For all its remoteness, the North Pole generates a lot of controversy. In 1909, the American admiral Robert Peary reported that he successfully reached the geographic North Pole, a feat of navigation that is now widely disputed. Nearly a century later, another expedition to the remote top of the globe caused a stir when Russian …
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Could Less Arctic Ice Offer a Pirate-Free Route for Ships?
I went to an interesting talk today in Hong Kong where Felix Tschudi, the chairman of the Tschudi Shipping Company in Norway, raised an interesting proposition: What if the shipping industry’s pirate problem could be solved by our warming planet?
In 2010, Tschudi starting working on a plan to start shipping iron ore from …
Why Can’t We Turn Away From Coal As Japan Has Turned Away From Nuclear?
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 …
Report: No Increased Risk of Leukemia Near Nuke Plants
A major new report looking at over three decades of data in the UK has found no evidence that young children living near nuclear power plants face an increased risk of developing leukemia.
However, the report looked only at nuclear power plants during normal operation and so the findings cannot be used to predict the health …
Fukushima: Footage from Inside the Plant
A colleague in Japan just drew my attention to this video on YouTube that was shot inside the beleaguered Fukushima nuclear power plant. It was shot on April 22 by Aoyama Shigeharu, a member of the Japanese government’s Atomic Energy Commission.
I don’t know a whole lot more about it than that — such as how it ended up on Japanese …
How many did Chernobyl kill? More than 4,000….
April 26 will mark the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear accident. I’ll be publishing a story on the day that, with the help of TIME’s Kiev-based stringer James Marson, will show how the effects of the meltdown continue to be felt in the region. Nuclear accidents require the work of generations to clean-up. That’s a troubling …
President Obama, Vaclav Smil and the Energy Budget
Speaking at George Washington University today on the nation’s finances, President Obama drew a line in the sand, promising to protect Medicare and Medicaid from Republican budget cuts. But at the same time, Obama didn’t play down the severity of the country’s debt woes, pledging to cut a combined $4 trillion from the U.S. budget …
Geothermal: A More Grounded Power Source for Japan?
On Sunday, over 17,000 people took to the streets of Tokyo to let their government know they’ve had it with nuclear power. It was an unusual display of mass disgruntlement in the Japanese capital, but these are unusual times. Residents walked through the neighborhood of Koenji – reportedly the birthplace of Japanese punk – with …
What Does Fukushima’s Level 7 Status Mean?
(UPDATED) Japanese officials announced on Tuesday morning that they were planning to raise the event level at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant from 5 to the maximum level of 7, the highest on the international scale for nuclear incidents and the same level assigned to the 1986 disaster at Chernobyl in the Ukraine.
The …
Is the U.S. Ready for a Nuclear Emergency?
On Friday, Japan faced another round of assessing the damage from a massive aftershock — the strongest in over 400 in the last month — that struck off the north coast late last night. At least three people were killed in the quake and more than 140 injured, and as of Friday evening, millions in the disaster-struck region were again …