fukushima
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Russia decides there’s no problem with Chernobyl-style reactors
Soviet-era, Chernobyl-style RMYK nuclear reactors were only designed to be used for 30 years, but now Russia has decided to extend the life of 11 of them to 45 years. Great idea or GREATEST idea?
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Beautiful short film imagines a radioactive Japan
This short film, called "Blind," imagines what would happen if the gas masks that so many Japanese bought after Fukushima had ended up being necessary in Tokyo. It shows the mundane realities of a radioactive life — the blinged-out schoolgirl respirators are a particularly nice touch — but also touches on the bigger issues of […]
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Can Japan get off nuclear by 2012 without wrecking its economy?
A new plan for a massive shift to renewables could move Japan away from nuclear permanently, even as it creates hundreds of thousands of jobs for the country's ailing economy.
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China to build 50+ nuclear reactors based on unsafe 60's tech, says Wikileaks
"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.
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Critical List: Keystone XL protests begin; Fukushima area could be uninhabitable for decades
In DC, protests against the Keystone XL pipeline began this weekend. The first round of protesters that cops arrested sat in jail through the weekend, longer than police had said they'd be detained.
The area around Fukushima has levels of radioactivity so high, it could be uninhabitable for decades.
The U.K. cycling industry contributes more than $4.7 billion to the country's economy each year. -
Japan’s government allowed evacuations into radiation plume’s path
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 shift. Obstacles like tall buildings, forests, and mountains can have an impact. Predicting a plume's path is sort of like predicting the path of a nasty storm, only the consequences of being wrong are a little more dire than a few wet people who didn't bring an umbrella to the office. -
What life is like inside the Fukushima evacuation zone
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.
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Here come Japan's post-nuclear model solar communities
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.
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Tokyo is cutting electricity use by 15 percent
Japanese people are already kicking Americans' butts when it comes to energy efficiency: they use half as much energy as we do already, despite their proclivity for gadgets like automatic toilets. But since the Fukushima meltdown, they've gotten even more hyper-aware of the need to save energy.
In Tokyo, the government is hoping to cut electricity use during work hours by 15 percent compared to last year, and they're on track to do it.