With food and milk already contaminated from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant, the rally cry against the risks of nuclear energy has resumed with vigor. Most agree that business as usual isn’t a safe policy for the next generation of nuclear power.
According to the Thorium Energy Alliance, the
In response to the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in Japan, Germany has announced plans to go nuclear-free without increasing its reliance on fossil fuels. By ramping up investments in renewables, the German government plans to fight climate change while simultaneously avoiding the risks inherent in nuclear energy. If the plan is
On Feb. 14, U.S. Pres. Barack Obama made a proposal to Congress to raise 2012 budget funds for renewable energy research. He proposed paying for this budget increase by cutting subsidies for fossil fuels including gas and oil.
This budget increase comes at a rather sensitive time for the White House.
Just days after it received a new 20-year license extension from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in New Jersey was found to be leaking radioactive tritium .
Located about 60 miles east of Philadelphia in Lacey Township, New Jersey, the Oyster Creek plant is the oldest in the United States, and the tritium leak from underground pipes that was discovered on April 9, 2009 may have spread further than officials previously thought.
New Jersey environmental officials now say that radioactive tritium has leached into the nearby water aquifer and that the plant’s owners need to install new monitoring wells to keep tabs on the spread of the chemical. Commissioner Bob Martin is worried about the tritium — currently being found at concentrations 50 times higher than those allowed by law — which has been slowly spreading underground at one to three feet a day.
There is an often-vicious debate occurring within the environmental community about nuclear energy. While there are those like Patrick Moore, a founder of Greenpeace, who are arguing in support of nuclear power, there are still many others against it.
Gwyneth Cravens is one environmentalist participating in this debate who supports nuclear energy and wrote Power to Save the World in favor of this energy source. Cravens wasn’t always a nuclear energy supporter. In fact, she once helped support initiatives that prevented a nuclear power plant from being completed in Long Island, where she currently lives.
However, this book shows how she went from being firmly anti-nuclear to believing that nuclear energy is actually environmentally friendly while at the same time following the life cycle of nuclear fuel from extraction to use to storage.
When the founder of the Whole Earth Catalog embraces nuclear power, genetically engineered crops, and geoengineering schemes to cool the planet, you know things have changed in the environmental movement. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Stewart Brand explains how the passage of four decades — and the advent of global warming — have shifted his thinking about what it means to be green.
Stewart Brand helped shape the environmental consciousness of the 1960s and ‘70s with his Whole Earth Catalog, which became a bible of the counterculture and the back-to-the-land movement. An eclectic compendium of information and “tools” for innovative, environmentally friendly living, the Whole Earth Catalog reflected Brand’s ecological and technological interests, foreshadowing the rise of the San Francisco Bay Area’s computer and green cultures.
The British Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) in July unveiled a plan to cut the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions by 34 percent by 2020 compared to 1990 levels.
In par with the 2007 IPCC recommendations and far beyond the United States’ and Europe’s goals on climate change mitigation, the United Kingdom is willing to act as leader in the fight on global warming ahead of the Copenhagen discussions in December.
This occurs as China is urging developed nations to cut their emissions by 40 percent by 2020 and as the 49 least developed countries (and many others) are demanding even more drastic cuts.
Do yourself a favor by visiting NPR.org and downloading the first hour of the last Science Friday. A really intelligent discussion of the future of nuclear energy in the US ranged from the waste storage issue to microreactor technology to financing.
Even the geekiest of Green Nerds probably needs some time away from green tech talk a few minutes a day, especially with all the slop that is bombarding us these days at checkout counters, in brand campaigns and on the nightly news. So, I know the last thing you want to do is head out for that morning run, pop in the ear buds and have a clean tech podcast as your accompaniment; but, the conversation here – which included an MIT Prof and former DOE Under Secretary (Moniz), a NRDC egghead (Cochran) and a scientist – is worth your time.