12 December, 2018
JAIF’s Nuclear Industry Survey: Difficult to Reach a Nuclear Power Share of 20-22% by 2030
At a monthly press briefing on November 29, the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum (JAIF) released an overview of the 2017 results of its annual “Fact-Finding Survey of the Japanese Nuclear Industry.” The survey covers fiscal 2017 (ended March 2018), a period in which effectively only five nuclear power plants were in operation in the country.
Questionnaires were distributed to a total of 365 for-profit companies engaged in the nuclear power field, including JAIF’s member companies, seeking information on their expenditures, sales and numbers of employees. Valid responses were received from 254 companies (eleven electric power companies, 234 mining and manufacturing firms, and nine trading firms).
Although the business environment for nuclear-power and related industries in Japan showed signs of improvement, due to the new regulatory standards being met and some NPPs being restarted, expenditures by electric power companies and mining and manufacturing firms increased only slightly during FY17. Meanwhile, nuclear-related order backlogs for mining and manufacturing firms substantially increased for the second year in a row, an...more
- 19 November, 2018 Tokyo City University’s Science Café Features Hands-on Nuclear Exhibition of Robots
- 5 October, 2018 JAIF Press Briefing: President Takahashi Foresees Progress in BWR Examinations by NRA
- 20 July, 2018 Japan-IAEA Joint Nuclear Energy Management School Opens for 2018, Developing Next Generation of Young Professionals
- 29 June, 2018 JAIF President Personally Sad to See Fukushima Daini Go
- 21 June, 2018 JAIF Holds General Assembly: Chairman Imai Welcomes JAIF’s Role as “Control Tower” to Strategically Develop Nuclear Human Resources
- 20 June, 2018 New Association to Be Launched in July, with Ei Kadokami at the Helm
- 11 June, 2018 Nuclear Energy Buyers Guide in Japan 2018-19 is now available
- 29 May, 2018 JAIF President Sees HTGRs Carrying Japanese Technology to World, Helping to Secure Human Resources
- 28 May, 2018 ANRE Verifies Summer Electricity Supply and Demand Projections, Expecting 3% Reserve Capacity Margin in All Service Areas
- 11 May, 2018 JAIF, KAIF Hold Joint Forum on Nuclear Power Plant Safety and Decommissioning, Sharing Latest Knowledge and Information
- 11 May, 2018 [JAIF Press Briefing] World Nuclear Capacity at Record High for Third Year in a Row
- 9 May, 2018 [51st JAIF Annual Conference] Session 3: Innovations in Nuclear Power
- 9 May, 2018 [51st JAIF Annual Conference] Session 2: Promotion of International Activities by Nuclear Vendors
22 November, 2018
Taylor Wilson Boosts SMRs at JAEA Annual Report Conference 2018
On November 13, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) held an annual report conference in Tokyo, reporting on recent research results. Those included safety research using its NSRR (Nuclear Safety Research Reactor), which resumed operation in June, as well as activities to restore the environment in Fukushima.
Also featured was a presentation by Taylor Wilson, a 24-year-old American nuclear physicist, who had also appeared earlier this year at the 51st JAIF Annual Conference, held on April 9 and 10.
Wilson—known as “the boy who played with fusion”—spoke of his own childhood and how he became interested in nuclear physics when he was about ten years old, conducting various experiments at home. He later established Prometheus Industries, which is working on R&D on small modular reactors (SMRs) in the several-megawatt to 100MWe class.
He cited convenience as well as safety as the main advantages of SMRs, noting that they can be manufactured as smaller modules, then transported and assembled at a site. A bit further into the future, he said that he was most interested in their application ...more
