Japan expands nuclear evacuation zone, new quake hits, Posted by Meosha Eaton

* High radiation forces extention of evacuations

* 7.1 magnitude quake triggers tsunami alert

* Voter anger at nuclear crisis hits PM Kan's party

* No end in sight to month-long nuclear crisis (Updates with strong quake and tsunami alert, evacuation details)

By Yoko Kubota and Yoko Nishikawa

TOKYO, April 11 (Reuters) - Japan on Monday expanded the evacuation zone around its crippled nuclear plant because of high levels of accumulated radiation, as a strong aftershock rattled the area one month after a quake and tsunami sparked the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.

A magnitude 7.1 tremor shook buildings in Tokyo and a wide swathe of eastern Japan on Monday evening, triggering a small tsunami alert. NHK state television said it caused the off-site power supply for two damaged reactors to shut down.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the aftershock struck 38 km (24 miles) west of the city of Iwaki, at a depth of 13 km (8 miles).

Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) , which operates the plant, said workers had stopped pouring cooling water on reactors No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 at Fukushima.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said villages and towns outside the 20 km (12 mile) evacuation zone that have had more accumulated radiation would be evacuated. Children, pregnant women, and hospitalised patients should stay out of some areas 20-30 km from the Fukushima nuclear complex, he added.

The decision to widen the evacuation band around the Fukushima plant was "based on data analysis of accumulated radiation exposure information", Edano told a news conference.

"These new evacuation plans are meant to ensure safety against risks of living there for half a year or one year," he said. There was no need to evacuate immediately, he added.

Japan had resisted extending the zone despite international concerns over radiation spreading from the six damaged reactors at Fukushima, which engineers are still struggling to bring under control after they were wrecked by the 15-metre tsunami.

Residents of one village, Iitate, which is 40 km from the Fukushima Daiichi plant, have been told to prepare for evacuation because of prolonged exposure to radiation, a local official told Reuters by phone. It has a population of 5,000.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has urged Japan to extend the zone and some countries, including the United States, have advised their citizens to stay 80 km away from the plant.

TEPCO President Masataka Shimizu visited the area on Monday for the first time the March 11 disaster. He had all but vanished from public view apart from a brief apology shortly after the crisis began and has spent some of the time since in hospital.

"I would like to deeply apologise again for causing physical and psychological hardships to people of Fukushima prefecture and near the nuclear plant," said a grim-faced Shimizu.

Dressed in a blue work jacket, he bowed his head for a moment of silence with other TEPCO officials at 2:46 p.m. (0546 GMT), exactly a month after the earthquake hit.

Fukushima Governor Yuhei Sato refused to meet Shimizu during his visit, but the TEPCO boss left a business card at the government office.

Sato has criticised the evacuation policy, saying residents in a 20-30 km radius were initially told to stay indoors and then advised to evacuate voluntarily.

RADIOACTIVE WATER

Engineers at the damaged Daiichi plant north of Tokyo said they were no closer to restoring the plant's cooling system which is critical if overheated fuel rods are to be cooled and the six reactors brought under control.

In a desperate move to cool highly radioactive fuel rods, operator Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) <9501.t> has pumped water onto reactors, some of which have experienced partial meltdown.

But the strategy has hindered moves to restore the plant's internal cooling system, critical to end the crisis, as engineers have had to focus how to store 60,000 tonnes of contaminated water.

Engineers have been forced to pump low-level radioactive water, left by the tsunami, back into the sea in order to free up storage capacity for highly contaminated water from reactors.

China and South Korea have both criticised Japan for pumping radioactive water into the sea, with Seoul calling it incompetent, reflecting growing international unease over the month-long atomic disaster and the spread of radiation.

TEPCO hopes to stop pumping radioactive water into the ocean on Monday, days later than planned.

Engineers are also pumping nitrogen into reactors to counter a build-up of hydrogen and prevent another explosion sending more radiation into the air, but they say the risk of such a dramatic event has lowered significantly since March 11.

POLITICAL FALLOUT

The triple disaster is the worst to hit Japan since World War Two after a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and a huge tsunami battered its northeast coast, leaving nearly 28,000 dead or missing and rocking the world's third-largest economy.

Concern at Japan's inability contain its nuclear crisis is mounting with Prime Minister Kan's ruling party suffering embarrassing losses in local elections on Sunday.

Voters vented their anger at the government's handling of the nuclear and humanitarian crisis, with Kan's ruling Democratic Party of Japan losing nearly 70 seats in local elections. [ID:nL3E7FA09V]

The unpopular Kan was already under pressure to step down before March 11, but analysts say he is unlikely to be forced out during the crisis, set to drag on for months.

"The great disaster was a double tragedy for Japan. The first tragedy was the catastrophe caused by the earthquake, tsunami and the nuclear accident. The other misfortune was that the disaster resulted in prolonging Prime Minister Kan's time in office," Sankei newspaper said in an editorial on Monday. ($1=85.475 Japanese yen) (Additional reporting by Issei Kato, Shinichi Saoshiro, Chisa Fujioka, Elaine Lies, Masahiro Koike and Linda Sieg in Tokyo; Writing by Michael Perry; Editing by Jonathan Thatcher and Alex Richardson)

Oil up $2 to over $112 on Middle East unrest, Posted by Meosha Eaton

* Bahrain Petroleum partly shuts down production

* Japan battles to avert nuclear meltdown

* Coming Up: U.S. Feb inflation, weekly jobless claims


(Updates prices, quotes, BAPCO shutdown)

By Claire Milhench

LONDON, March 17 (Reuters) - Oil rose by more than $2 on Thursday as tensions in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain fuelled fears of further supply disruption while investors weighed the impact on energy demand from quake-hit Japan.

Brent crude for May, the front-month contract after April expired on Wednesday, was up $2.13 to $112.73 a barrel at 1120 GMT. Overnight it fell as much as 1 percent to $109.45 but then rebounded Thursday morning to an intraday high of $113.12.

U.S. crude rallied more than $1, reaching an intraday high of $99.86 before slipping back to $99.71 a barrel.

"The market is seeing risks from the supply side and the demand side, and has to decide which is weighing more," said Barbara Lambrecht, a commodity analyst at Commerzbank. "It is looking for orientation -- I think we can expect more volatility."

Prices had slid about 4 percent since Japan's earthquake and tsunami six days ago, touching a three-week low of $107.35 on Wednesday. But increased tensions in the Middle East have helped prices rebound.

"The focus is back on continuing unrest in the Middle East and what will be a lot of disruption in Libya for a long time," said Christopher Bellew, an oil trader at Bache Commodities.

"The risk is more to the upside -- there was a lot of long liquidation on that sharp sell off at the beginning of the week so we will work our way a bit higher probably."

In Bahrain at least six opposition leaders have been arrested, a day after a crackdown on protests by the Shi'ite Muslim majority. A United Nations human rights official urged Bahrain to rein in its forces.

State-owned Bahrain Petroleum Co (BAPCO) has partly shutdown production due to staff shortages caused by the protests, trade sources said..

Bahrain lies less than 100 kms from the hub of the Saudi oil industry at Dhahran, including the world's largest oilfields, oil terminal and processing plant.

"The demonstrations in Bahrain are a potential threat to Saudi Arabia," said Thorbjorn Bak Jensen, oil market analyst at Global Risk Management.

Saudi Shi'ites marched in the kingdom's oil-producing east on Wednesday, demanding the release of prisoners and voicing support for Shi'ites in nearby Bahrain, an activist and witnesses said.


JAPAN, LIBYA DISRUPTIONS

The market is also focused on the quake-crippled Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan where emergency crews are battling to cool an overheating nuclear plant in efforts to avert a meltdown.

Although the Japanese reconstruction effort will be energy-intensive, manufacturing shutdowns such as that of Toshiba's LCD assembly line may reduce the immediate demand for electricity.

Any lengthy disruptions to regional production networks could spill over into global supply chains and impact economic growth, investors fear.

"With the Japanese crisis we are starting to enter an area of systemic risk where assets can see extreme fluctuations without necessarily a fundamental justification," Olivier Jakob, oil analyst at Petromatrix, said in a note.

Bak Jensen said risk aversion had prompted the big sell-off earlier in the week, but when Japan regains control of its nuclear reactors, oil prices should pick up again.

"Refined products such as fuel oil and gasoil are trading at premiums to Brent and that should put upward pressure on Brent," he said.

In Libya, government soldiers battled rebels on the road to the insurgent stronghold of Benghazi. The United Nations Security Council meets later on Thursday to consider its response to the escalating violence in Libya, with a vote planned on the no-fly zone.

OPEC members including Saudi Arabia have increased output partly to compensate for the loss of as much as two-thirds of Libyan supplies, at the same time eroding spare capacity.

Commerzbank's Lambrecht noted even if the Gaddafi regime quickly regains control of oilfields and exporting facilities, the sites are partly destroyed and market sanctions expected.

(Additional reporting by Alejandro Barbajosa in Singapore; editing by James Jukwey)

U.S. Not Likely to Suspend Nuclear Energy Plans, Posted by Meosha Eaton

By Williams Ekanem

Although the twin explosions at nuclear power plants in Japan have created a somewhat freeze on prospecting for nuclear power by various countries, the United States may not necessarily  tow the same line of putting on hold its nuclear energy plans.

Indications to this emerged on Tuesday at the Capitol Hill when leading Senators signified their lack of support for further suspension of work on development of nuclear energy.

Republican Senator John  Barrasso told congressional Reporters while responding to question on the issue that he does not subscribe to the United States to continue waiting on the development of nuclear energy, having been doing that for about fifteen years now.

In the same manner, Senate majority Leader, Harry Reid, D-Nev  said on Tuesday that the United States should not eliminate nuclear energy right away but understudy what is going on in other parts of the world.

Talks on the possibility of a nuclear freeze resurfaced on the front burner  when in only three days, Japan  has experienced two hydrogen explosion nuclear reactor.

Reports say the cascading troubles at the Fukushina Dai-Chi complex were set in motion when last Friday’s quake and tsunami in Japan’s northeast knocked out power, crippling the cooling systems needed to keep nuclear fuel from going into full meltdown weeks after a reactor shuts down.

Consequent upon the above, some countries in the midst of development of nuclear power are considering put a freeze on their nuclear energy plans.

Associated Press reports that Switzerland has ordered a freeze on new plants or replacements. The report quoted the country’s energy minister Doris Leuthard as saying that this necessary, Until safety standards have been carefully reviewed and if necessary adapted.”

The decision put on hold the construction of nuclear power stations at three sites approved by Swiss regulatory authorities. Switzerland now has five nuclear power reactors that produce about 40 percent of the country’s energy needs; it also has nuclear research reactors.

In Germany, thed government said it is suspending for three months a decision to extend the life of its nuclear power plants.  That also means that two older nuclear power plants will be taken off the grid shortly=at least for now- pending a full safety investigation, Chancellor Angela Merkel was reported to have told reporters.

A previous government decided to shut all 17 German nuclear plants, but Merkel’s administration last year moved to extend their lives by an average of 12 years.

In Turkey, opposition in one voice renounce government’s nuclear expansion plans. And anti-nuclear groups staged rallies around France, the world’s most nuclear-dependent country as the government sought to reassure the public that the risks remain minimal.

The governments of Russia, China, Poland and even earthquake-prone Chile say they are sticking to their plans to build more reactors. Bulgaria may freeze its Belene nuclear project and instead install a Russian reactor it has already ordered at its Kozloduy plant to reduce safety risks, Economy and Energy Minister Traicho Traikov said on Tuesday.

New U.S. air rules may benefit nuclear energy, Posted by Meosha Eaton

* EPA rules could ensure reliance on nuclear

* Rules could shut aging coal plants

WASHINGTON, March 16 (Reuters) - U.S. environmental regulators will propose pollution rules on Wednesday that could ensure continued reliance on nuclear power by forcing aging coal plants into early retirement.

The Environmental Protection Agency said it will unveil standards on mercury, which can damage nervous systems in babies, and other airborne toxins from power plants at 1100 EDT (1500 GMT).

Japan's battle to stop earthquake-damaged nuclear reactors from melting down has pushed some countries to be more cautious on atomic energy. Germany, which has taken the strongest stance after the disaster, plans to shut seven of its older nuclear plants, or a quarter of its atomic energy, for a three-month safety review.

The United States has said it remains committed to the technology. U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said on Wednesday that federal regulators will look to boost the safety of the nation's nuclear plants after the Japan crisis.

Coal-fired plants generate nearly 50 percent of U.S. electricity while nuclear and natural gas generate about 20 percent each.

The EPA crackdown could help shut some 15 to 20 percent of aging U.S. coal-fired plants.

That could increase reliance on natural-gas-fired power plants, which can be built quickly and pollute less than traditional coal-fired power plants.

It could also ensure that the country continues to derive large amounts of power from nuclear plants, despite the Japanese crisis, because they emit virtually no gases. (Editing by Jim Marshall)

MACTV News: SNAPSHOT-Developments after major Japan earthquake, Posted by Menelik Zeleke

March 14, 2011 1:45:43 PM

• JAPAN-QUAKE/SNAPSHOT

TOKYO, March 14 (Reuters) - Following are main developments after a massive earthquake struck northeast Japan on Friday and set off a tsunami.

- Death toll expected to exceed 10,000 from the quake and tsunami, public broadcaster NHK says. About 2,000 bodies found on two shores of Miyagi prefecture, Kyodo news agency reports.

- Japan battles to prevent nuclear catastrophe. A hydrogen explosion jolts the No. 3 reactor of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo. Operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) says 11 people were injured.

- Before the blast, officials said 22 people had suffered radiation contamination. Up to 190 may have been exposed.

- Operator TEPCO begins reinjecting water into No. 2 reactor in the hope of cooling it, and says water levels have risen and half the fuel rods are exposed.

- Nuclear safety agency rates the incident a 4 on the 1 to 7 International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale, less serious than Three Mile Island, a 5, and Chernobyl at 7.

- Switzerland's energy minister says suspends approvals process for three nuclear power stations so safety standards can be revisited.

* Germany's ruling coalition is discussing suspending for three months its decision last year to extend the life of Germany's nuclear power plants, a coalition source says.

- Authorities have set up a 20-km (12-mile) exclusion zone around the Fukushima Daiichi plant and a 10-km (6 mile) zone around Fukushima Daini.

- Strong aftershocks persist in the stricken area.
- About 450,000 people evacuated nationwide in addition to 80,000 from the exclusion zone around the nuclear power plants. Almost 2 million households are without power in the freezing north and about 1.4 million households have no running water.

- Reactor operator says rolling blackout to affect 3 million customers, including large factories, buildings and households. Blackouts affected 113,000 households on Monday, it says.

- Japan's Nikkei share index falls more than 6 percent, dragging European stocks to their lowest in three months.

- The Bank of Japan (BoJ) offers to pump a record $85 billion into the banking system.
- Credit Suisse estimates the loss at between 14 trillion yen ($171 billion) and 15 trillion yen just to the quake region.
(Tokyo bureau; World Desk Asia, Singapore +65 6870 3815)