スウエーデンの面白いものたち


by nyfiken
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The economist article on nuclear plants.


The article below the Economist should be read and as I marked, within 16 hours after the earthquake 11 March, Fukushima reactor had meltdown not only NO1 but also others..

"Japan's nuclear plants"
Half-life
May 20th 2011, 15:24 by K.N.C. | TOKYO

..TEPCO, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, used to be in the business of supplying energy to the world's largest metropolis and its environs. Ten weeks after the disaster at its Fukushima nuclear power plant following the March 11th quake and tsunami, its primary activity is transforming into a massive financial-compensation vehicle, with a power company on the side.

The company has been reduced to a shell. Its shares have lost four-fifths of their value. Standard & Poor's and Moody's have downgraded its debt of around ¥7 trillion (about $85 billion) to just one notch above junk status. A government-ordered compensation plan, still being worked out, will see it making payouts far into the future.

On May 20th TEPCO posted the largest loss in Japanese corporate history outside of the financial sector, of ¥1.2 trillion. That does not include compensation payments (which are estimated at ¥2 trillion) by TEPCO, the government and possibly even other utility firms as well. TEPCO said it would sell all assets unrelated to supplying energy (such as property and cross-shareholdings) and halt its international plans. In a show of atonement, it cut the top brass's pay by 40% and workers' by as much as 25%. Its much-criticised president, Masataka Shimizu, stepped down.

Though neither the government nor TEPCO has said so, it is clear that the future of the firm is more as an appendage of the state than a business. Yet some of the government's ideas have highlighted its own lack of foresight and practical thinking. One cabinet minister demanded that Japanese banks write off a portion of TEPCO's debt—perhaps without considering what effect such a forced write-off might have on discouraging much-needed investment in the country's power-generating capacity.

Each day seems to bring worse news about the nuclear disaster playing out about a three-hour drive from Tokyo. It has recently been revealed that a meltdown in one and possibly three reactors occurred in the first 16 hours. Steps that could have prevented this or the subsequent explosions were never taken. The government plans to create an investigatory panel which is likely to include foreigners, in the hope that some outside scrutiny would make it harder to cover up embarrassing discoveries. One way to salvage something useful from TEPCO might be to split it into two firms: one concerned with power generation and the other with power transmission. Shigeaki Koga, a trade-ministry official, proposes selling the transmission business to finance compensation claims and re-listing the generation business on the stockmarket.

As is often the case in Japan, the government is divided over this question. Prime Minister Naoto Kan has said that his cabinet will consider splitting TEPCO and reviewing Japan's energy monopolies when it devises a new energy policy this year. An influential cabinet member, Yukio Edano, agreed that Japan seeks to learn from other nations regarding structural separation. Banri Kaieda, Japan's economy and trade minister, who overseas energy policy, disagrees. "This is not something we should work on immediately," he told The Economist. "To divide responsibilities like that is a very complex business...But more than that, there are things we must do sooner. TEPCO and the government must make sure there is decent compensation to the people who have suffered." If he gets his way, TEPCO will become little more than a state-supervised indemnification mechanism.

(The Economist)

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by nyfiken | 2011-05-29 00:05