Tag - energy

 
 

ENERGY

California has ambitious climate policies. But the state should shift more green energy-related costs from electricity bills to taxes to promote fairness and sustainability.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 9, 2024
California's crushing power bills challenge its climate goals
California is incredible, but making it livable, what with its droughts, floods, fault-lines and wildfires, has never been cheap.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida addresses a meeting on the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant, at the Prime Minister's Office on Friday.
JAPAN
Sep 7, 2024
Japan to enhance evacuation system for Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant
The move is aimed at gaining the understanding of Niigata Prefecture residents for a restart of the plant before Prime Minister Fumio Kishida steps down this autumn.
The world’s largest system of hydroelectric power has been on standby since late 2022, when droughts drained the reservoirs that feed it. China's torrential downpours of the past few months are switching that immense machine back on.
COMMENTARY
Sep 6, 2024
A flood of hydro is washing coal from China's grid
The world’s largest hydroelectric system, located in China, has been dormant since late 2022 due to droughts, but recent heavy rains are now reviving its operations.
Former International Energy Agency chief Nobuo Tanaka
JAPAN / Politics
Sep 6, 2024
LDP leadership race needs nuclear debate, ex-IEA chief says
Politicians fear stirring up public fears about nuclear catastrophes and hurting their chance of election, according to Nobuo Tanaka.
A trial removal of radioactive debris from tsunami-hit reactors will start next week at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
JAPAN
Sep 5, 2024
Japan to resume trial removal of Fukushima debris
Removing the debris has long been dubbed the most daunting challenge in decommissioning the plant.
Former Environment Minister Shinjiro Koizumi speaks to reporters in Tokyo on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Politics
Sep 3, 2024
Anti-nuclear energy stance fades among LDP presidential hopefuls
Candidates' apparent shift in policy stance on nuclear power may be part of a strategy to win the leadership race.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Rafael Grossi visits the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant accompanied by the plant director, Alexander Uvakin, outside the town of Kurchatov in the Kursk Region, Russia, on Aug. 27.
WORLD / Politics
Sep 3, 2024
IAEA head to visit Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant then meet Zelenskyy in Kyiv
Rafael Grossi, director of the nuclear watchdog, said Monday that he was on his way to the plant to "to continue our assistance & help prevent a nuclear accident."
The Nafoora oil field in Jakharrah, Libya, on Tuesday
BUSINESS
Sep 1, 2024
Libya’s political feud threatens return of oil supply chaos
The North African nation’s crude output was slashed in half last week amid a fight for control of the central bank.
Workers restore a high-voltage line destroyed in a Russian missile attack in Kyiv on Feb. 7.
WORLD
Aug 31, 2024
Ukrainians fear grim winter amid massive attacks on power plants
This week’s air raids on Kyiv and other cities across the country were the largest since Russia’s full-scale invasion began 2½ year ago.
For a billionaire with a mission to prevent climate change, “He greened the energy policy of the world’s fourth-biggest economy (Japan),” would make a hell of an epitaph for Mike Cannon-Brookes. 
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 29, 2024
An activist investor could green Japan for $700 million
For a billionaire with a mission to prevent climate change, "Greened the energy policy of the world’s fourth-biggest economy” would make a hell of an epitaph.
Akira Ishiwatari (right), a Nuclear Regulation Authority commissioner, inspects a trench dug on the grounds of the Tsuruga nuclear power plant's No. 2 reactor in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, in June.
JAPAN / Society
Aug 28, 2024
Tsuruga nuclear reactor found noncompliant with safety standards
The Nuclear Regulation Authority will decide whether to formally adopt the report after collecting public comments on it for about a month.
The government has decided to continue offering subsidies to curb electricity, gas and gasoline bills until the end of this year.
JAPAN
Aug 28, 2024
Japan to spend additional ¥980 billion to curb energy bills
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said that his Cabinet plans to approve the additional spending on Sept. 3.
The Kursk nuclear power plant. A typical containment dome could resist an impact as powerful as that of a falling aircraft, but the Kursk design was "completely different," said Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
WORLD
Aug 28, 2024
U.N. watchdog says Russian nuclear plant 'extremely exposed' if attacked
The design of the Kursk nuclear power plant is "completely different" to that of a typical containment dome capable of withstanding heavy impacts.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris addresses the United Nations' COP28 climate change conference in Dubai on Dec. 2. Harris and Donald Trump are poles apart when it comes to climate change.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 27, 2024
America’s coming climate election
Clearly, the positions of the two U.S. presidential candidates on the climate crisis could not be more different.
A Tepco official shows emptied water tanks at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant as he explains about a plan to dismantle the tanks.
JAPAN
Aug 26, 2024
Tepco aims to dismantle Fukushima water tanks from 2025
Tepco plans to dismantle 12 empty treated water tanks out of about 1,000 existing tanks.
A Rapidus factory construction site in Chitose, Hokkaido, on July 24. The plan to ramp up renewable energy usage in the region to 60% by 2030 is part of a larger concept known as “Hokkaido Valley.”
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Hokkaido
Aug 26, 2024
Hokkaido more plugged in to renewable energy than rest of Japan
The local government aims to raise its share of renewable energy to 60% from the current 40%, but Hokkaido's grid needs to be upgraded first.
The central monitoring room of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture, on Aug. 9
JAPAN / Society
Aug 25, 2024
Tepco completes fourth round of fiscal '24 treated water release
Since discharges began in August last year, the company has released 62,400 metric tons of the treated water over a total of eight rounds.
The Fukushima No. 1 plant in August last year
JAPAN
Aug 23, 2024
One year on, no abnormalities have been found in tritium levels off Fukushima
The plant has so far discharged 60,000 tons of treated water, which contains small amounts of radioactive tritium, into the sea after diluting it with seawater.
Yukio Edano announces his bid to run in the leadership race of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, in Tokyo on Wednesday.
JAPAN / Politics
Aug 23, 2024
Yukio Edano pushes centrist image in CDP leadership bid
The ex-leader is attempting to shed a leftist identity by avoiding the expression "zero nuclear power" and pledging to review ties with the Japanese Communist Party.
Tomoaki Kobayakawa, president of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (left), hands a set of documents to Kashiwazaki Mayor Masahiro Sakurai during their meeting in the city in Niigata Prefecture on Thursday.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Aug 22, 2024
Kashiwazaki mayor willing to OK restart of nuclear reactor
The willingness emerged after the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant's operator shortened the time frame for the possible decommissioning of other reactors in the complex.

Longform

Professional cleaner Hirofumi Sakurai takes a moment to appreciate some photographs in a Gotanda apartment whose occupant died alone.
The last cleanup: Life and death in a lonely Japan