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.

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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

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!

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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

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.

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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

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.

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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

Read the rest of Takashi Homma Photographs Radioactive Mushrooms from Forests Near Fukushima

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Post tags: eco design, Fukushima, Fukushima Forest, green design, Mushrooms of the FOrest, Radioactive mushrooms, sustainable design, Takashi Homma, Tanaka Yoshihisa

Eight US sailors have filed a lawsuit against the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) that owns the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant that melted down after an earthquake and tsunami struck in March, 2011. The soldiers who provided relief operations in the aftermath of the disaster claim that Tepco failed to release accurate information about the level of risk as a result of leaking radiation, as a result of which they were exposed to dangerous amounts.

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Post tags: earthquake, environmental distraction, federal court, Fukushima, fukushima daiichi, Health, Japan, lawsuit, nuclear, nuclear energy, radiation exposure, TEPCO, tsunami, US soldiers

Last year’s Fukushima nuclear disaster in Northeast Japan could have been avoided, Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) admitted at a recent conference in Tokyo. A parliamentary inquiry found that bad habits and the absence of a strong safety culture resulted in the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986. Three reactors melted down after an earthquake-triggered tsunami engulfed the plant on 11 March, releasing obscene quantities of radiation into the air and sea and forcing at least 160,000 people from their homes.

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Post tags: chernobyl, environmental news, Fukushima, Fukushima could have been avoided, Japan, nuclear disaster, radiation, TEPCO

Japan is located in a seismically and volcanically active part of the world – which is why the country’s decision to build nuclear power plants has always been so controversial. As the Fukushima incident showed, a large-scale natural disaster has the potential to be devastating. Recently a team of geologists discovered that a nuclear reactor in Tsuruga is located on an active seismic fault, and now the Japanese government is considering scrapping the plant.

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Post tags: caesium, fish, Fukushima, Fukushima disaster, geology, greenlings, nuclear power plant, nuclear power plants, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, radiation, radiation levels, seismic region, shellfish

During Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster, emergency workers were often unable to get close to the site due to high levels of radiation. In order to combat this challenge in the future, the Toshiba Corporation has developed a tetrapod robot that is able to carry out investigative and recovery work in locations that are be too risky for people to enter, such as volcanic regions, major disaster zones or a nuclear accident sites.

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Post tags: disaster zone, Fukushima, nuclear accident, nuclear disaster, rescue bot, resuce robot, tetrapod robot, Toshiba, toshiba corporation, toshiba robot

This morning, officials announced that New Jersey’s Oyster Creek nuclear plant is no longer on alert. The alert was brought on by quickly rising water levels, which posed a danger to the plant’s cooling equipment. Oyster Creek wasn’t the only nuclear plant to be affected by Hurricane Sandy; three other rectors in New Jersey and Upstate New York were also forced offline by the storm. Even though those facilities dodged the bullet this time, it brings to light just how vulnerable the nation’s nuclear energy facilities are to extreme weather events.

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Post tags: Exelon Corp., Fukushima, Hurricane Sandy, hurricane sandy damage, hurricane sandy damage new jersey, hurricane sandy nuclear power, hurricane sandy power, New Jersey Oyster Creek. NJ alert nuclear power plant, nuclear disaster, nuclear power threats, Nuclear Regulatory Commission warnings hurricane sandy

This week Cyberdyne unveiled a robotic exoskeleton called HAL (Hybrid Assistive Limb) that allows its wearer to carry superhuman loads while shielding them from radiation. With the Fukushima nuclear disaster still fresh in Japan’s national memory, the research team designed HAL to aid workers in dismantling the damaged power plant. The most incredible part is that the suit can be controlled by brainwaves! A network of sensors monitors electric signals coming from the user’s brain and uses them to activate the robot’s limbs in unison with the worker’s, allowing them to move without supporting the suit’s weight. As such, the 130-pound suit is barely noticeable to those wearing it.

Read the rest of Cyberdyne Creates Mind-Controlled Robot Exoskeleton to Protect Fukushima Workers from Nuclear Radiation

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Post tags: bionic suit, cyberdyne, exoskeleton suit, Fukushima, HAL, hybrid assistive limb, Iron Man, mind controlled robot exoskeleton, radiation protection, robots

Just a few days after Japanese officials issued a statement that the country plans to end nuclear power usage by 2030, the government has suggested that such plans are not realistic. A cabinet panel has withdrawn the motion to phase out nuclear power, claiming that the decision was hastily made by policy makers. The Japanese Trade and Industry Minister explained that such a shift in power supply would be an arduous undertaking that involves the nation’s business and industry leaders, not just government officials.

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Post tags: eco design, Fukushima, green design, green energy, japan nuclear energy, Nuclear energy ban, renewable energy, sustainable design

Today the government of Japan announced plans to completely abolish nuclear power by as soon as 2030.  The declaration was spurred by last year’s Fukushima disaster, which caused officials to reconsider the country’s power sources. Japan will follow in the footsteps of Germany and Switzerland, who have already sworn off nuclear energy.

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Post tags: eco design, Fukushima, green design, green energy, japan nuclear energy, Nuclear energy ban, renewable energy, sustainable design

Inhabitat has reported on the many effects of the Fukushima nuclear disaster on the surrounding environment – from mutated butterflies to alien species being washed up on the other side of the Pacific. It has now been reported that some fish, specifically a pair of greenlings caught in waters near the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, have been found to show the highest level of radioactive caesium ever detected in fish and shellfish.

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Post tags: caesium, fish, Fukushima, Fukushima disaster, greenlings, nuclear power plant, radiation, radiation levels, shellfish

It’s been well over a year since a massive earthquake and tsunami devastated the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan. During early stages of the fallout, Japanese officials insisted that radioactive contamination did not pose a serious danger to humans or the environment, but in the months that followed, evidence has suggested otherwise. A study published recently in the journal Nature provides evidence that the collapse of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant released a huge amount of radioactive materials into the environment. According to the research, this contamination is already causing physiological and genetic damage to a species of butterfly that used to be common in the region.

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Post tags: Butterflies, earthquake, Fukushima, genetic mutation. nuclear fallout, Japan, radiation, tsunami

Read the rest of Inhabitat Talks to Lisa Katayama About ‘We Are All Radioactive’: a Crowdfunded Video Series About Surfers Rebuilding Japan

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Post tags: 3/11, Architecture for Humanity, crowdfunded, crowdfunded video series, Fukushima, japan earthquake, japan rebuild, Jason Wishnow, lisa katayama, march 11, rebuilding japan, surfers in japan, videos about japan, We Are All Radioactive

Japan’s political system may see a shakeup with a newly revived Greens Japan Party ready to field anti-nuclear candidates. Vowing to put the environment first, the new collation, of mostly regional politicians and activists, aim to turn anti-nuclear protests into a real political force. However, they have a huge uphill battle as both major parties support nuclear power — even after the corruption and extraordinary devastation resulting from the Fukushima meltdown.

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Post tags: Fukushima, Green political party, Japan clean energy, Japan Green Party, japan nuclear power

We’re big fans of Lisa Katayama‘s ‘We Are All Radioactive’ series of films, an online episodic documentary series that follows the lives of surfers and fishermen as they work to rebuild small coastal towns that were affected by the devastating Japanese tsunami. The series, produced with TED film director Jason Wishnow, is entirely crowd-funded, meaning that if you want more episodes, it’s up to you to keep production going. This week, Episode 4 of We Are All Radioactive went live, which sees Lisa and Jason meet surfers who are rebuilding Japan after the March 2011 tsunami.

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Post tags: agate beach, alien species, asian shore crab, ecosystems, Fukushima, fukushima documentary, japanese tsunami, lisa katayama, lisa katayama we are all radioactive, National Geographic, tsunami, tsunami dock, We Are All Radioactive