about Germany.

The reality is slightly different. The energy prices in Germany are higher than in France, so much is true. But the French price is a price in a non-competitive environment. The prices are made by the government, since the players are all government owned. For example the taxes for electricity are much less in France.

Second, the aluminum industry has problems in Germany since many years.

Third, there were talks with the EU to allow lower prices to the Aluminum industry. The EU has blocked this so far.

My favorite bullshit argument is this: 'Germany is de-industrializing itself'. Last I looked we were running a huge export surplus, we have exports as large as China and our industrial goods are in high demand world wide. Some companies will complain that the market changes. The coal lobby complained that we we closing the coal mines. The ship industry has lost much of its capacity - ships are now coming from asia mostly. Industries need to adapt to the changing environment. This is called 'Strukturwandel' in German.

Next: even the Greens in Germany want to keep the Aluminum production.

QuickTactical · 6 days

For example this gas power plant in Braunschweig Germany has an efficiency of 50% and a combined efficiency of 90%:

http://www.braunschweiger-zeitung.de/lokales/Braunschweig/neues-gaskraftwerk-in-braunschweig-id425893.html

The number of nuclear power plants providing heat is really small.

Nuclear power plants usually dump their heat into rivers, the ocean or the atmosphere. It's not done, because their are few consumers on this planet able to take that amount of heat.

For new gas power plants this is often found. Actually here in Germany it is typical.

QuickTactical · 6 days

rehashes old stuff.

Modern gas power plants have a much higher efficiency. Especially because their heat can also be used. These power plants end up at 90% efficiency.

Japan not only increased electricity from fossil fuels. They also use less electricity.

lispm · 6 days

yes?

Apple will use methane from landfills, which will be transported via a natural gas pipeline system, according to a filing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). The raw biogas will be cleaned and separated to increase the methane content and remove unwanted components (including sulfide, chlorine and sulfur) before being injected into the natural gas pipeline.

lispm · 6 days

gas?

nsiivola · 7 days

What CLIM also provides is key accelerators and extended commands (somehow similar to the idea to have a minibuffer in your app). With Climacs, you could also have an emacs-like editor as part of the app.

LispWorks' CAPI also has these extended commands for its application windows. LispWorks also provides an Emacs-like editor which can be used inside the app.

lispm · 7 days

at the same time we still had a good economic recovery, cheap co2 certificates, ...

Germany stated in the Kyoto protocol that we are reducing the CO2 emissions by 21%. The goal is for 2012 compared to 1990.

We are already at 26.5% reduction.

green7ea · 7 days

QUOTE is a read macro, which expands 'whatever to (QUOTE whatever). If evaluated, whatever is returned. whatever can be any Lisp datum - a symbol, a list, an array, ...

:foo is a special syntax for a keyword symbol. Such a symbol is in the package KEYWORD and evaluates to itself.

yoda17 · 8 days

Lewis Page (a nuclear power fan) is angry because other countries' companies won't build the nuclear power plants in Britain for them and Britain isn't willing to invest its own money to finance them.

lispm · 8 days

that's well known

Japan is seen as being “a screwdriver’s turn away” from having a nuclear capability

lispm

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