the e.p.a.'s utilitymact rule will only make things worse for hard-hit areas in the west, midwest, and appalachia. according to the bureau of labor statistics, since 2008, montana has lost 3,200 manufacturing jobs, michigan, 67,000 jobs lost, pennsylvania 80,000, west virginia, 7,000. each one of these people who lost their job will be subjected to a greater risk of cancer, heart attack, stroke, depression, higher incidence of spousal abuse, substance abuse in these families. as demonstrated by the latest research, their children will suffer, too, as medical costs pile up, as electricity bills to heat and cool their homes skyrocket and the cost of ever everyday living continues to go up. utility mact will only expose thousands more to these risks. the e.p.a. should immediately stop pushing expensive regulations that put americans out of work and into their doctorsdoctors' office. instead of harming public health, this administration and this e.p.a. needs to work with republicans. work together in our effo

we selected them in 2010 and jointly responded to the utility. that utility selected us in july of 2010 to provide them with solar power, a project that became known as project to ton. we applied to support a nationally scaled program which we called prolodgis amp. we completed smaller scale roof top insulation projects before, mostly financed by utilities, a larger nationally scaled project required a different approach. we applied for the loan guarantee to reduce the cost of our project financing that makes our roof top project more economical. working with bank of america as our lender and nrg energy as the equity partner, we sought to develop a multiyear, multiphase project that would generate power in up to 28 states. project to ton that was progressing was anticipating to be the first phase. in july of 2011, after receiving a conditional commitment from the doe, we began work on the roof tops of 15 buildings in southern california at a cost of just over eight million. in september of 2011, solyndra declared bankruptcy. this created a conside

i rise to speak on the utility mact issue. the e.p.a.'s utility mact rule is a clear example of how overzealous regulations, how the lack of a sensible energy policy are derailing investment and costing americans jobs. let me say at the outset that i support good, responsible policies to protect human health and to safeguard our environment. these rules, however, need to bear the qualities of all good rules. they need to be simple, efficient, achievable and affordable. in short, they need to make sense from both an environmental and an economic perspective. unfortunately, as written, the utility mact rule and others like it that the e.p.a. is proposing fail to find that proper balance. to the contrary, burdensome and complex new rules for the coal industry will not only discourage responsible energy growth but will prompt the complete shutdown of dozens of power plants. that will increase energy costs for consumers and businesses and sadly force thousands of hard-working americans onto the unemployment rolls. utility mact alone will requi

the rate payers' money. and utilities still have custody of the waste created by their nuclear reactors. i'd look at it just a little different. having said that, the status quo is not acceptable. and we have to be smarter than this. and we're going to be. thank you. >> i appreciate that, too, senator. and i will tell you that i -- i don't refer to it as nuclear waste myself. i reforeit as a nuclear resource. >> there you go. that's good. >> good morning, chairman carper, ranking member barrasso, senator alexander, senator udall. i am eric howse, the director of government and public affairs at maine yankee. i appreciate the invitation to appear before you today on behalf of the yankee companies, main yankee, connecticut yankee and yankee atom nick western massachusetts. we and our fellow sites that comprise the decommissioning plant coalition worked closely with the blue ribbon commission to ensure it understood the unique impacts that our three sites and the six other permanently shut down reactor sites face. the yankee

to execute the warning, so it's a real quick thing. >> oar rob dwiewld a spokesman for bge said the utility has learned froms it mistake. >> we ought to treat hot weather like a storm that's come through. by that i mean heavy communications to customers. many of the customers that are participants, including myself, had not received any communication from the utility since they signed up, a year, two, three years earlier. >> reporter: the company sent out letters, allowed people to seen up for email alerts and robocalls, but many of the customers aren't buying into the program. >> i turn it off when aim red zip and turn it on when i'm ready. >> i'm in there. it's 102, and i fall out and die, it's not worth it. >> it's taken steps to ensure they're not shut down any longer than they're supposed to be. jeff hager, abc2 news. >> we have some ideas to help keep your thermostat low. set the thermostat at 78 or higher if your health allows for. that try not to use the dishwasher and stoves until later and turn off nonessential electronics off and use an outdoor grill or microwave instead of your

and mention the california public utilities commission controls the

the question was whether the utility should invest in r and defendant. our experience is they do. we have commitments from three million producers over the last two or three years and we try to spend that money wisely. but, systemically, for example, in wind, technology research, it will be the wind manufacturers that are going to invest in the r and d rather than the utility s because they are the ones that benefit and they have a way for utilities to invest a few states have a social benefits charge where a small fraction of each rate pay or's bill that benefits the rate payors in that state. they may invest in technologies that washington hasn't figured out that are going to move forward. but, i don't think most state governments can make wide or indeed decisions i think we can intend to get better decisions. but it is possible to do and some states are doing that. yes, right here. >> abigail barnes with the woodrow wilson center. this question speaks to professor kemton's silver bullet if you will. dr. kemp ton's silver bullet with the buzz. and sort of incorporating in those c

those programs prior to this were almost entirely financed by the utilities that we in essence -- they financed that program at that point in time. >> on the program thaw testified on regarding the program in california, i understand that that has not actually led to any installation of the operations on your roof tops. is that correct? >> that is correct. >> the 1705 program in your circumstance has not generated any stimulative effect, has it? >> congressman, if you don't mind, let me just give you a little bit of context to that. the program itself is a four-year program designed to start on september 30th of 2011. so if you look at it -- >> you had to start with the program requiring to you start september 30th, 2011. >> correct. we had started construction at that point in time. the overall program was largely to be done in years three and four of a four-year program. so it would be if you will, rolled out overtime. >> i understand that, but i'm not being critical of the program. the difficulties in having the supplier go bankrupt, but the truth of the matter is that this is a pro

but the -- the public utility commissions and the utilities want a diverse portfolio. they don't want all one fuel because they have been burned way too many times with the cost of the fuel going up when they didn't expect it, when the analyst said it wasn't going to go up, so there's going to be some wind for that reason as well. of course, wind is a perfect hedge against fuel increases because you know the fuel cost of wind or solar is never going to increase. i guess addressing your question about the -- the automobile storage, right. our university of delaware has done a good bit of research on looking at electric cars as a storage resource for the grid. that's been financed by companies and also the federal government, so we're getting ready to roll out a commercial program with several industrial partners probably in the fall, but the idea there is to use the batteries in electric vehicles as a -- as a grid resource. so you can level out fluctuations, whether they are four-secretary fluctuations in the ancillary services market or longer fluctuations in wind exce

. >> and focus on preservation and harvey hacker, the utility architect from the fenway park backed by the green, what is it, the green giant? >> the utility outfielder. >> the utility outfielder to help us look at building entrances and with harvey's help we have a whole lot of slides and we'll project images to use as the basis for discussing building entrance issues. i want to encourage all of you, it's very inform, i hope. i want to encoug all of you to participate and if you know the building or know anything about the building, chip right in. we'll give you a mic and tell us about it. building entrances are so very important and seems that in modern buildings in many cases they become regulated to simply functional uses rather than important parts of the overall concept of the building and the urban design. but we'll see old buildings and new buildings and we'll start with the building entrance that really becomes like the key element of the whole experience of the building. like this picture of lee poe in chinatown. is this a bar. >> so me it's similar to a theater entrance wher

. >> item #one -- hearing with the san francisco public utilities commission, general services agency, 311 customer service center, department of public works, planning department, san francisco municipal transportation agency, and pacific gas and electric company to: participate and provide an update on the sfpuc's street light plan; and review the city's policies and practices relating to the lighting of the public right-of-way, including street light maintenance, and reliability, the system of responding to and addressing street light outages, ways to improve the maintenance system, and best practices for lighting per the better streets plan and other city policies. >> thank you, madam clerk. supervisor wiener, this is your item. >> supervisor wiener: thank you mr. chairman -- thank you, mr. chairman. i called for this hearing several months ago. i called for it when something i had never seen before happened during will call introductions. 5 of my colleagues spontaneously co-sponsored it. that does not happen often. the reason it happened is this is an issue with significance for

the utility side of things, the last of our utility contracts is working on a.w.s.s. work around the perimeter of the site, harvard and at mission streets. that work is ongoing now. -- howard and mission street. here is the timeline for the buttress shoring work. the buttress is about one-third of the way through production. i will talk to you about it in a little bit, but over memorial day weekend we will be installing the first of three traffic bridges. this one will be on first street, so that will be the roadway that carries traffic across the excavation site during the course of construction. those will continue through fremont street and labor day weekend and on veterans day weekend we will do feel streebee street. the excavation and racing is well under way on the west end of this site. supervisor kim: we have a question from a director. >> refresh my memory. it was supposed to be completed 2017? >> yes. >> when we start the actual construction of buildings? here you are still excavating them. and it bracibracing. >> the excavation will actually be complete at t

every three years, we have a rate case by the california public utilities commission. we are participants. there is a street lighting consortium of all california street like consumers, if you will. we make the argument -- could we do more? absolutely. through this process and the awareness you raised in setting this hearing, supervisor, i think this has hire barry need for us to engage on that topic in that setting -- a higher priority need for us to engage on that topic in that setting. supervisor wiener: we're not beating the pg&e up on -- we're not beating up on pg&e. we all have a common desire to deal with this. i would like to hear their perspective on it. rate payers are paying for that maintenance. i certainly want to make sure that the maintenance is happening in the best possible way. if in fact the puc is able to fix it lights in a shorter number of days, then pg&e should be able to match that, if not exceeded. that is something, i think, that really needs to be looked into if the city needs to be involved, by all means, we should be involved. >> thank you.

. >> translator: it is inappropriate that the agency based its report on the utility's draft. we are very sorry. >> commission officials found the archive documents after a panel began investigating the accident at fukushima daiichi. the plant suffered a total loss of power when the tsunami flooded the facility. >>> people in japan's northeast are focused on overcoming the challenges of the 2011 disaster, but it won't be easy. they have to rebuild homes, businesses, entire communities. we'll show you their struggles and their successes on "the road ahead" every wednesday at 1:00 p.m. japan time here on "newsline." >>> delegates from the international atomic energy agency will restart talks on friday with negotiators from iran. the head of the nuclear watchdog says he hopes to restart an investigation of the country's suspected weapons program. >> japanese officials are wanting to keep their toes in the water. they met on the sidelines in russia. kirk reiterated that further liberalization of three markets is a prerequisite for japan's joining the negotiations. >> the u.s. reque

secondly, the utility's charge various fees to set up and provide the electricity. we want to make sure that it is cost recovery and to not be unreasonable. we meet with them if their problem and we react. through the public utilities commission, through local regulation, we react and try to do everything we can to solve problems. if you are talking about deals like if you come to california, we will pay 7000 for any job, we have a little bit of that but it is hard to pay people for their business activities. we do not have enough money. they're doing that all over the state. cutting deals. we are doing that in some respects. it is our race. how does michigan spent so much subsidy attracting -- michigan is not doing that well. you have some money but what about other things to invest in and take care of? we want to make our regulatory climate more transparent. we have a long way to go. we are open and ready to go. there is a lot of people who want to keep the regulation complicated or make it worse. it is -- this could be something, you have to fight and crush oppos

the utility grid is a two-way street. you can send electricity back up in the lines. because you can do this, in effect, the grid can take the place of your battery. it reduces all of the cost of maintenance of electricity and ensures electricity. if you're tied to the grid, the grid is always standing there ready to serve you during the day it's charging a lot of power. my kids are at school, my wife and i are at work. there is not much going on. it's feeding my refrigerator or whatever. so most of my power is excess and being sent back into the grid. my meter is spinning backwards and banking credits to my account. when i come home at night, th i'm buying back electricity from the utility, drawing off my "virtual battery" in a sense. think of it as an economic transaction. you sell back during the day and buy at night. and that's how it works. hi, i'm here with carl, he is the operations manager for solar city. we decided to take a little break from the cls room to so we could see some of the solar panels in action. carl, how are you? >> very well. nice to meet you.

now the state owns more than three-quarters of the utility's voting rights. shareholders gathered in tokyo for their annual meeting. tepco is still dealing with a costly cleanup and compensation payments related to the 2011 nuclear accident. >> translator: first, we, the entire board of directors, want to deeply apologize for the trouble and worries caused by last year's accident at the fukushima daiichi nuclear plant. >> executives outlined tepco's finances. they explained why the utility needs more than $12 billion in public funds to help turn things around. shareholders then approved a resignation of the current chair and president, quick to take responsible for the manage many of the company and fukushima accident. their replacements will soon take over. shareholders also agreed to fill the majority of the director positions with people outside the company. tepco is now ready to implement a restructuring scheme. the government as its main shareholder will be able to influence how the company rebuilds itself and compensates people affected by the accident.

. >> translator: it is inappropriate that the agency based its report on the utility's draft. we are very sorry. >> demand for natural gas is soaring, as are fears about energy security. businesspeople and energy experts are in malaysia this week to hammer out deals for the resource. about 5,000 people from more than 80 countries are attending the five day world gas conference. president of the international gas union abdul hashim says natural gas is environmentally friendly. emerging economies such as china and india are driving the booming demand for natural gas. japan also wants more of the fuel. the country has halted all its nuclear power plants and faces a potential energy shortfall. the participants are expected to discuss prices and new energy resources. shale gas extracted from sedimentary rock has been haled as a fuel of the future, but experts are divided over its ecological impact. >>> volcanic activity is a fact of life. 110 volcanos in japan could erupt any time. the country's a world leader in volcano research. and works with many other nations that face the poss

the chairman of japan's biggest utility asks shareholders to approve a government bailout. the people who run tepco electric power company have seen change after change over the past year. now they're trying to bring about one that will alter the nature of their business. they asked shareholders to accept a public bailout that would nationalize the utility effectively. shareholders gathered in tokyo. tepco owns the fukushima nuclear power plant. >> translator: first, we the entire board of directors, want to deeply apologize for the trouble and worries caused by last year's accident at the fukushima nuclear power plant. >> executives outlined tepco finances and propose shareholders accept an injection from the government of,0 $12 billion. the vice governor criticized the utility for its failure to explain the rate hike. >>> and people owe posed edopp nuclear power demonstrated across japan and elsewhere ever since the accident in fukushima. some gathered outside the meeting they want shareholders to join their movement to stop the use of nuclear power. >> reporter: people ca

the ability to utilize an area that is so close to the downtown, so close to an area where businesses is center, where commerce is center, where government is centered, it makes sense for what this growth here. we do not want it in distant places. if we can do it for san francisco, this may be the place to do it. commissioner sugaya: this is -- these are kind of disjointed thoughts behalf to -- but i have to disagree. that we're 20% there. if we are ready to prepare an environmental report on something that is in front of us, we're already 80%. the alternatives will never get to the same level of detail as what is in front of us here and the ira will not treat those alternatives equally as we're looking at here. by the time the er is done on this plan, this plan will be in force, a guarantee that. -- eir is done on this plan, this will -- plan will be in force, a guarantee that. if this has been created over time by various businesses, attendance, owners, landlords, innovators that have taken the spaces that are tech people and they did fine with the present zoning and buildings and w

. >> it is inappropriate that the agency based its report on the utility's draft. we are very sorry. >>> volcanic activity is a fact of life. 110 volcanoes in japan could erupt any time. the country is a world leader in volcano research and works with many other nations that face the possibility of eruptions. nhk world reports on one joint program. >> reporter: indonesia is near the top of countries with the most active volcanoes. one of the most active is mt. merapi in central joba. an eruption two years ago sent ash and hot volcanic gas flowing down its slopes. around 390 people died. the village was wiped out. >> translator: that house was buried under five meters of ash and the people living there died. >> reporter: more than 380,000 people had to evacuate their homes. professor masato iguchi of kyoto university has been working on disaster prevention programs in indonesia for over 20 years. iguchi visits indonesia many times a year to help at a center that monitors early signs of volcanic eruptions. the center has monitoring equipment supplied through a japanes

the assistant general manager and cfo of the san francisco public utilities commission. n and update to give you on our seismic upgrades as well as disaster preparedness as well as the of the three water supply system. on the city fraud, we have been making good progress with the comprehensive -- city front, we have been making good progress with the comprehensive review for the required repairs to the existing in the structure. we have been coordinating and working with our fellow city departments over the last several months. chief white, our general manager, and their representative from the water department and mr. ritchie from dpw are all working to make sure that we deploy these assets as best as possible for the city. the auxiliary water bond authorization has been covered. we are back for our second series of what voters have approved some time ago now. we are making good progress, and i will briefly highlight some of that. for the work before us today, specifically we are asking for approximately $38 million of project funding. and to put that in the context of w

we have the utilization and to a lesser extent, escalating costs. since we began this process, this has a less robust look into the future. we have the obligation to be fiscally responsible so that we can rebuild a hospital to meet the demand and continue to deliver the highest quality care. i want to make clear these do not alter our commitment to invest for the new hospital. our new 10 year projections, while less optimistic, do not show us in reaching region -- do not show us breaching. this will be critical to our ability to provide comprehensive health care throughout san francisco. and we do recognize that our new projected operating margin and provides more than the current plan. is operating test is a belgian and suspenders approach. -- a belt and suspenders approach. the suspenders provides a processing and financial benchmark to work with the city to monitor our financial situation and make adjustments if needed. this kind of notice and participation is unprecedented. the city gets it from no other private hospital and is provided nowhere e

every block they going through they paint 3 or 4 streets in the block the poles the utility boxes, mailbox. >> thank you. >> okay. >> put the drop cloth. come on around. >> there you go. force for we have to remember we are not painters we abate graffiti. we are abaters not painters. get that out of the way and keep moving. >> how many of these do you do a day? how many poles we do a day? >> yeah. >> depends on the location. may be 20. >> do you like working with the team? >> yes because i'm a people person. i like being outside and interacting with the public and i like the response we get especially from the good job we do in the community. >> goodbye. captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- supervisor chiu: the afternoon. welcome to the san francisco board of supervisors meeting. thank you to sfgovtv further help in televising these weekly meetings. these culpable. supervisor avalos: -- >> supervisor avalos, president. supervisor compos, president. supervisor chu, president. supervisor elsbernd, present. supervisor care -- supervisor kim, present. supervisor ma

item number 10, reserve funds for the public utilities commission in the total amount of $20 million to fund the electric reliability payments. item number 11, the lease of

the parent company -- the utility filed for bankruptcy, even though 10s of millions were funneled to the parent corporation. one entity claims financial problems, using different mechanisms. what if we don't call it a transfer, per se, but we charge them for certain services from the entire system. >> i will refer back up to the same paragrah. applied to the system -- my understanding, help me if i'm not right, but for them to get away with the charge -- every branche was charging this. it couldn't be something cpmc was doing. >> that doesn't solve the problem. if they short-change san francisco, it is okay if they short-change everyone else? we want to make sure there is no ability for the moenney from cpmc to be funneled. >> this language is protective. >> i want to talk to the city attorney. why not have clear language outlining the things the money cannot transfer or direct? why not provide greater clarity? >> the language as drafted was for the concern you raised. as you know -- you had the discussion about audits. we have the rights for the records. with regard to charges, they

and mention the california public utilities commission controls the rates. these rates are low -- allow pg&e to recover their maintenance expenses and their costs for capital investment. so, we pay them over the life of the asset for the operational maintenance fees. that includes enough for them to set aside to perform the improvements we talked about earlier on their series of loops. -- series loops. and that comes to about -- for the distribution of the power we provide for those lights -- i mentioned that it is our power, but pg&e is delivering it to the lights. we pay pg&e in distribution charges to use their power distribution system. here's a quick snapshot then of the annual payments pg&e, where we have the maintenance fees, the distribution fees, totaling almost $1 million a year. and then, finally, i just want to talk a little bit about where we see improvement recommendations here. we have been asked over the years whether it makes sense for us to become owners of pg&e so we will have more control. i think what makes a difference for residents is

the proposal is to utilize -- the district is described on the bottom of page 8. mr. alonso: yes. mr. leigh: yes. ms. melara: yes. ms. mondejar: yes. mr. schreiber: yes. ms. tidwell: yes. ms. lam: yes. mr. mcdonnell: thank you. all right. district 2. oh, -- mr. pilpel: oh, can we also have them not avoided -- voided -- mr. mcdonnell: please keep going. >> can we separate and jordan park from the village? mr. mcdonnell: the proposal is to keep -- i will refer to it as the consultant draft. >> i am sorry. no. mr. mcdonnell: hold on. the proposal is to use the consultant language of district 2. mr. alonso: yes. mr. leigh: yes. ms. melara: yes. ms. mondejar: yes. ms. lam: yes. mr. pilpel: no. mr. schreiber: yes. ms. tidwell: yes. sure. do i leave it in the paris laugh -- paragraph form? mr. mcdonnell: be consistent and line it up. ok. moving into district 3. ms. tidwell: i am just cutting and pasting the consultants on the bottom. mr. mcdonnell: yes. in district 1, we did not use consultant. mr. pilpel: couple of things i am confused about now. if we are using the consultant language,

better this population, the subsets of the population, what's driving their care needs, what the utilization patterns are, by very discrete sub populations we won't be as effective as we can be in developing new models to improve transition and to improve the use of long-term care services. and so there's a few things we're doing in that regard. one is i'm pleased to say that cms now has an integrated data set, so medicaid and medicare at the person level, it's not 2011 unfortunately. but we're getting there. over time. it's really going to help drive our analysis as well as those of others in the room and other interested stakeholders. the second is we'll soon be releasing state profiles so it will be a state by state look at the demographics, the utilization, the costs again for -- from an integrated data set perspective of the individuals who are duly eligible in the state. not meant to compare state to state because we're not controlling for the differences in the medicaid program. but again it will be a useful tool to get out there. another thing we're doing that i think is very relevan

the utility announced yesterday the strength test on the already defective well. the explosion killed eight people. pg&e is now trying to defend itself upon accusations by the utility commissions. >>> from not huge on all of the tech news, but in the tech world this is big news. the conference starts at 9 with a keynote speech at the miss coney center. the new dublin it is going to run up about two under and $50. the software and acts on the tablets are designed to work together. >>> from the hardware find, they will certainly likely introduce a new tablet but they will also introduced a and dried operating system called it jellybean. >>> some of the other big announcements we are expecting today, a voice system, possible music streaming and project class, the project plan to feed digital info. we will hear more about that today. >>> i am back to my original facebook page. >>> are we friends again? >>> i'm not sure. folks around the bay area today, we will have a great day ahead of us. in the bay, but we are looking good right now. i think as we head throughout th

but the utility's investigation doesn't address some concerns. for one, it fails to pinpoint what caused the release of so much radioactive material. it also doesn't detail how much damage the reactors suffered from the earthquake independent of the tsunami. the tepco report follows investigations by a government committee, a diet panel, and an independent group into how the utility and the government dealt with the crisis. but no investigation so far has looked squarely at what caused the meltdowns. that task has been left to tepco, because many parts of fukushima daiichi are still off-limits, or difficult to access because of high radiation levels. >> translator: i'm very doubtful that this report has delved into the accident in any real sense. a framework needs to be created to ensure a more independent perspective. there needs to be a more independent analysis to pinpoint the problems that need to be addressed. and to point out where changes should be made. >>> all of japan's 50 nuclear reactors are currently offline for regular maintenance. t

particularly the partnership we have with utilities like pg&e. ink there is someone here from the city of palo alto utilities, and we have worked with for a long time. utilities like back -- you guys are brave. utilities have had the same business model and the same basic delivery for a very long time. to recognize and appreciate that your customers could become real partners is a really brave thing to do in an industry that has been understandably risk averse before. we are thrilled to be your partner in that change and to be providing better services and tools to your customers, to give them more control and in doing so, to build a stronger relationship and help them save. the one thing i wanted to thank were our partners. the second group to thank is government. diane is here. she was commissioner on the puc. have beenn 0 fromrdc -- we have people from nrdc. thanks of great regulation -- regulation gets a bad name these days, but when implemented correctly, it can be a phenomenal force for good, and the state of california has led the way. loca

so the utility mact is the centerpiece of president obama's effort to kill coal. utility mact is specifically designed to close down existing coal plants while the obama e.p.a.'s greenhouse gas regulations are specifically designed to prevent any new coal plants from being built. so they want to shut down the coal plants that are there now and prevent new coal plants from being built. keep in mind, 50% of our energy comes from coal. the goal behind these policies s not surprising, but what is surprising is that while president obama goes around pretending to be for an all-of-the-approach on energy -- and let's make sure we understad what that is. an all-of-the-above approach was the republicans' idea. it was, we're for all of the above. we're for nuclear energy, we're for fossil fuels, coal, gas, o oil, renewables, everything else. so that's what all of the above means. so the president's been saying that he is for an all-of-the-above approach on energy while members of his gren team administration just can't help but tell the truth about what's really going on in

workers have been telling their accounts to the utility since last june. hydrogen explosions occurred at three reactors after the march 11th quake and tsunami knocked out most of the plant's power. the government panel says workers at the number one reactor didn't know emergency cooling valves were closed and the system wasn't functioning. but tepco says it was impossible to check the valves because there was no power. the utility now says it needs to re-examine its fail safe system for total blackouts. and at the number three reactor, the government report says weak batteries stopped the emergency cooling system for nearly seven hours. it says employees underestimated the risk of the batteries going flat, but tepco says it had to stop the system to protect the water-injecting mechanism. and the government panel is expected to issue its final report by late july. >>> more than a year after the earthquake and tsunami, a young woman uses manga to tell the survivors' stories. in "the road ahead" we meet her and find out why she's taken this road. >> this manga