Japan has one of the highest installed renewable energy capacities in the world. The country is also one of the world’s largest consumers of energy. Lacking its own fossil fuel resources, it relies on imports for nearly all of its supply. This dependence on imports makes the country vulnerable to …
A strong 6.1-magnitude earthquake struck off Wakayama Prefecture on Friday, but local authorities said there was no danger of a tsunami. The Japan Meteorological Agency said the quake struck at 11:39 a.m. off the Pacific coast at a depth of 10 kilometers. The epicenter was about 170 kilometers southeast of …
An "ice wall" around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has been turned on, Japanese authorities say. The wall will restrict the movement of groundwater, stopping it from becoming contaminated from the leaking facility which suffered a nuclear disaster in 2011. The project aims to freeze the soil underneath the …
Nuclear regulators gave their approval Wednesday to start freezing soil around damaged reactor buildings at the disaster-hit Fukushima No. 1 power plant to prevent groundwater from entering the highly contaminated facilities. The Nuclear Regulation Authority told Tokyo Electric Power Co., or Tepco, that it could activate the east side coolant-filled …
FUKUSHIMA – Public prosecutors decided on Tuesday not to indict Tokyo Electric Power Co. President Naomi Hirose and other current and former executives of the utility over radioactive water leaks from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant into the ocean. Sufficient evidence was not found, the Fukushima District …
A public-private council tasked with devising measures to make Fukushima Prefecture a renewable energy hub was launched in the city of Fukushima on Sunday. This summer the council will draw up an action plan calling for supplying electricity to be generated by wind power facilities in Fukushima to the Tokyo …
LONDON – Asia has the largest number of people exposed to natural disasters, but African countries are the most vulnerable to them, largely because of political instability, corruption, poverty and inequality, a new global assessment shows. India has a billion people at risk, with China, Bangladesh, Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan …
Nuclear experts describe the MoU as a backdoor attempt to draw India into the NPT Days before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Washington DC for the Nuclear Security Summit, a senior Japanese diplomat told The Hindu that India had committed to adhere to the “control of nuclear material, traceability …
After the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, thirteen thousand hectares of farmlands were damaged by massive Tsunami near coastal sites in Miyagi, Japan. Some eighty percent of the damaged farmlands have been recovered in 2014, but subsidence and high salinity groundwater make it difficult to completely remove salinity from the soil. To …
Nature has begun to fight back against the vast piles of filth dumped into its soils, rivers and oceans by evolving a plastic-eating bacteria – the first known to science. In a report published in the journal Science, a team of Japanese researchers described a species of bacteria that can …
In the chaotic two years after its name became forever associated with nuclear disaster, the Fukushima Daiichi power plant “resembled a field hospital”, according to the man who is now in charge of the most daunting task the nuclear industry has ever faced: removing hundreds of tons of melted fuel …
Japan's weather bureau said on Thursday the El Nino weather pattern, which is often linked to heavy rainfall and droughts, was expected to continue weakening and that there was a high possibility the weather would return to normal by summer. The Japan Meteorological Agency projected a similar forecast last month. …
Singapore is still the world's most expensive place to live, while China's Hong Kong has moved up seven places in the ranking into joint second place with Zurich, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU)'s Worldwide Cost of Living survey released on Thursday. Singapore has the highest score of 116, …
Kenya and Japan on Wednesday signed a 46 billion yen ($408 million) loan agreement to go towards building a 140 megawatt (MW) geothermal power plant that is expected to be operational within the next two years, the two governments said. The plant, know as Olkaria V, will be built by …
It is 30 years since the beginning of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. It is also five years since the Fukushima disaster began. To mark these anniversaries, Greenpeace has commissioned substantial reviews of scientific studies examining the continued radioactive contamination in the affected areas, and the health and social effects on …
The report is based on a large body of independent scientific research in impacted areas in the Fukushima region, as well as investigations by Greenpeace radiation specialists over the past five years. It exposes deeply flawed assumptions by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Abe government in terms of …
The coating of black carbon (BC) with inorganic salts and organic compounds can enhance the magnitude of light absorption by BC. To elucidate the enhancement of light absorption of aged BC particles and its relation to the mixing state and morphology of individual particles, we conducted observations of particles at …
This study investigates the issues related to underestimation of the earthquake source parameters in the context of tsunami early warning and tsunami risk assessment. The magnitude of a very large event may be underestimated significantly during the early stage of the disaster, resulting in the issuance of incorrect tsunami warnings. …
The Environment Ministry plans to establish a 33rd national park on Okinawa to protect an endangered bird endemic to the area and one of the nation’s biggest subtropical evergreen forests, informed sources have learned. The species in question is the Yanbaru kuina, or Okinawa rail, which is at risk of …
Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) plans to tighten rules for coal-fired power plants from April in an effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the power industry that account for 40 percent of the nation's total. The steps, including non-binding requirements on the heat efficiency of new …
In a survey that began in April 2014 to check the impact of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear crisis, 16 children have been diagnosed with thyroid cancer and 35 are suspected of having the disease, a prefectural government panel said Monday. Most of them were thought to be problem free when …
