"China is currently in the process of building as many as 50 to 60 new nuclear plants by 2020; the vast majority will be the CPR-1000, a copy of 60's era Westinghouse technology that can be built cheaply and quickly and with the majority of parts sourced from Chinese manufacturers," says this cable from the U.S. embassy in Beijing. And according to that same cable, 100 percent of those reactors lack the passive safety systems available in more-advanced reactors made by GE and Westinghouse. Passive safety assures that if a plant loses power or is hit by some kind of …

Last week's earthquake may have shaken a Virginia nuclear plant more than the plant was designed to withstand. There wasn’t much damage, but, uh, maybe it’s time to retrofit these older East Coast plants, just in case. Since Energy Star labels have come to mean next to nothing, there are new ones. Look for "most efficient" Energy Star labels to find appliances that meet the highest standards for energy saving. Japan passed a bill promising incentives for renewable energy, but companies are waiting for the government to hash out the details before they jump in. Collars that can tell when, …

East Coasters may not know what do in an earthquake, but a hurricane's coming, too. That, we know about. The Obama administration is looking into "leasing" nuclear fuel from other countries, which would let American plants use the uranium, then return it for disposal once the fuel is spent. It’s like a bottle-return program, but with much higher stakes. Chinese consumers want cars, not those namby pamby EVs. Also, as a planet, we have 1 billion cars now. Didn't we tell you the EPA creates jobs? When we say the EPA creates jobs, believe it. Your laundry soap could come …

Obama wants 80 percent of America's energy to come from clean and renewable sources by 2035. But what would that really take? Mostly, it means replacing 2/3 of our coal-fired power plants with power sources that don't depend on fossil fuels. The scale of that ambition is difficult to comprehend -- which is why it's handy that Climate Central has created an interactive to walk you through what it really means. The image above is just a screengrab -- run, don't walk, to the original.)

The Tennessee Valley authority has reduced the output of three of its nuclear power plants for the second summer in a row, thanks to unusually warm temperatures in the rivers into which they would normally discharge water. Of note: There's no physical reason why the plants can't use the warm water. Laws say that power plants can't heat the rivers into which they discharge above 86.9 degrees F because it's bad for fish. But even without the plant’s help, climate change already caused the Tennessee River to bust right through that threshold. (This means that whatever fish are still living …

In the aftermath of Fukushima, Japanese people are registering less trust in their government, and stories like this one are the reason why. The entire community of Namie evacuated out of the area surrounding Fukushima to a safe haven, only to find later that they were still in the path of radiation, and the government had tools that indicated as much. When a large plume of something nasty — chemicals, biological hazards, or radiation — is released into the air, it doesn't stay in one place. It's not always obvious where it will go, though. Winds and air pressure systems …

Photographer Max Hodges has a photo essay on Google+ about his travels in the Fukushima evacuation zone. This mysterious ninja, Shoji Kobayashi, had been living there since the nuclear disaster began, gardening and trying to salvage tsunami-damaged keepsakes.  Kobayashi was eventually forced to evacuate, and now lives in a small apartment with no garden and spends his time playing pachinko. Take a look through Hodges' photos for his story, and many other incredibly arresting images of radiation suits and tsunami damage from the disaster area.

Blog your experience building a nuclear reactor in your kitchen, go to jail. Them's the laws in Sweden, where no nerd's supervillain-esque childhood fantasy fulfillment goes unpunished. The man, who explained that his interest in nuclear physics was awakened as a teenager, ordered some radioactive material from overseas and acquired more by taking apart a domestic fire alarm. Despite the man's frank and full disclosure of his experiment, his activities only came to the attention of the authorities a couple of weeks ago when he contacted the Swedish Radiation Authority (Strålsäkerhetsmyndigheten) to inquire if it was legal to construct a …

Is Congress passing a bill? Then you can bet it's bad for the environment. The debt deal is no exception. We're almost out of time to start dealing with climate change, a new report says. Emissions would need to peak in 2020 in order for the planet to escape real damage. So … yeah. Related: "Expectations are not high at the moment" for the Durban round of climate talks, according to a UN official. Radiation levels in some parts of the Fukushima plant are still deadly. Charles Monnett isn't being investigated for his 2006 article on polar bear deaths, the …

If you thought Abu Dhabi's uber-green Masdar city was ambitious and/or doomed, just wait until you see what Japan's cooking up. In a pair of nearby cities in Hiroshima prefecture, Fukuyama and Onomichi, a coalition is going to power as much of their grid as possible with solar energy. The factory of ship-building company Tsuneishi Holdings Corporation is getting tricked out with solar panels, as are the homes of its workers. The batteries of citizens’ electric cars will be used to store the resulting energy when it's not being used. The overall goal appears to be about proof-of-concept -- learning …