Suzuki Moves Away From The Water - But Will It Have Power?
Suzuki is not buying into the „once in a millennium tsunami.” Suzuki has a lot of its production near the waterfront in Japan’s Tokai region. Scientists give the area between Toyko and Nagoya an 87 percent chance of getting hit by an earthquake with a magnitude of about 8 within the next 30 years. Suzuki’s answer: Let’s get out of here, fast.
According to The Nikkei [sub], Suzuki will spend 40 billion yen ($500m) and move its production to higher ground and 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) inland. Suzuki plans to acquire a roughly 270,000 sq. meter plot in Hamamatsu. Hamamatsu happens to be the city where Suzuki was founded.
The new site is about 50km (31 miles) from the Hamaoka nuclear power plant. The plant has been shut down and will only be allowed to re-start once huge seawalls and other improvements have been built. According to experts, this will take many years.
And this is where the bigger problem is. Japan and especially the Japanese industry may skate through this summer with a lot of perspiration, but without major power outages. The big outages loom next year. 35 of Japan’s 54 reactors are down. Attempts to re-start them are being stopped by politicians. Just yesterday, Prime Minister Naoto Kan gave an order to not restart power plants unless unspecified “stress tests” are performed. However, within a year, all remaining power plants have to be shut down for routine maintenance. Nobody wants to sign-off on a delay of the maintenance either. Which would leave Japan without nuclear power next year.
Far away from Fukushima, on the southwesternmost island of Kyushu, Kyushu Electric Power has shut three reactors for regular inspections. They cannot be restarted due to the government edict. Nissan has a factory in Kyushu, Toyota has two factories there.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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If I remember correctly what I read recently, Swiss are also going to phase-out their nuke industry. Despite what negatives anybody might have to say about them, Swiss are not much in the way 2nd-hand panic monkeys.
I am generally pro-nuclear power. However when it comes down to it's all the about the waste. Fix that problem and we have something, but storing it for ever is not viable. And in the case of Fukushima, TEPCO presumably in the absence of somewhere to dispose of said waste, decided that storing it on top of the reactor was a good idea.