Most Active Stories Sun March 11, 2012 Nuclear Woes Push Japan
Into A New Energy Future The tsunami that struck Japan last year
destroyed four nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi
nuclear power station on the east coast of the country.
Radiation spread through the air and into the ocean, and workers
labored for weeks to quench the melting reactor cores. Farmland
and numerous towns were evacuated and much remains off-limits.
Since then, Japan has been temporarily shutting down its
remaining nuclear plants as the public debates whether to swear
off nuclear power permanently. But saying no to nuclear has been
and will continue to be costly. Before the accident in
Fukushima, Japan got a third of its electricity from nuclear
reactors. That made economic sense — Japan has almost no coal,
oil or natural gas to make electricity. Economist Mitsutsune
Yamaguchi at the University of Tokyo says those nuclear power
plants are now idle. "Out of 54 existing plants, only two are in
operation, and by the end of April it