Japanese officials say they may have to scrap long-term targets for carbon emissions reductions as a consequence of moving away from nuclear power in the aftermath of last year’s Fukushima disaster.
According to the Japan Times, government officials this week conceded that goals to cut carbon
Europe’s ‘economic powerhouse’ can add solar to its epithet. Germany’s solar power plants reached a generation milestone of 22 GW of electricity per hours. That is the same as 20 nuclear power stations at full capacity.
According to a Reuters report, that amount of
Japan shut down its last working nuclear power station last weekend, culminating — at least for now — a national shift away from nuclear energy in the aftermath of last year’s Fukushima disaster.
The shutdown of the No. 3 Tomari reactor in Hokkaido will leave the country without nuclear power
One reader recently commented:
Judging the risks (associated with a certain energy technology) is hard because it’s about making guesses about the unknown. … In a way it’s easier to predict that the sun will continue to shine than to
The tsunami that devastated Japan in March 2011, and which was followed by a tragic nuclear power accident at Fukushima, was the second biggest tragedy the country ever faced. The biggest was Hiroshima. Last year, 19,000 people died. In Hiroshima the death toll was 80,000 people on the day of the bombing.
Japan’s nuclear disaster last year was more than a large-scale tragedy: it was a wake-up call to the dangers of nuclear power. Germany responded swiftly and decided to pull the plug on its reactors. All over the world a new wave of anti-nuclear sentiment emerged.
Now a consortium of more than ten Japanese
Concern is growing that the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan is no longer stable after temperature readings suggested one of its damaged reactors was reheating.
The plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), said the temperature inside No 2 reactor – one of
Tick tock, tick tock… The ticking sound that our friends in Germany might be hearing is the countdown to 2022, the year in which the country has pledged to be completely nuclear free.
Meanwhile, halfway across the globe, Japan is still dealing with the aftermath of the meltdown at its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility. The disaster greatly damaged public confidence in the safety of nuclear power, leading many countries to question their own commitment to nuclear power.
As Germany, Japan, and other countries seek to phase out nuclear power, they need to design strategies for filling the “energy gap” created by nuclear power’s absence. Renewable energy sources provide the clearest, cleanest path for filling this gap, and many different forms of renewables currently exist as viable options.
Germany-based TimberTower develops massive, easily assembled wooden towers that can be used as the base for wind turbines, much the way wood was used as the foundation for windmills for many centuries. More flexible, renewable and easier to manufacture and produce than metal turbines, the wooden towers make sense for a forest-rich region.
Clean technology company SunPods Inc.—headquartered in San Jose, Calif.—designs and manufactures modular solar array units that help make solar power more accessible and affordable. Unlike conventional customized ground-mounted solar arrays that require extensive onsite assembly and construction, SunPods (which stands for “Sun Power on Demand”) are configured and built in a factory before being delivered to virtually any site — a process that reduces installation time by up to 85 percent, allowing sunny regions to readily harvest the solar power available to them.
Tidal power presents another option for renewable energy for countries with available coastline. IT Power—based in Bristol, UK—is developing an innovative tidal energy device that uses oscillating horizontal hydrofoils instead of traditional rotating blades to generate renewable energy. This pioneering approach offers many advantages over existing tidal stream technology by maximizing the area that can be swept—and hence the power captured—in a given depth of water.
Wind, solar, tidal power, and other renewables all have a role to play in helping countries seeking to move away from nuclear achieve their energy goals. How these countries fill “the energy gap” will be a bellwether for others working to diversify their energy mix.
In front of a packed house of dignitaries, delegates and energy industry leaders assembled for the 2012 World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Korean Prime Minister Kim Hwang-sik each independently reaffirmed their country’s commitment to nuclear
A U.S. government-funded report has concluded that small, modular nuclear reactors may be the best option for continuing to develop the U.S. nuclear power industry in the wake of the disaster at Fukushima, Japan.
The report, prepared by the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago, said that smaller reactors
The 138 page document has been released by the New Jersey Governor’s Office that is a master plan on energy for the state. This final version is largely the same as the draft document released last summer, save for a few changes. It lays out the direction for how the state will meet its energy demands over the next
The good news is that on 8 November the International Energy Agency released its 2011 “World Energy Outlook.”
While it will cheer nuclear advocates, overall the report makes for grim reading.
Pulling no punches, the report states at the outset,
“Nuclear power is safe and nuclear power is clean and nuclear power is renewable.”– President George W. Bush, September 4, 2006[1]
Since the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear disaster, politicians, business executives and investors around the world have cooled on the prospects of
An attempt to build the first brand-new nuclear power plant in a generation has taken a step forward now that staff at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission says plans to build new reactors in Georgia meet safety requirements. The federal regulators issued two related safety reports Friday that cleared the