Guardian: “Almost two years after the triple meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi power plant sent shockwaves around the world, Japan‘s government is attempting to resell the nuclear dream to a traumatised public.” Read more
Solarcentury
The company I founded in 1998 to design and supply solar energy solutions for the built environment. Solarcentury
Solar Aid
The charity I founded in 2006, with a 5% contribution of Solarcentury profits, to help deliver solar lighting to Africa. Solar Aid
Fukushima 50: ‘We felt like kamikaze pilots’.
January 11, 2013 Nuclear
Guardian: “Yoshizawa and several Tepco colleagues decided they had no choice but to return to Fukushima Daiichi. As they left the crisis headquarters, firefighters, police officers, soldiers and nuclear officials lined up to salute them.” Read more
New Japanese government seeks to reverse nuclear phase out.
January 11, 2013 Nuclear
Japan announces nuclear phase out within 30 years.
September 14, 2012 Nuclear
Guardian: “The move to close all 50 of the country’s functioning reactors by around 2040 marks a dramatic change of course by a country that had previously championed atomic energy, putting Japan alongside Germany and Switzerland, which also turned away from nuclear power following the disaster. Japan, the world’s third biggest user of nuclear power before the disaster, had planned to increase nuclear’s share of the energy mix to 50% by 2030.”
Fukushima was a man-made disaster: Japanese parliament panel.
July 5, 2012 Nuclear
Guardian: “Last year’s accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was a manmade disaster caused by poor regulation and collusion between the government, the operator and the industry’s watchdog, a report has said.” Read more
Japan succeeds in bringing Fukushima to cold shutdown.
December 16, 2011 Nuclear
Radiation leaks from the three reactor meltdowns have forced more than 100,000 people to abandon homes and polluted some 3 per cent of Japan’s land mass to levels requiring decontamination.
Nuclear power, at a crossroads, cannot afford another accident.
November 15, 2011 Nuclear
So writes Sylvia Pfeifer in the FT. More than 500 reactors planned or proposed, a market worth thousands of billions of dollars, are at risk from the Fukushima fallout, the dire progress in Finland, and the collapse in public trust.
Uncertainty will remain about China’s nuclear policy until next spring.
November 15, 2011 Nuclear
China suspension of approvals for new nuclear plants, announced less than a week after Fukushima, is still in place and a sweeping review of laws and regulations underway. Twenty-seven reactors are under construction in China today, more than 40 per cent of the global total, and about 10 more were on track before the suspension. The new rules may be completed by next spring, the FT reports.
“Anti-nuclear mood melts Tepco’s hopes of normality”.
November 15, 2011 Nuclear
The FT describes how far the ward of the state is from returning to its $65 bn monopoly business as usual. Japan has retreated from a pre-disaster target of lifting nuclear in the mix to 50%, and many mayors and governors are refusing to let reactors start up again.
Fukushima: “grim and shambolic” say first journalists allowed in.
November 12, 2011 Nuclear
Eight months on, the first journalists allowed inside the plant report chaotic scenes. They are allowed nowhere near the reactors,, and are told by the environment minister that it may take 30 years to decommission the plant.
Japan due to restart first reactor since Fukushima.
November 1, 2011 Nuclear
The reactor, in Kyushu, had been shut down after a cooling incident.
IAEA: Fukushima as bad as Chernobyl.
September 28, 2011 Nuclear
Six countries have notified the IAEA that they abandoned plans as a result of the disaster. The UK looks like being the largest western market in the decade ahead.
Tepco considered abandoning Fukushima, and Kan feared for the nation.
September 8, 2011 Nuclear
Naoto Kan, former PM, in the Guardian: “Withdrawing from the plant was out of the question. If that had happened, Tokyo would be deserted by now. It was a critical moment for Japan’s survival. It could have been a led to leaks of dozens of times more radiation than Chernobyl.” He also says Tepco were not telling him the true situation.
Japan says some areas near Fukushima will remain uninhabitable for many years.
August 22, 2011 Nuclear
The 90,000 evacuated residents had all been expecting to return home. Of 50 sites monitored, 35 have levels exceeding 20 millisieverts of radiation exposure a year, the level at which the government considers evacuation becomes necessary. At Okuma, a town 3km from the nuclear power plant, the reading was 508.1 millisieverts per year. With the stable cooling of the reactors completed in July, the government expects a cold shutdown of the plant to be completed in January.
Fukushima cooling system was probably crippled before the tsunami struck.
August 17, 2011 Nuclear
A investigation by the Independent: “Throughout the months of lies and misinformation, one story has stuck: it was the earthquake that knocked out the plant’s electric power, halting cooling to its six reactors. The tsunami then washed out the plant’s back-up generators 40 minutes later, shutting down all cooling and starting the chain of events that would cause the world’s first triple meltdown.” But plant workers are telling reporters that the cooling system had failed pre tsunami.
Fukushima children test positive for caesium.
June 30, 2011 Nuclear
Trace amounts of caesium-134 and caesium-137 have been found in urine from children from Fukushima city, 37 miles (60km) away from the plant. A Japanese civic group and Acro, a French body tested 10, and all were positive. Nanao Kamada, professor emeritus of radiation biology at Hiroshima University told reporters “this won’t be a problem if they don’t eat vegetables or other contaminated products. But it will be difficult for people to continue living in these areas.” Tens of thousands of children are to be given radiation dosimeters in Fukushima city.
British government colluded with nuclear industry to play down Fukushima from Day Two.
June 30, 2011 Nuclear
Internal e-mails seen by the Guardian show how officials approached EDF, Areva and Westinghouse wanting to script a PR campaign to ensure the UK reactor-building programme was not derailed, well ahead of any clear knowledge of how bad the incident was. BIS official, name redacted: “This has the potential to set the nuclear industry back globally. We need to ensure the anti-nuclear chaps and chapesses do not gain ground on this. We need to occupy the territory and hold it. We really need to show the safety of nuclear.” John Vidal in the Guardian on this “Orwellian” revelation: “What the emails shows is a weak government, captured by a powerful industry colluding to at least misinform and very probably lie to the public and the media. When the emails were sent, no one, least of all the industry and its friends in and out of government, had any idea how serious the situation at Fukushima was or might become.”
Citizens across world oppose nuclear power, favour solar, poll finds.
June 23, 2011 Nuclear
A new opinion poll from Ipsos MORI tells us how the battle for hearts and minds is going: 62% of citizens in 24 countries across the world oppose the use of nuclear energy, with a quarter of those having change their minds after Fukushima. In the UK, the split is 50:50. In France, 67% are opposed. The Guardian environment editor finds himself impressed with the data. Solar is the most popular energy technology.
“Fukushima report shows nuclear power can never be safe and cheap”.
June 20, 2011 Nuclear
So says Damian Carrington in the Guardian, commenting on the IAEA report on the Fukushima disaster. ” The first “independent” review of the safety failures during Japan’s nuclear disaster reveals some chillingly obvious “lessons” to be learned”.
Fukushima water decontamination halted after radiation rise.
June 18, 2011 Nuclear
The rapid rise was unexpected, and Tepco cannot say when decontamination work can begin again. 30 of Japan’s 54 nuclear power plants are still out of operation.
Japan admits Fukushima reactors may have suffered “melt through”.
June 8, 2011 Nuclear
The fuel may have melted through the pressure vessels in the three reactors, not just the cores. This would leaves it sitting on the concrete floor, a much more serious situation than hitherto admitted..
IAEA inspectors: Fukushima response “exemplary”.
June 1, 2011 Nuclear
The UN team, led by the UK’s Mike Weightman, concludes that the tsunami risk was underestimated but….
Tepco says reactors 2 and 3 melted down early.
May 24, 2011 Nuclear
Melted fuel is being cooled at the bottom of pressure vessels, the utility says. Number 3 started melting March 13 (Day 3) and number 2 March 14. This on top of the first reactor meltdown already announced.
“Head to head: Does the UK need nuclear power?”
May 19, 2011 Commentaries, Nuclear
In light of the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, Mark Lynas and Jeremy Leggett give their opinions in The Environmentalist.