Nuclear Power Plant, Nuclear | featured news

Radiation levels tested in a building at the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant are 10 million times above normal, a power company official said.

A suspected breach in the core of a reactor at the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant could mean more serious radioactive contamination, Japanese officials revealed Friday, as the prime minister called the country's ongoing fight to stabalize the plant "very grave and serious."...

Parents in Tokyo have been told that the city's tap water is not safe for babies to drink after radiation from Japan's earthquake-hit nuclear plant affected the capital's water supply.

Germany stands alone among the world's leading industrialized nations in its determination to abandon nuclear energy for good because of the technology's inherent risks.

A top Japanese official acknowledged Friday that the government was overwhelmed by the scale of last week's twin disasters, slowing its response ...

Gregory Jaczko, head of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, says the crisis is worse than Japanese officials appear to be letting on. 'This is a situation where people may be called in to sacrifice their lives,' he says of the crew working there.

A small band of experts is risking their lives to prevent a nuclear disaster at Japan's damaged Fukushima Daiichi plant.

It seems too impossible to believe, but according to reports from CNN, Reuters and the AP tonight, the last workers at the Fukashima-Daiichi reactors have been withdrawn from the scene, halting efforts to continue cooling partially melted fuel rods with ocean water. Just a day earlier 750 more workers had been removed. Exhaustion, radiation exposure, hopelessness–we don’t yet know the reason for this latest move. Earlier in the day new fires, explosions and clouds of smoke or steam were spotted. Maybe the evacuation means that the worst of the danger is over (how else could they leave?) — but that doesn’t seem likely.

What a bone-headed move. There’s nothing wrong with the 7 nuclear plants that German Chancellor Angela Merkel decreed would be shut down. Just last fall Germany decided to extend the lives of these plants, which provide roughly 10% of Germany’s electricity. With solar and wind entirely unscalable, how’s Germany going to make up the electric deficit? Either by ramping up the use of fossil-fuel burning plants (and importing more natural gas from Russia) or importing power from its neighbors–like nuke-friendly France.

Stocks plunged Tuesday, sending the Dow Jones industrial average down almost 300 points at the opening, as the nuclear crisis in Japan intensified following a deadly earthquake and tsunami....