Following the release of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s new energy plan, nuclear reactors are set to restart across the island nation three years after the Fukushima disaster, leaving many fearing another radioactive plume. Citing economic and environmental concerns, Abe unveiled his government’s 20-year Basic Energy Plan on February 25, which aims to restart at […]
I recently received an e-mail from a PR manager at Thomas Reuters about contractors in Fukushima exploiting workers involved in the decontamination of the areas around Tepco’s crippled nuclear reactor. Workers here are coerced into working for low wages for contractors six-times removed from Tepco, the utility responsible for the cleanup, some of which have […]
Tokyo Electric Power Co has warned some toxic liquid may have flowed into the ocean, according to an AFP article by Shingo Ito. Around 300 tons of toxic liquid was believed to have escaped from one of the tanks that hold water used to cool the broken reactors. TEPCO workers are scrambling to check for […]
The Bank of Japan, the country’s central bank governed by Haruhiko Kuroda, said the economy is showing signs of recovery after three months of inflationary policies, according to a New York Times article. The statement released Thursday was the first time the central bank has used the word “recovery” since the March 2011 quake/tsunami/nuclear […]
Japan is reversing its decades-long advocacy of nuclear power as Bloomberg reported last Friday. In its first post-Fukushima energy policy approved by Prime Minister Noda a cabinet panel endorsed and outlined the potential next steps to phase out nuclear power plants by 2040. In general, that is in line with Japanese public opinion. A report […]
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has announced his decision to restart two nuclear reactors in western Japan. As I noted in this blog a month ago, all of Japan’s nuclear reactors are offline. Before the Fukushima meltdown, 30% of the nation’s electricity came from uranium fission reactors. As a result of these shutdowns, there is […]
For the first time since 1970, not a single electron on the Japanese power grid comes from fission reactors. On Saturday, May 5, 2012, engineers began inserting control rods to bring the fission process to an end at the third and final Tomari reactor. Until last year’s earthquake, tsunami and reactor meltdown, Japan got 30% […]
Taking lessons from the Fukushima nuclear incident in March 2011, the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) will review standard evacuation procedures in the event of a threat to a US nuclear plant, an NRC official said at a think tank event Thursday (March 22nd). Although current NRC standards require a 10-mile evacuation buffer and […]
A year ago today, a huge earthquake hit Japan, followed by a tsunami that destroyed thousands of lives. It also started a chain of events that caused three reactors at the Fukushima nuclear plant to meltdown. Here are a few facts that are important to remember as we reconsider nuclear power and how we do […]
With the arrival of December, it’s time to check the rear-view mirror to see where we have been in order to have some clue as to where we are going. In the energy realm, 2011 was the Year of the Three Fs: Fukushima, Fracking and Finance. Japan is used to earthquakes, and the odd tsunami […]
The year is certainly not over yet – the annual international UN climate conference is ongoing in South Africa for the next ten days. Nevertheless, here’s a quick look at what we’ve seen – and what we might expect in 2012. Casting back to my look at 2010 and beyond, I predicted witch hunts from […]
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the one that has jurisdiction over both the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the U.S. Department of Energy, held a Member Meeting to hear updates from both agencies regarding the ongoing nuclear messiness at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan. You will recall that three of the […]