EcocentricEnergy
Summer has arrived in Japan. The pink cherry blossoms that offered some aesthetic respite from the destruction in the weeks after March 11 are long gone, and the heat —and all of the attendant challenges of living long-term with a nuclear disaster — have arrived. In Tokyo, where the mayor has set an ambitious energy reduction goal of …
EcocentricEnergy
Naoto Kan, Japan’s beleaguered prime minister, has acknowledged for the first time since March 11 that he may step down — but not until he’s done doing what he needs to do. Kan has come under increasing pressure from both inside and outside his party to give up his post after his handling of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami and …
EcocentricEnergy
The IAEA has released a preliminary report of its review of Japan’s handling of its nuclear crisis, concluding that regulators and Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) underestimated the risk a severe tsunami posed to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The UN agency also noted that the plant’s backup power systems were not …
EcocentricEcocentric
In a way, it’s a sign that things are returning to normal. Even the March tsunami that swept away much of the small town of Otsuchi was not powerful enough to wipe out tensions between locals and the Western activists who have been monitoring dolphin hunting in the fishing hamlet on the Japan’s northeast coast.
Activists from the …
EcocentricPolitics
Two weeks after announcing the meltdown of fuel inside Fukushima’s No. 1 reactor, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has said there have very likely been partial meltdowns at the other two reactors that were operating when the crisis began on March 11 as well. A spokesman for TEPCO, Japan’s largest power company that has come …
EcocentricUncategorized
Tokyo Electric Power Company’s head honcho stepped down today as the company announced $15 billion losses for the fiscal year that ended in March. Here’s my post over at Global Spin on how — and if — Tepco can survive.
EcocentricWildlife
In the past few days, two pieces of good news have floated to the surface from the morass of Japan’s ongoing nuclear crisis. No, nothing has really improved at Fukushima; in fact, things have turned out to be worse inside Reactor 1 than TEPCO thought. (Read more about that over on Global Spin.)
But! Japan’s Environment ministry, …
EcocentricUncategorized
Krista Mahr posted a great item this morning on Japan’s decision to stop building new nuclear plants in the wake of the Fukushima disaster. Atomic power already supplies some 30% of Japan’s electricity—considerably larger than nuclear’s share in the U.S.—and the Japanese government had plans on table to add another 14 reactors …
EcocentricWind Power
After two months of near silence, Japan’s government has seemingly awoken from its slumber and kicked into high damage-control gear. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Naoto Kan, whose administration has come under fire for its slow and opaque response to the ongoing nuclear crisis at Fukushima, made two surprise announcements. First, that he …
EcocentricRegulation
Chubu Electric Power Company agreed on Monday to suspend operations at the controversial Hamaoka nuclear power plant, three days after Prime Minister Naoto Kan made an unprecedented request for the company to shut down the plant, citing safety concerns. Like the beleaguered Daiichi Fukishima nuclear power plant further north, Hamaoka is …
