Nuclear rods likely melted: TEPCO
Tokyo Electric Power Co. said the rods may have melted after being fully exposed because of a low level of cooling water, Kyodo News reported.
Workers have been inside the No. 1 reactor building for about two weeks, attempting to restore its cooling system, which was knocked in the country's March 11 earthquake-tsunami disaster, the report said.
New data showed the water level in the pressure vessel needed to keep the rods cool is lower than earlier thought.
Efforts to restore normal cooling in the reactor have been progressing, the utility has said.
Separately, Kyodo quoted government sources as saying a planned investigation into the Fukushima nuclear crisis will take about a year.
An independent panel to investigate the crisis will have about 10 members, including scholars, legal experts and people from Fukushima prefecture where the plant is located.
As the recovery effort entered a third month, Prime Minister Naoto Kan said Japan will abandon plans to build new nuclear reactors and will "start from scratch" to come up with a new energy policy. Last year, the government announced plans to build 14 more nuclear reactors by 2030 to increase the share of nuclear power in Japan's electricity supply to 50 percent.
The government was working on a plan to help Tokyo Electric Power meet its payments to compensate those affected by the crisis. The cost could run into the billions of dollars.
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Florida Court Blocks Push to Break Electricity Monopolies
MIAMI - Florida’s top court ruled against a proposed constitutional amendment that would have allowed customers to pick their electricity provider, threatening monopolies held by NextEra Energy Inc. and Duke Energy Corp.
In a ruling Thursday, the court said the petition’s language is “misleading” and doesn’t comply with requirements to be included on the 2020 ballot. The measure’s sponsor, Citizens for Energy Choice, said the move ends the initiative.
“While we were confident in our plan to gather the remaining signatures required, we cannot overcome this last obstacle,” the group’s chair, Alex Patton, said in a statement.
The proposed measure was one of…
