Japan is shutting down the last of its nuclear power plants. While the closure is slated to be temporary, popular opinion has shifted, and no one is certain when or if the reactor will be brought back online. Prior to the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami, Japan counted on nuclear generation for 30 percent of its electrical needs. After the disaster, they turned off 53 nuclear plants, with the last one scheduled to go offline this month. Miranda Schreurs, professor of comparative politics and director of the Environmental Policy Research Centre at the Freie Universitat Berlin, says Japan ... Read More
Nuclear Renaissance in Space
April 6, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
In this, the 50th year of using nuclear energy for space missions, the U.S. is preparing to restart domestic production of a plutonium isotope that fuels space vehicles — a topic that was front and center at the recent Nuclear and Emerging Technologies for Space conference, held in The Woodlands, Texas. Despite the utility and the necessity of using radioisotopes to power missions ranging from the Mars Rovers to the Voyager 2 probe now exploring the furthest edge of our solar system, the assembled experts said the public has a poor grasp of the safeguards in place for nuclear power in ... Read More
Is Radiation Actually Good For Some of Us?
February 17, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Meet Reference Man, a kind of hypothetical Ken Doll: a 20-something white male, fit and hearty, out in the park doing a hundred one-armed pushups every morning at 5:30. He’s the guy most radiation exposure standards are designed to protect. But as a stand-in, he’s passé. Reference Man was born when most of the evidence about the health effects of radiation came from high-dose exposures such as nuclear bombs. But the landscape has changed. Exposure now comes from low and often chronic levels of radiation such as medical technologies, which are the fastest-growing source of radiation ... Read More
The No Nukes That Turned to Slow Nukes
September 27, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
"No Diablo," chanted thousands of protesters at the gates of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant near San Luis Obispo, Calif., in September of 1981. "No Diablo over me." The 10-day gathering came two years after the accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania and the big anti-nuclear rallies in New York City and elsewhere, including 30,000 protesting in San Francisco against the nascent Diablo plant, that incident inspired. But complete with rock star Jackson Browne and friends, plus plenty of national media coverage, the 1981 Diablo Canyon protest was viewed at the time as the most ... Read More
Germany Crafts Its Nuclear Power Exit Strategy
August 24, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
One surprising development this summer is the international vogue for shutting down nuclear plants. Germany led the way in the spring — startling even its own industry leaders — after the disaster at Fukushima. Since then Switzerland, Italy, Taiwan, and Japan have either started serious debates or actively resolved to forego nuclear power in the next decade or two. In Italy the decision was passive, in favor of a status quo: Voters turned out in June to reject Silvio Berlusconi's plan to revive an old nuclear program. But the sentiment, in every case, was driven by the Fukushima crisis, ... Read More
Confessions of a Nuclear Power Safety Expert
June 14, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
When Italy decided in the mid-'70s to add nuclear power to its power portfolio, young mechanical and nuclear engineer Cesare Silvi was among those attracted to the opportunities it presented. His work centered on nuclear safety issues — in particular, what might happen if something unexpected struck a power plant. Corners he saw cut there eventually soured Silvi on that endeavor. His next position — at the Italian Commission on Nuclear and Alternative Energy Sources, which included work on nuclear disarmament — eventually soured him on nuclear energy itself. "[If we] continue with ... Read More
Nuclear Power’s History in the US: Miracle to Demon
April 25, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Of all the miracle technologies of the 20th century — aircraft, computers, antibiotics — none held more promise than nuclear power. In the middle of the 20th century, nuclear power held the potential for limitless, clean, and safe energy — something never before achieved in human history. How did a technology with so much potential end up being so hard to handle? Dr. Patrick McCray, a historian of science and a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, talks about the Cold War power politics that led to the creation — and to the downfall — of the nuclear power ... Read More
The Dilemma and Future of Nuclear Power
April 13, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
In this last of a three part podcast, Dr. Theo Theofanous talks about the health impacts of radiation leaking from the crippled Japanese Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and about the future of nuclear power. Here, he discusses the dilemma of nuclear power as a technology that is continually improving, but which remains in the hands of those who are incapable of managing it safely. Click to hear podcast Theofanous is a professor of chemical and mechanical engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara and he has spent decades researching nuclear reactor design and ... Read More
Japanese Nuclear Crisis: How Does This End?
April 7, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
The fate of the badly damaged nuclear reactors at Fukushima 1 Nuclear Power Plant in Japan has been front-page news worldwide for weeks. But given the massive destruction at the power plant — with radiation leaking by air, ground, and sea — can the situation be contained? In this podcast, Dr. Theo Theofanous talks about the current state of Fukushima, with reactor cores in partial or total meltdown, and the options that the Japanese have for averting even greater disaster. Theofanous is a professor of chemical and mechanical engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He ... Read More
Behind the Japanese Nuclear Reactor Crisis
March 31, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Ever since the massive 9.0 earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan on March 11, the world's eyes have been fixed on the crippled nuclear reactors at Fukushima 1 Nuclear Power Plant. Explosions, radiation leaks, maybe a meltdown — a truly terrifying situation for the people of Japan and for the world. But with so little good information coming out of Fukushima, what exactly is going on? And what does this mean for nuclear power in Japan and in the rest of the world? In this podcast, Dr. Theo Theofanous talks about the latest developments at Fukushima. Theofanous is a professor of chemical ... Read More
