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Japan crisis

After the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, now the shaken nation is facing nuclear emergency. Read all of our coverage on the situation in Japan with analysis of the lessons that this tragedy may hold for a world desperately in need of clean, safe energy in the face of climate change and peak oil.

As Obama hedges, Japan could go nuke-free by next spring

By August 3, 2011
Saving Power Saving Nippon poster

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan was recently quoted as seeing the country as a nuclear-free nation. But unlike similar pronouncements from Germany, which pledges to be nuclear-free by 2022, Japan may become nuclear-free literally within a year. That would be quite a feat for a country that only five months ago relied on nuclear plants for about 30% of its electrical power. By some measures, the country is already two thirds of the way to becoming nuclear-free. Thirty eight of the … [Read more...]

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When disaster strikes: looting or love?

By June 28, 2011
Lyttelton, NZ earthquake cleanup

"A powerful riposte to those who argue that in difficult times people become more selfish and turn on each other.  Beautiful," says Rob Hopkins about a video from a New Zealand town recently leveled by an earthquake with a plucky community spirit. It makes dramatic TV to see angry mobs brandishing Glocks, busting store windows and pushing shopping carts full of bottled water, toilet paper and power tools down night streets glistening with broken glass. But when Lyttelton, the port city for … [Read more...]

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Nukes are forever

By June 8, 2011
Into Eternity

For all the tragic and mind-boggling downsides to the recent Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, one silver lining emerges from that dark cloud: At least we're talking with some degree of seriousness about the substantial dangers in so-called "clean" nuclear energy. Waste not, want not A recent film out of Finland, Into Eternity by Danish director Michael Madsen (not to be confused with the American actor of the same name), explores those dangers in a quiet but persistent meditation on just … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Films, Reviews Tagged With: , , , , ,

Earthquake: A Reflection

By May 26, 2011
Japan Prayer

Earthquakes are not unusual in Yokohama, Japan or in Tokyo. If fact, a big one has been predicted for years and people in the area have been living with the knowledge that a very big one could hit the area anytime. All Japanese are aware of that, including myself, but who would have thought that we’d experience it? Rocking my world It happened when I was visiting my mother in Yokohama on Friday afternoon. She lives in an assisted living community near my sister’s home and her room is on … [Read more...]

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Like Japan, let’s junk new nukes

By May 12, 2011
No Nukes

Japan will build no new nuclear reactors. Their decision delivers a huge body blow to the global nuclear industry, and could mark a major turning point in the future of energy. As Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan said about his country, We need to start from scratch… and do more to promote renewables. Wind power alone could---and now probably will---replace 40 nukes in Japan. The United States must join them. Axing the $36 billion currently stuck in the 2012 federal budget for loan … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Energy Tagged With: , , ,

A different kind of supply-side economics

By April 8, 2011
Japan Toyota Dealership

In the wake of the devastating Japanese earthquake and tsunami, an instructive story is unfolding about the manifold vulnerabilities of the modern industrial world. Robin Young of the radio show "Here and Now" reported yesterday on the too-often overlooked phenomenon of industrial supply lines. Her guest, Jeffrey Karrenbauer, a supply-chain expert with Insight Inc., said that supply line disruptions are inevitable after large-scale disasters and political unrest. In post-tsunami Japan what … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Economy Tagged With: , , , , ,

Two antidotes to Obama’s energy trance

By April 6, 2011
candle in a glass

President Obama's speech on energy last week was at best an empty ritual and at worst, a cowardly collection of lies, fairy tales and demagoguery designed to pander to the worst impulses of the American public. Yes, the president seemed to say, if gas prices stay too high, I know that you'll vote against whoever's in power. But don't vote against me, because I'm the guy who really wants to do everything it will take to keep you and your Explorer 4x4 on the freeway. Count on two of the … [Read more...]

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Japan remembrance through the senses

By April 5, 2011
Sushi

I have some strange eating preferences. When I was younger, I hated avocados. Absolutely loathed them. I hated the texture and thought they were bland, slimy, mushy green things. But I loved guacamole. I figured someone hated the avocado as much as me and had figured how to make the darn things edible. Go figure. I think I was in my late teens when I realized that avocados were actually pretty good, and it came with a new culinary revelation: sushi. Being Persuaded I never ate sushi … [Read more...]

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Is Nature trying to tell us something?

By April 1, 2011
Energy Death

Was it not just last summer that British Petroleum’s (BP) engineers were working desperately around the clock to find a way to plug a three month leak from the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig that spilled 205 million gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico? Now, engineers and plant operators are braving potentially lethal radiation to avert a catastrophe in the crippled Fukushima nuclear power station in Japan. There are many disturbingly parallels between the two events. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Energy Tagged With: , ,

We get the power but future generations get the waste

By March 29, 2011
kids in Nepal

Fukushima now enters the lexicon of nuclear catastrophes alongside Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. No amount of official downplaying of the current levels of radiation leaking from Fukushima can gloss over the fact that the hinterland of Fukushima will be contaminated for many years to come.  A new wasteland in which human habitation and agricultural production becomes impossible is slowly growing in the hinterland of the Fukushima nuclear plant. And the struggle to control the … [Read more...]

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