The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) this week announced a new series of cost-sharing grants to promote the development of small-scale, factory-made nuclear reactors, an emerging energy source that Obama administration officials say could help replace the coal-fired plants expected to cease operations in the coming decades. (more…)

Japanese people have gone back to the streets to protest against plans to reactivate nuclear reactors. Since the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the country has grown wearier of nuclear power and wants an end to atomic power.

The gathering in Tokyo was scheduled to coincide (more…)

ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) is an international nuclear fusion research and engineering project, which is currently building the world’s largest experimental tokamak nuclear fusion reactor at the Cadarache facility in the south of France. The European Fusion Development Agreement (EFDA) has published a roadmap which (more…)

Fusion power is the power generated by nuclear fusion processes. In fusion reactions two light atomic nuclei fuse together to form a heavier nucleus (in contrast with fission power which breaks these bonds). To date thee are no commercial fusion plants that are expected to be less than a fission plant because of less radioactive waste that (more…)

In October 2011, the Japanese Cabinet—still reeling from the Fukushima reactor meltdown earlier that year—approved an energy white paper calling for reduced reliance on nuclear power and increased emphasis on renewables.

A little over a year after the approval of that policy, I wondered to myself if Japan was sticking to its goals, or if—with the immediate shock of the Fukushima (more…)

In a new report, the Chinese government has laid out a plan to upgrade the security at its http://blog.cleantechies.com/category/energy/nuclear/ reactors over the next decade, suggesting that the country may be ready to resume a planned expansion of its nuclear sector halted in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster. (more…)

The Japanese government says it will seek to phase out all nuclear power plants by 2040, although officials suggested that the target remains flexible.

The new energy strategy, which places a 40-year lifespan on nuclear reactors and limits construction of new plants, would continue a national shift away (more…)

The German government’s decision to phase out all of the nation’s nuclear power plants following the 2011 Fukushima disaster has led to an increase in coal-burning within Europe’s largest economy.

Coal consumption in Germany has grown by 4.9 percent since Chancellor Angela Merkel announced (more…)

Radioactive materials emitted during the Fukushima disaster caused physical mutations and genetic damage to butterfly populations living near the nuclear plant, a new study says.

In a series of tests, Japanese scientists found that butterflies collected from the Fukushima area about (more…)

Recently we blogged about a project by the Kyoto Journal called Fresh Currents, a magazine designed to offer thinking fodder for post-nuclear disaster Japan. The idea of the magazine is to dispel myths about nuclear power and to take a fresh look at alternative energy as a possibility for Japan. (more…)