The following story originally appeared in NEI’s Nuclear Energy Overview.
The United States and Japan are forming a bilateral commission to foster “comprehensive strategic dialogue and joint activities” on nuclear safety and cleanup as a follow-up to last year’s nuclear accident in at Fukushima Daiichi.
President Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda announced plans this week for the Bilateral Commission on Civil Nuclear Cooperation, which will coordinate research and development in nuclear safety, security, environmental management and nonproliferation. The establishment of the commission builds on an agreement the two nations reached in March.
Read More »
The following story originally appeared in NEI’s Nuclear Energy Overview.
A peer review by European nuclear regulators of the “stress tests” performed on 147 nuclear energy facilities in the European Union has found that most countries’ operators have identified and taken “significant steps” to improve plant safety in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi accident of March 2011.
Read More »
April 30, 2012
4:37 pm EDT
Industry/Regulatory/Political
- Japanese central government officials met last week with more than 550 people living near the Ohi nuclear energy facility to make the case that two of the four reactors are safe to restart. The mayor of Ohi said the town council would decide whether to approve the restart now that it has heard from the public. If the Ohi reactors are brought back online, they will be the first to resume operations since the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami. Meanwhile, Hokkaido Electric Power Co.’s Tomari 3, Japan’s last operating commercial nuclear reactor, will shut down for regular inspections this weekend. Last week, TEPCO officially removed the four damaged Fukushima Daiichi reactors from its roster, leaving Japan with 50 operable commercial units.
Read More »
April 30, 2012
1:04 pm EDT
Packbot enters Fukushima Daiichi unit 3's reactor building for the first time since the accident. (Click to enlarge.)
When many of us think of robots, images of Wall-E, Optimus Prime, R2-D2 and other droids from our favorite science-fiction movies come to mind. However, robots have many critical real-life functions, including detecting bombs in war zones and assisting in recovery efforts at disaster areas. More recently, robots have been utilized to clean up the reactors at Tokyo Electric Power Company’s (TEPCO) Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan. These remotely-controlled vehicles have removed debris from the site and measured radioactivity in hazardous zones, all while transmitting video and information back to workers who monitor the data from a safe distance. The robots are master scouts, mapping radiation and taking samples to ensure that conditions are safe for their human colleagues.
Read More »
April 26, 2012
4:00 pm EDT
The following story originally appeared in NEI’s Nuclear Energy Overview.
A new report by the Geneva-based World Economic Forum warns that Japan could put its energy security at risk if it turns its back on nuclear energy.
A case study on Japan in the report “New Energy Architecture: Enabling an Effective Transition” notes that since the Fukushima accident there has been an “unprecedented level of debate and stakeholder engagement” in Japan about the country’s energy future.
Read More »
Safe, clean, reliable electricity to power America.