Nuclear-Free Canada

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said a decision to phase out nuclear power by 2022 can make her country a trailblazer in renewable energy.

Ms Merkel said Germany would reap economic benefits from the move.

Germany is the biggest industrial power to renounce nuclear energy, in a policy reversal for the governing centre-right coalition.

Mrs Merkel set up a panel to review nuclear power following the crisis at Fukushima in Japan.

The crisis, triggered by an earthquake and tsunami in March, led to mass anti-nuclear protests across Germany.

The anti-nuclear drive boosted Germany's Green party, which took control of the Christian Democrat stronghold of Baden-Wuerttemberg, in late March.

Analysts say Mrs Merkel may be eyeing a future coalition with the Greens.

'Opportunities'
... Read more »

TOKYO — In a belated acknowledgment of the severity of Japan’s nuclear disaster, the Tokyo Electric Power Company said Tuesday that three of the stricken Fukushima Daiichi plant’s reactors most likely suffered fuel meltdowns in the early days of the crisis.

The plant’s operator also said that it was possible that the pressure vessels in the three stricken reactors, which house the uranium fuel rods, had been breached as well. But most of the fuel remained inside the vessels, the company said — far from a more severe nuclear meltdown in which molten fuel penetrates the ground, a calamity known as the “China Syndrome.”

Also on Tuesday, a team from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the nuclear oversight body of the United Nations, began an investigation into Japan’s handling of the accident, amid criticism that a slow response made matters worse.... Read more »

Bruce Power has withdrawn its application to the United States Department of Transportation for approval to ship 16 radioactive steam generators through the Great Lakes.

Spokesman John Peevers says the company’s shipment plan has been put on hold — it is not cancelled — and Bruce Power’s goal remains to ship the decommissioned, school bus-sized vessels to a recycling plant in Sweden.

“We remain convinced and believe that this is the right thing to do and recycling these steam generators is going to reduce our environmental footprint, but we recognize there is still questions out there and we want to make sure that everybody has a chance to have their questions answered,” he said Tuesday in an interview.

Bruce Power announced in March it would delay its shipment plan “to allow for further discussions with First Nations, Metis and others seeking additional information.”
... Read more »

Politicians in Michigan are growing alarmed at Ontario’s plans to bury waste from a nuclear power plant on the shores of Lake Huron. “What fool would put nuclear waste under the Great Lakes?” one local Michigan official has asked. For its part, Ontario Power Generation has said the rock the waste would be buried in is so stable it still contains water from 450 million years ago. But that doesn’t mean it’s perfectly safe.
... Read more »

UN's climate change science body says renewables supply, particularly solar power, can meet global demand

By Fiona Harvey
From The Guardian (guardian.co.uk) Monday 9 May 2011 11.13 BST

Renewable energy could account for almost 80% of the world's energy supply within four decades - but only if governments pursue the policies needed to promote green power, according to a landmark report published on Monday.... Read more »