Archive for the 'Energy' Category
Japan: Food Radiation Checker
October 7th, 2011Send the bill to Tepco? *groan* Via: Cnet: For many Japanese, food safety is an urgent concern in light of the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, from which radiation has entered the food supply. Kyoto-based scientific equipment maker Horiba is trying to help with a radiation detector kit that can tell users […]
Japan to Remove Some Restrictions on Fukushima Evacuation Zone
October 4th, 2011Via: Bloomberg: Japan’s government may lift restrictions this week on some areas outside the exclusion zone around the crippled Fukushima nuclear where residents had been told to prepare for evacuation. The so-called Emergency Evacuation Preparation Zone was set up in April for areas 10 kilometers beyond the 20 kilometer (12.6 mile) no-go zone. The area […]
Sunlight Falling On Catalyst-Coated Silicon Wafer Splits Water Into Hydrogen and Oxygen
October 1st, 2011This is nowhere near viable, but it’s definitely interesting. Via: Massachusetts Institute of Technology / YouTube: An “artificial leaf” made by Daniel Nocera and his team, using a silicon solar cell with novel catalyst materials bonded to its two sides, is shown in a container of water with light (simulating sunlight) shining on it. The […]
Japan: Kan Considered Evacuation of Tokyo in Wake Nuclear Disaster, but Feared Chaos and Collapse of the State
September 30th, 2011Via: ABC: Japan’s former prime minister Naoto Kan has revealed he contemplated evacuating as many as 30 million people from Tokyo and surrounding areas during the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Speaking to Japan’s Kyodo News, Mr Kan, who was prime minister during the nuclear crisis, said evacuations on such a scale may have led to Japan […]
U.S. Secretly Asked Japan to Help Dump Nuclear Reactors at Sea
September 29th, 2011Via: Asahi: The United States secretly sought Japan’s support in 1972 to enable it to dump decommissioned nuclear reactors into the world’s oceans under the London Convention, an international treaty being drawn up at the time. Countries working on the wording of the pact wanted to specifically prohibit the dumping of radioactive waste at sea. […]
Michigan: Palisades Nuclear Power Plant Venting “Low” Level Radioactive Steam
September 27th, 2011Via: Michigan Messenger: Entergy’s Palisades nuclear plant near South Haven is venting radioactive steam into the environment as part of an unplanned shutdown triggered by an electrical accident. This shutdown, which began Sunday evening, came just five days after the plant restarted from a shutdown that was caused by a leak in the plant’s cooling […]
Japan: Radioactive Zone Bigger Than That Left by Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
September 27th, 2011Via: Bloomberg: Beyond the police roadblocks that mark the no-go zone around Japan’s wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant, six-foot tall weeds invade rice paddies and vines gone wild strangle road signs along empty streets. Takako Harada, 80, returned to an evacuated area of Iitate village to retrieve her car. Beside her house is an empty cattle […]
Japanese Government to Invite Foreigners Who Have Large Facebook and Twitter Networks to Tohoku So That They Can Tell Their Followers “Japan Is Safe”
September 19th, 2011Do they get to bring their own dosimeters? Via: EX-SKF: Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs have started to make preparations for inviting people from overseas who disseminate information via the social media such as Facebook and Twitter, as part of the countermeasures against “baseless rumors” that have damaged sales of Japanese agricultural products and tourism […]
Siemens Exits Nuclear Business
September 19th, 2011Via: The Local: German industrial giant Siemens is turning the page on nuclear energy, the group’s CEO Peter Löscher told the weekly Der Spiegel in an interview published on Sunday. “We will no longer be involved in overall managing of building or financing nuclear plants. This chapter is closed for us,” he said, explaining that […]
U.S. Unable to Account for 36k Pounds of Its Own Weapons Grade Uranium and Plutonium
September 15th, 2011This is madness. Via: Business Insider: Under special nuclear cooperation agreements, the United States sent 38,580 pounds of enriched uranium and plutonium to more than two-dozen foreign agencies and is unable to account for 36,000 pounds of the material. The Government Accountability Office report says these 27 cooperation agreements, set up to facilitate cross border […]
