Japan has hemmed and hawed about closing its nuclear reactors after the 2011 Fukushima disaster. At first there was talk of closing down all reactors, but the motion was whittled down to affect just those that fail rigorous safety testing, and finally none at all. A panel of seismic experts just announced that one of Japan’s oldest reactors sits on a highly earthquake-prone site and should be shuttered permanently – and the government is taking the first steps towards shutting it down.

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Post tags: earthquake nuclear reactors, Fukushima disaster, fukushima japan, fukushima meltdown, fukushima nuclear power plant, fukushima reactor, Japan closing reactors, Japan ending nuclear power, japan nuclear power, Japan nuclear reactors, nuclear power concerns

As Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster demonstrated, no nuclear plant is ever completely safe. In January 2012, the San Onofre nuclear generating station (SONGS) in Southern California was closed due to the discovery of a radiation leak and other damaged components. It has now been over a year, and Southern California Edison (SCE), which operates the station, has asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for permission to bring the plant back online. Unfortunately for them, a shocking photograph published by local ABC affiliate 10 News has cast doubt over whether SCE’s request should be granted. The image, taken almost a year after the plant’s closure, shows a leaky pipe being held together with masking tape, plastic bags and broom handles.

Read the rest of San Onofre Nuclear Plant Investigation Finds Leaky Pipe Held Together With Tape, Plastic Bags, Broom Handles

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Post tags: Electricity, fossil fuels, nuclear industry, nuclear plant, nuclear power, renewable energy, safety, san onofre

A team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) recently announced that Japan may need more than 40 years to decommission the Fukushima power plant. The head of the IAEA clean up team, Juan Carlos Lentijo, said that the damage at the nuclear plant is so complex that it is impossible to predict how long the cleanup may last, and he has urged Japanese nuclear provider TEPCO to improve stability at the facility.

Read the rest of Cleaning Up The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster Could Take Over 40 Years

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Post tags: Fukushima, fukushima clean up, fukushima nuclear disaster, IAEA, International Atomic Energy Agency, Japan, nuclear disaster, nuclear energy

Efforts to repair damage to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear plant in Japan suffered yet another setback on Sunday when workers found a small leak in pipes leading from the facility’s cooling pools. Last month cooling systems failed at the plant after a rat apparently chewed through electric cables housed in a temporary facility. On April 5, work to set in place anti-rodent measures knocked the cooling systems back offline before a 32,000 gallon leak was discovered in a cooling pool just a day later. This latest leak has further delayed repair work.

Read the rest of New Leak at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Raises Yet More Safety Concerns

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Post tags: Fukushima, Fukushima Accident, fukushima cooling, fukushima daiichi, fukushima leak, fukushima rat, japan earthquake, japan energy, nuclear accident, nuclear power, radioactive, TEPCO, tokyo electric power company

Tens of thousands of gallons of radioactive water leaked from an underground storage tank at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi power plant this past Saturday. It is still uncertain how much water has reached the soil, but the Tokyo Electric Power Company said that radiation levels outside the pool have risen, indicating that some water is getting out. Thousands more gallons may leak before the pool can be emptied, said TEPCO.

Read the rest of Up to 120 Tons of Radioactive Water Leak from Fukushima Daiichi Storage Tank

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Post tags: fukushima daiichi disaster, fukushima daiichi nuclear power plant, fukushima daiichi power plant, japan nuclear disaster, nuclear disaster Japan 2011, nuclear power plants, radioactive water Daiichi, Tepco nuclear power plant, tsunami disaster Japan 2011, water leak Daiichi

Many of the survivor stories we have heard from the 2011 earthquake and and Fukushima disaster in Japan involve worrying levels of radiation – but now we have a happy fish tale to tell. A small fishing boat thought to have washed out to sea after the tsunami struck the coast of Japan has recently washed up on the Washington coast, and with it, a small striped beak fish that survived the 5,000 mile trip from Japan to the United States!

Read the rest of Japanese Tsunami Fish Washes up in Washington Alive!

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Post tags: Animals, Environment, fauna, fish survives tsunami, Fukushima, Japan, News, Oregon, radiation, striped beak fish, tsunami, tsunami fish washes up in washington, washington coast

After reaching record levels of production in 2012, the world’s wind power capacity is projected to grow to reach 300,000 MW by the end of 2013. With major projects announced in the past few months, China, Denmark the EU and the US remain among the primary producers of the world’s wind power, while Japan hopes to soon become home to the world’s largest offshore wind farm as nations in Eastern Europe and Latin America begin to harness their own wind potential. Currently operating wind turbines can already—at European levels of production—provide carbon-free power for over 450 million homes world-wide.

Read the rest of Global Wind Power Production to Break 300,000 MW This Year, Could Top 425,000 MW by 2015

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Post tags: "wind power", california wind farm, china wind, denmark energy, global wind power capacity, offshore wind, palm springs wind, renewable energy, wind capacity, wind power production, world wind power generation

A little over two years since a devastating earthquake struck Japan and triggered the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, Google has collaborated with the town of Namie-machi, which sits inside the Fukushima Prefecture, to produce haunting Street View images of the stricken area. In a guest post on Google’s blog, Namie-machi Mayor Tamotsu Baba explains that the town has remained untouched since the disaster, and its 21,000 residents unable to return due to high levels of radiation.

Read the rest of Google Launches Haunting Street View of Fukushima Exclusion Zone Two Years After the Disaster

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Post tags: disaster zone, earthquake, exclusion zone, Fukushima, fukushima daiichi, fukushima picture, Google, Google Street View, Japan, namie-machi, natural disaster, nuclear disaster, tsnami

When a partial power outage caused the cooling system at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station to fail earlier this week, concerns were renewed as to the vulnerability of the now infamous power plant. The site of a triple meltdown following Japan’s earthquake and tsunami in 2011, the plant lost cooling facilities for as long as 30 hours beginning on Monday. As Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) successfully brought the cooling systems back online they found what they believe to have been the source of the panic-raising outage: the charred remains of a rat.

Read the rest of Fukushima Cooling System May Have Been Knocked Offline by a Rat

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Post tags: cooling pool, cooling system, cooling systems, Fukushima, fukushima daiichi, fukushima outage, fukushima power, fukushima switchboard, japan nuclear, nuclear danger, nuclear power, radioactive, Spent Fuel, TEPCO, tokyo electric power

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Post tags: 2013 Pritzker Prize, architecture awards, earthquake resistant building, Japanese architects, Lord Peter Palumbo, pritzker architecture laureate, pritzker prize announcement, pritzker prize japanese architect, Sendai Library, Serpentine Gallery Toyo Ito, TOD’s Omotesando Building, toyo ito, Toyo Ito Pritzker Prize

Japan is faced with a number of challenges when it comes to domestic energy production – the country is the world’s largest importer of natural gas, and since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear meltdown it has greatly increased its purchase of fossil fuels. In order to find a local energy source, the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has invested millions of dollars towards exploiting methane hydrate (also known as “flammable ice”) – and today they announced that they’ve successfully extracted it from the seabed for the first time. Methane is known to be an extremely potent greenhouse gas that is 20 times more damaging than CO2. If Japan taps reserves beneath the seabed, it could have catastrophic consequences for the environment.

Read the rest of Japan Successfully Taps ‘Flammable Ice’ as an Energy Source for the First Time

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Post tags: atsumi peninsula, canada, chikyu, china, Climate Change, CO2, drilling, flammable ice, fukushima daiichi, global warming, greenhouse gas, ice, Japan, methane, Methane Hydrate, north carolina, norway, ocean, seabed, south carolina

Former Tepco executive Eiju Hangai, who quit the company a few months before the 2011 devastating tsunami and nuclear meltdown in Fukushima, has built a solar agricultural park near the power plant. The new Fukushima Recovery Solar-Agri Park, which is located about 25 kilometers from Fukushima, contains more than 2,000 solar panels and two air-inflated greenhouse domes. In addition to providing energy for local farmers to produce crops and vegetables, solar panels will also power 170 local households. The project aims to speed up the recovery process of disaster-affected communities in the area and help Fukushima in its effort to become completely self-sufficient by 2040.

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Post tags: "clean energy", "solar energy", fukushima nuclear disaster, hydrophonic greenhouse, hydroponic farming, Japan greenhouses, Japan solar panels, Minamisoma Solar Agriculture Park, photovoltaic panels, Solar Power, solar-powered greenhouses, Tepco Eiju Hangai, Tepco Fukushima

It’s been two years since the deadly earthquake and tsunami ravaged Japan, destroying homes and triggering a nuclear disaster. Although the 8.9-magnitude earthquake and subsequent deluge killed thousands and leveled towns, there was one stark reminder of the planet’s resilience: an 88-foot pine tree that refused to succumb to the onslaught. It stood as the last remaining member of what was once a forest of 70,000 trees along the coast in Rikuzentakata, Iwate prefecture. This week officials unveiled a massive sculpture that memorializes the special tree, and serves as a quiet reminder of nature’s power.

Read the rest of Japanese Town Memorializes Miracle Pine Tree That Survived the 2011 Tsunami

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Post tags: Art, conservation, earthquake, forest, Japan, memorial, miracle pine, natural disaster, preservation, sculpture, tsunami

Last year, we reported that MIT’s cheetah robot broke the speed record for four-legged robots by running at 18mph. Now, MIT researchers say that their robotic version of the wild cat may soon outpace its animal counterpart in running efficiency! The robot’s streamlined stride and its lightweight electric motors produce high torque with very little energy wasted.

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Post tags: all terrain robot, bigdog, bigdog robot, Boston Dynamics, cheetah, darpa, ls3, power arm, robots, us army robot

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced today that Japan plans to begin restarting its idled nuclear plants later this year. All 50 of Japan’s nuclear reactors were taken offline after a meltdown occurred at the Fukushima Daiichi plant following a devastating tsunami almost two years ago. In the wake of the disaster, Japanese politicians vowed to phase out nuclear power in favor or renewable energy, but the announcement today by Abe signals a change of course back to nuclear. The news coincides with a new report from the World Health Organization that cancer risks are 70 percent higher for female infants living near Fukushima.

Read the rest of Japanese Prime Minister Announces Plans to Start Bringing Nuclear Power Plants Back Online

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Post tags: earthquake, Fukushima, fukushima daiichi, fukushima nuclear power plant, Japan, japan nuclear, japan tsunami, japanese tsunami, nuclear, nuclear power plant, renewable energy, Shinzo Abe, tokyo electric power company

The 2011 Fukushima disaster was incredibly devastating, but the event’s full impact may not be realized for years to come. According to a recent report from the World Health Organization, people living near the site of the accident have a higher risk of developing certain cancers. Women are particularly vulnerable, and female infants have a 70% higher risk of developing cancer.

Read the rest of WHO Estimates That Cancer Risk is 70% Higher For Female Infants Near Fukushima

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Post tags: Fukushima Accident, Fukushima cancer, Fukushima cancer risk, Fukushima disaster, fukushima nuclear power, nuclear disaster 2011, nuclear power cancer risk, Nuclear Power disaster, nuclear power risks, thyroid cancer nuclear power

Wind energy has surpassed nuclear power to become the third largest energy source in China. The country’s Wind capacity has grown rapidly over the years, and in 2012 China’s wind farms generated 100.4 terrawatt hours of electricity. Moreover, as the Earth Policy Institute reports, China’s wind capacity has increased by 70 percent more than nuclear power since 2007.

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Post tags: "clean energy", china clean energy green, china clean energy industry, china nuclear power, China Wind Energy Association, china wind power, Daiichi nuclear disaster, Fukushima disaster nuclear power, generation III nuclear reactors, renewable energy sources China, Wind Farms, wind turbines

Japan’s Agency for Natural Resources and Energy has announced plans to build the world’s largest offshore wind farm near Fukushima as part of plans to reconstruct the area stricken by nuclear disaster in 2011. The project aims to address electricity shortage issues that arose after the closure of the damaged Daiichi power plant and 54 other nuclear reactors throughout the country. The plan is to build 143 turbines by 2020 with the capacity to generate 1 GW of power, which will help make Fukushima energy self-sufficient by 2040.

Read the rest of Japan To Build World’s Largest Offshore Wind Farm Near Fukushima

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Post tags: fukushima nuclear disaster, Japan clean energy, japan nuclear disaster, japan renewables, japan tepco, japan wind energy, offshore wind farms, offshore wind turbines, Solar Power, The Japan Agency for Natural Resources and Energy, wind turbines, world's largest offshore wind farm

Argo Medical Technologies just unveiled a new generation of the ReWalk exoskeleton, a device that enables people with spinal cord injuries to sit, stand and walk. The ReWalk Rehabilitation 2.0 is a redesigned model that features an improved learning interface specially designed to support beginner users and is resizable in order to fit a broader range of patients.

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Post tags: Argo Medical Technologies, design for paraplegics, exoskeleton paraplegics, medical innovations, medical technology, motion sensors, patented medical technology, prosthetic devices, ReWalk Exoskeleton, ReWalk Rehabilitation, ReWalk Rehabilitation Suit

A fish caught in the waters near Fukushima Daiichi‘s main reactor on Friday had over 2,500 times the legal limit of radioactivity for human consumption. Caught by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the murasoi fish bore the highest levels of radioactive particles seen to date—25,000 Becquerels per kilogram, which is 2540 times higher than current Japanese safety standards. According to findings, contaminated water is still leaking from the nuclear power plant.


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Post tags: Daiichi nuclear reactor, environmental destruction, fukushima daiichi power plant, fukushima nuclear disaster, Japan contaminated fish, Japan endangered marine life, Japan radioactive fish, nuclear power, radioactive murasoi fish, TEPCO Japan