Japanese authorities for years discounted and ignored warnings that precisely the kind of quake-tsunami disaster that happened at the Fukushima plant could happen at other nuclear plants.
The Army Corps of Engineers this weekend began opening Louisiana's Morganza Spillway, which should protect New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and the chemical corridor from the worst of the record Mississippi River flood. But it will flood thousands of homes in Cajun country.
"A commission created to help resolve the impasse over the disposal of the nation’s nuclear waste will propose establishing one or more sites where used reactor fuel could be stored in steel and concrete structures on the earth’s surface for decades, members of the commission said this week."
"Despite repeated assurances that American nuclear plants are better equipped to deal with natural disasters than their counterparts in Japan, regulators said Thursday that recent inspections had found serious problems with some emergency equipment that would have made it unusable in an accident."
"In a development that is likely to delay efforts to bring the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station under control, the plant’s operator said Thursday that one reactor, No. 1, had sustained much more damage than originally thought and was leaking water."
SEJ has compiled a set of key information resources for anyone reporting on or following nuclear developments in Japan or elsewhere, including the United States. You'll find news sources, nuclear agencies, industry, scientist and environmental groups.
The event will cover everything from the Gulf of Mexico's struggle to recover from the BP oil spill to protection of over-exploited commercial fish stocks … to ocean acidification, marine protected areas, offshore energy, and coastal ecosystem restoration.
Get details on breaking and recent developments, along with big-picture perspective, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's tornado website.
"Some U.S. nuclear plants are not in full compliance with rules set up after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States to respond to explosions and fires, a self-regulatory body for the nuclear industry has found."
"Prime Minister Naoto Kan said Tuesday that Japan would abandon plans to build more nuclear reactors, saying his country needed to 'start from scratch' in creating a new energy policy."
Advertisement 
