The Star Online: World Updates
The Star Online: World Updates |
- Hurricane Ingrid soaking Mexico's Gulf Coast
- Japan to switch off nuclear power, may be some time before it's on again
- In a sign of reforms to come, newcomers snap at heels of Japan's utilities
| Hurricane Ingrid soaking Mexico's Gulf Coast Posted: MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Hurricane Ingrid strengthened on Saturday night as it spun off Mexico's Gulf Coast, dumping heavy rain across central and eastern Mexico. Rain from the Category 1 hurricane has caused river levels to rise and emergency services to prepare for evacuations, but state oil monopoly Pemex said its installations in the Gulf of Mexico were operating normally. Ingrid, with sustained winds of 80 miles per hour (130 kph), could grow even stronger over the next two days as it nears Mexico's coast, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. A Category 1 storm is the lowest intensity on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale. Pemex was operating under security protocols, but none of its installations had been affected, a spokesman said earlier on Saturday. Two of Mexico's three major oil-exporting ports were closed, but most of the country's Gulf Coast ports including Veracruz remained open on Saturday as the storm approached. Emergency services in Veracruz state were preparing shelters in the event of flooding, but at midday the shelters were empty, a spokesman said. A hurricane watch was in effect for a stretch of Veracruz's northern coastline, the NHC said. Ingrid, the second hurricane of the Atlantic season and the ninth storm of the season, was 180 miles (290 km) east of the port of Tuxpan in Veracruz state at 0100 GMT and moving north at about 7 mph (11 kph), the NHC said. "A turn toward the northwest and then toward the west is anticipated on Sunday," said the NHC. That would send Ingrid directly toward Mexico, on track to make landfall near Tampico, Veracruz, on Monday. The storm was expected to dump between 10 inches (25 cm) and 25 inches (63 cm) of rain over a large part of eastern Mexico, which could cause rivers to swell, provoking flash floods and mudslides, according to the Miami-based NHC. Ingrid could also bring a storm surge that would raise waters by 2 to 4 feet (0.6 to 1.2 metres) above normal tide levels near where the storm makes landfall, the NHC said. Separately, tropical storm warnings are in effect on the Pacific Coast of Mexico from Acapulco to Manzanillo, where Tropical Storm Manuel is churning about 75 miles (120 km) offshore. Manuel was lashing parts of Oaxaca and Guerrero states in western Mexico with heavy rain, and the NHC warned the storm could also cause life-threatening flash floods and mudslides. (Reporting by Adriana Barrera and Elinor Comlay; Editing by Gunna Dickson and Peter Cooney) |
| Japan to switch off nuclear power, may be some time before it's on again Posted: TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan is set to be nuclear power-free, for just the third time in more than four decades, and with no firm date for re-starting an energy source that has provided about 30 percent of electricity to the world's third-largest economy. Kansai Electric Power Co's 1,180 MW Ohi No.4 reactor is scheduled to be disconnected from the power grid late on Sunday and then shut for planned maintenance. It is the only one of Japan's 50 reactors in operation after the nuclear industry came to a virtual halt following the March 2011 Fukushima disaster. Japan last went without nuclear power in May-June 2012 - the first shutdown since 1970 - a year after a massive earthquake and tsunami triggered reactor meltdowns and radiation leaks at the Fukushima facility. The country's nuclear reactors provided close to a third of the electricity to keep the $5 trillion economy going before the Fukushima disaster, and utilities have had to spend billions of dollars importing oil, gas and coal to make up for the shortfall. In 2011, Japan suffered its first trade deficit in more than three decades, and in July of this year it logged its third-biggest trade deficit on record, at 1.02 trillion yen ($10.5 billion), as a weak yen and rising oil prices made energy imports more expensive. Several nuclear operators applied in July to re-start reactors under new rules drawn up following the Fukushima disaster, but approvals are likely to be tough to get as the industry regulator strives to show a sceptical public it is serious about safety. Industry projections for a re-start vary from as early as December to mid-2014. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the utilities are keen to get reactors up and running again, with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe singling out reducing soaring fuel costs as a key plank of his economic reform plans. But opinion polls show a majority of Japanese want to end reliance on atomic power, and oppose re-starts. "The argument that no nuclear power dents the economy would be myopic, considering that if by mistake we had another tragedy like Fukushima, Japan would suffer from further collateral damage and lose global trust," said Tetsunari Iida, head of the Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies, and a renewable energy expert. "In the new economy, the less you use energy, the more value-added you become. The big chorus for nuclear power is hampering the efforts to move to a new, more open economy." IMPORT BILL Japan consumes about a third of the world's liquefied natural gas (LNG) production, and will likely boost LNG demand to record levels over the next couple of years. LNG imports rose 4.4 percent in volume to a record 86.87 million tonnes, and 14.9 percent in value to a record 6.21 trillion yen ($62.1 billion) in the year through March. Imports are likely to rise to around 88 million tonnes this year and around 90 million tonnes in the year to March 2015, according to projections by the Institute of Energy Economics Japan based on a mid-scenario that 16 reactors will be back on-line by March 2015. Thirty months on from the Fukushima disaster, such is the level of public concern about nuclear safety that the government is struggling to come up with a long-term energy policy - a delay that is having a profound impact on the economy and underlining just how costly a nuclear-power-free future may be. People in the industry reckon Shikoku Electric Power's Ikata plant, Kyushu Electric's Sendai plant and Hokkaido Electric's Tomari plant are among those likely to be the first to re-start. "There's talk the Abe administration is putting heavy pressure on the regulator (to re-start reactors)," said Osamu Fujisawa, a Japan-based independent oil economist. "It's obviously the economy the administration is after (rather than safety). Otherwise, the business community will look away, dealing an end to the Abe administration." ($1 = 99.9850 Japanese yen) (Editing by Ian Geoghegan) |
| In a sign of reforms to come, newcomers snap at heels of Japan's utilities Posted: TOKYO (Reuters) - The Fukushima nuclear disaster is driving one of Japan's biggest industry overhauls since World War Two, as new, nimble suppliers take business from the big regional power monopolies, and manufacturers, from steelmakers to drinks firms, generate their own power and sell what they don't need. The 10 powerful regional utilities, which still supply around 90 percent of Japan's electricity - even with the country's nuclear industry virtually idled since the 2011 disaster - are expected to be broken up into separate power generation and distribution companies anyway by 2020. But the world's worst atomic crisis in a quarter of a century has accelerated the pace of market reforms, as a growing number of firms armed with new technologies, flexible payment options and, often, cheaper power invade traditional markets. Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco), the operator of the Fukushima facility, and the other major utilities have lost thousands of accounts in the 30 months since the plant was crippled by a massive earthquake and tsunami, as businesses switch to cheaper alternatives, a Reuters survey shows. "Until recently, everyone just assumed that if you put a plug in a socket electricity would come out. Most people had no idea of the structures behind that," said Hiroaki Ikebe, president of Ennet Corp, Japan's biggest independent electricity supplier. But the Fukushima disaster, he said, prompted people to ask how the power supply system works, how fees are calculated, what services are available, and how this compares with other countries. While the big utilities still dominate the market, Fukushima exposed shortcomings in power distribution, and the increasing competition is likely to push prices lower and shrink their market share. With energy companies' public image shredded in the wake of the Fukushima crisis, the government is to press on with opening up the market and reducing some of the highest electricity costs in the world. But change won't be easy as the utilities are politically well-connected and have resisted liberalisation attempts since the 1990s. The reforms, set to go to parliament when it resumes next month, aim to create a national grid company in 2015, and break up the monopolies into generation and transmission firms by 2020, and abolish price controls. GAINING POWER Ennet has doubled its customer base to 15,000 in two years by offering cheaper prices and more flexible contracts, overtaking Japan's smallest monopoly, Okinawa Electric Power Co, in terms of electricity supplied, Ikebe said. The independents not only undercut the monopolies by accepting lower profit margins, they also provide power management systems and flexible buying plans to reduce prices and save energy. Many also trade electricity and use plant and infrastructure paid for by other firms, so they don't have to recoup those costs. Tepco, Kansai Electric Power Co, Chubu Electric Power Co and the other regional monopolies have lost close to 18,000 customers since around the time of the Fukushima disaster, figures provided by the companies to Reuters show. "We assume customers with smaller demand are likely to switch to the new electric power companies," said Naoko Iguchi, a spokeswoman at Kyushu Electric, which lost 340 accounts in April-June - more than double the number in the previous 12 months - as it raised tariffs to cover higher fuel costs while its nuclear reactors are shut down. Tepco has been hardest hit, losing 11,550 customers as it raised its prices by 10-17 percent. That's more than half the number of accounts it has lost since 2000, when Japan last tried to open up the market to competition. With its only remaining viable nuclear plant - the Kashiwazaki Kariwa facility in Niigata prefecture - still shut, Tepco has said it may have to increase prices again to bolster its finances. The utility has racked up net losses of $27.4 billion since the Fukushima crisis 30 months ago. A spokesman said Tepco offers energy savings plans to try to stop defections from its almost 29 million customers. Chubu Electric last month broke an unwritten rule among utilities not to stray onto each others' turf by buying control of Diamond Power Corp, a Tokyo-based independent electricity supplier. Chubu Electric, Mitsubishi Corp, the seller of the Diamond Power stake, and Nippon Paper Industries Co will also build a coal-fired power station near Tokyo to supply Diamond Power. PAPER POWER Nippon Paper, Japan's No. 2 paper producer by sales, is also branching out on its own. It registered last year to be an independent electricity supplier to sell excess in-house generated power, spokesman Koji Yoshino said, and plans to build power generation facilities in its factories around Japan, including a 110 MW coal-fired plant in Miyagi prefecture, north of Tokyo. The company has used biomass and solar power in three other locations, Yoshino said. Others have followed suit, with more than 100 companies registering with the government as of Friday to become power producers and suppliers. Manufacturers and others are also setting up in-house generators to produce electricity and cut costs as the big regional utilities hike prices - further eating into the monopolies' market share. "We realise competition is going to get fierce," said a spokesman at Kansai Electric, which this year raised its prices by almost 10 percent, and lost 1,050 customers in May-July. The number of locations licensed to generate 1 MW or more of in-house power rose 4.6 percent to 3,346 in the year to end-March 31, industry ministry figures show, with manufacturers from steelmakers to drinks firms getting in on the act. Asahi Group Holdings Ltd, Japan's second-biggest beverage maker by sales, spent about 1 billion yen ($10 million)to add a 7.8 MW gas co-generation unit at its Ibaraki brewery - inside Tepco's service area - that started in July. That, and other energy saving measures, will allow it to cut peak-time energy use across its eight breweries by about 40 percent compared to last summer, Asahi said. Kobe Steel Ltd, which generates power at its factories using blast furnace gas as fuel, has bigger plans. Japan's No. 3 steelmaker aims to build Japan's biggest inland thermal power plant north of Tokyo, a 1,400 MW gas-fired station. The facility will be supplied by gas from an expanded network planned by Tokyo Gas Co, Japan's biggest city gas supplier and one of three shareholders of Ennet. The others are Osaka Gas Co and a unit of NTT Facilities Inc. ($1 = 100.4250 Japanese yen) (Additional reporting by James Topham, Osamu Tsukimori, Leng Cheng and Guo Cheng; Editing by Ian Geoghegan) |
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