Larry Cantwell, the supervisor of East Hampton on Long Island, N.Y., sat back the other day with satisfaction about the town’s plan to have 100% of its electricity come from renewable energy—safe, clean, green power—by 2020. That’s just four years away! In 2014, East Hampton became the first municipality on the East Coast to adopt […]

Sellafield Nuclear Power Plant - Reprocessing

September 6, 2016

BBC documentary on Sellafield nuclear power plant receiving positive reviews

Panorama, the BBC investigative journalism program, released a new documentary this week on the Sellafield nuclear power plant (formerly called Windscale) in England warning that areas of the complex are dangerously rundown. The film titled “Sellafield’s Nuclear Safety Failings” was first broadcast on BBC One on September 5th. The Sellafield facility is one of the […]

Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant surrounded by floodwaters in 2011

August 31, 2016

OPPD announces shutdown date for Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant

The PWR reactor at the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant in Nebraska will shut down for good on October 24th, 2016. The reactor first went online in September, 1973 and was the smallest nuclear reactor in the United States in terms of power generation (476 MW). The Nuclear Regulatory Commission received a letter from […]

August 2, 2016

Aging nuclear power plants in New York uneconomic without bailout

The New York State Public Service Commission—in the face of strong opposition—this week approved a $7.6 billion bail-out of aging nuclear power plants in upstate New York which their owners have said are uneconomic to run without government support. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo—who appoints the members of the PSC—has called for the continued operation […]

Fukushima Daiichi

FILE - In this Feb. 10, 2016, file photo, members of a media tour group wearing a protective suit and a mask walk together after they receive a briefing from Tokyo Electric Power Co. employees (in blue) in front of storage tanks for radioactive water at the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan. In an AP interview, a chief architect of an 妬ce wall� being built into the ground around the broken Fukushima nuclear plant defends the project but acknowledges it won稚 be watertight, and as much as 50 tons of radiated water will still accumulate each day. TEPCO, the utility that operates the facility, resorted to the $312 million frozen barrier after it became clear that something had to be done to stem the flow of water into and out of the broken reactors so that they can be dismantled. (Toru Hanai/Pool Photo via AP, File)

September 2, 2016

Ice Wall at Fukushima Daiichi damaged by recent typhoons in Japan

Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has announced that the “ice wall” (formally known as the “Land-Side Impermeable Wall”) under construction at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan has been critically affected by rainfall from recent typhoons that have melted parts of the ice structure, allowing new pathways for highly contaminated water to […]

July 22, 2016

TEPCO admits that ice wall will not stop groundwater from entering crippled Fukushima Daiichi reactor buildings

This week TEPCO officials at a meeting with officials from the Nuclear Regulation Authority in Japan admitted that the ice wall they promoted as an impermeable barrier to prevent groundwater from entering the crippled reactor buildings and mixing with highly radioactive water has failed to work as billed and is technically incapable of blocking off […]

March 14, 2016

France, Japan and United States to work together on Fukushima decommissioning

The Japanese government has decided to work with the United States and France to develop new technologies to help operators decommission the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The Science and Technology Ministry of Japan will work together with the French National Research Agency and the United States Department of Energy. The United States will work […]

An aerial view of Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s tsunami-crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant on March 11.

February 29, 2016

Nuclear Meltdown: Releasing radiation and containing the truth

Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) admitted last week that they should have declared a meltdown within days of the March 11th earthquake and tsunami that crippled the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, instead of delaying the public announcement for months. “We apologize for the great inconvenience and worry the delay caused”, a representative for TEPCO […]