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The Fukushima nuclear disaster didn’t kill a single person, but it may take out an industry: the nuclear power industry. That’s what it looks like — at least in developed countries like Japan — nearly a year after the meltdown began. Of the 54 nuclear reactors in Japan, just two are operating right now, and [...]
As I’ve traveled around Europe, I’ve learned that nuclear energy is seen very much through cultural lenses. The French jealously guard their force de frappe nuclear weapons and slurp up nuclear power with no heartburn or concern. Next door in Germany, where fear of the atomkraft helped form the country’s powerful Green party in the [...]
President Obama laid down a bold challenge to America in his State of the Union speech last week: get to 80% clean energy by 2035. Clean energy is a deliberately vague goal, since it will likely include nuclear, natural gas and (not really existing) clean coal in the mix. But traditional renewable energy like wind [...]
In recent years, Germany has led the world in the adoption of solar power. Now the country’s national energy agency is concerned that Germans’ love of sun beams may paradoxically leave them in the dark. In an interview with Berliner Zeitung on Oct. 17, Stephan Köhler, head of Germany’s energy agency DENA said harnessing the [...]
Every since Chernobyl puffed its radioactive plume over Europe in 1986, Germany has been deeply suspicious of nuclear power. Opposition to Atomkraft is at the center of the country’s green movement, and almost a decade ago the country decided to phase out its nuclear plants by 2021.
