Free Republic

Energy independence, especially if you don’t particularly like the country you currently depend on, is a very strong motivator for the adoption of renewable energy. Ukraine has recently become a great case in point, after the announcement that it planned to turn part of the uninhabitable zone around the Chernobyl power plant into a large-scale solar farm. Chernobyl, the site of one of the worst nuclear disasters in the history of the world, cannot be used for much: farming is impossible, as are most other productive human activities. But there is a lot of sunshine in the area, which can...

A 41-year old man has become the first worker at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to be diagnosed with cancer that officials recognise as being linked to his work there after the March 2011 disaster. The unnamed man, who was diagnosed with leukaemia in January 2014 after feeling unwell, spent a year working on reactor buildings that were badly damaged after a magnitude 9 earthquake triggered a tsunami that struck Fukushima and other parts of Japan’s north-east coast on 11 March 2011. The disaster caused a triple meltdown at the nuclear plant, where so far almost 45,000 workers have...

Butterflies in the Fukushima Region Plagued by “Genetic Damage” and “Severe Abnormalities” A study of the pale grass blue butterfly in the regions around the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, site of the 2011 radiation disaster, has revealed that the insects are giving birth to mutants at an alarming rate. Indeed, the butterflies collected from younger generations have more abnormalities than butterflies born directly after the power plant began leaking radioactive particles into the environment. That means the genetic damage caused by the radiation leak has been inherited by subsequent generations. Above, you can see images taken from the study, published...

(Bloomberg.com does not permit FR to excerpt or post links so I am paraphrasing some of the article in case anyone is interested in checking it out. The title of the Bloomberg article is shown before the parentheses in the title of this thread.) Bloomberg.com has an article written by Tsuyoshi Inajima saying that, according to a study by European and US scientists, the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan may have released more than two times the amount of radiation estimated by the Japanese Government. In June, Japan's regulatory agency said Fukushima discharged 15,000 terabecquerels of Cesium 137. (Freeper's...

An international company with strong local connections is helping cool Japan's damaged nuclear reactors. The company, Putzmeister, already has one massive concrete pump working in Japan, The first of two will be flown from California to Japan on Friday to help prevent a nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. The boom pump is designed for pouring concrete, but is headed there to pour tons of water an hour on the damaged nuclear reactors. It's one of the largest pumps of its type in the world, a 70-foot-long massive piece of wheeled machinery that weighs 176,000 pounds. It will be...

For more than a week the world has watched the escalating crisis at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant slide from one catastrophic episode to a seemingly graver one, often upending assurances from the Japanese and adding to the fear and confusion about how it all might end. Are we on a slow-motion path to a six-reactor meltdown? Or will Fukushima stop short of being the worst nuclear power disaster ever, and squeeze somewhere behind Chernobyl and alongside Three Mile Island in infamy? While there can be no definitive answers amid a still-unfolding disaster, ProPublica spoke with seven top nuclear...

While the detonation of a nuclear weapon in the United States is considered highly unlikely, Los Angeles and other U.S. cities are preparing for such a disaster by assessing old bomb shelters and preparing emergency response plans, the Los Angeles Daily News reported Monday.