Beyond Nuclear: towards a safe, secure and affordable energy future ‘Cher30byl and Fuku5hima – Beyond Nuclear’. Towards a safe, secure and affordable nuclear free future March 2016 A series of four distinct events, in Manchester and London, to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster and the 5th anniversary of the Fukushima disaster
GMCND 1st March 2016 read more »
A new report has called on the Japanese government to re-focus its energy policy on shifting the country to 100 per cent renewable energy – and move away from nuclear – nearly five years after the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami disaster put a serious question-mark over the nation’s dependence on nuclear power generation. The report, released on Thursday by Greenpeace Japan, warns that the renewable energy revolution that was set in motion in the wake of Fukushima, is in danger of losing momentum, held back by conflicting government policies that unfairly favour coal and nuclear.
Renew Economy 3rd March 2016 read more »
Japan Diary 2016, Fukushima+5 Part 2. Hope and False Hope: Atomic Fallout Changes our Environment and Always Results in Injustice.
Green World 2nd March 2016 read more »
Tokuo Hayakawa carries a dosimeter around with him at his 600-year-old temple in Naraha, the first town in the Fukushima “exclusion zone” to fully reopen since Japan’s March 2011 catastrophe. Badges declaring “No to nuclear power” adorn his black Buddhist robe. Hayakawa is one of the few residents to return to this agricultural town since it began welcoming back nuclear refugees five months ago. The town, at the edge of a 20-km (12.5 mile) evacuation zone around the crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant, was supposed to be a model of reconstruction. Only 440 of Naraha’s pre-disaster population 8,042 have returned – nearly 70 percent of them over 60. “This region will definitely go extinct,” said the 76-year-old Hayakawa. He says he can’t grow food because he fears the rice paddies are still contaminated. Large plastic bags filled with radioactive topsoil and detritus dot the abandoned fields More than 160,000 people were evacuated from towns around the Daiichi nuclear plant. Around 10 percent still live in temporary housing across Fukushima prefecture. Most have settled outside their hometowns and have begun new lives.
Reuters 3rd March 2016 read more »