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Confessions of a Nuclear Power Safety Expert
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...
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Germany Crafts Its Nuclear Power Exit Strategy
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...
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The Greening of Angela Merkel
Before Japan's Fukushima disaster, in any German debate on nuclear power, Chancellor Angela Merkel played the role of a cautious and conservative mother hen. We may not like it, she said, but nuclear...
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Russian Gas and the Cost of Germany's Energy Revolution
Last week, in front of a crowd of journalists in Vyborg, Russia, Vladimir Putin sat at a desk and inaugurated a major new gas pipeline to Germany with a banal, 21st-century gesture: He clicked...
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Germany's Road to Natural Gas Has Coal Detour
Germany's nuclear phase-out strikes either joy or fear into the hearts of environmentalists — joy over the end of nuclear power in a major industrial nation, or fear over the undeniable prospect of...
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The No Nukes That Turned to Slow Nukes
"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...
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Falling Cost of Renewables Softens Nuclear Shutdown
When Germany decided this year to phase out its nuclear sector, eight of its 17 power plants were mothballed immediately, and Germans learned just how expensive it can be to shut down a reactor: about...
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Is Radiation Actually Good For Some of Us?
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...
View ArticleNuclear Renaissance in Space
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...
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Will Japan Follow Germany’s Path to Green Energy?
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...
View ArticleFukushima Fallout Still Doing Damage
It's more than a year since a titanic earthquake sparked a meltdown at Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, but we still don't know much about the long-term impacts of the radiation-spewing...
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Should India Build a Beachfront Nuclear Power Plant?
The Debate: How to calculate, and engineer, for risks like this Last week, somewhere between two and eight thousand people revived protests against a beachfront nuclear power station, scheduled to open...
View ArticleGermany Unplugs Nuclear Power, Doesn't Plug in Anything Else
Two years after deciding to phase out nuclear power, Germany's government just reported that it is still producing more energy than it needs. Europe's largest economy has suffered no shortfalls in...
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The Nuclear Mess at Fukushima
While the world sweats over nuclear mongering from a certain Chicago Bulls-loving dictator, a very real nuclear mess is happening in Japan. Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) has announced that a storage...
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How Ronald Reagan Turned Out the Lights on Solar Power
Although the Americans invented the first practical solar cell and until 1980 almost all solar cells were built in the United States, the American government has held, until very recently, a...
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