www.euronews.com Japan is still adrift in a sea of nuclear worry, and considering alternatives for its future. All the country's reactors are still shut down, except two, here, at the power plant of Ohi, on the east coast. They were restarted in July, roughly 16 months after last year's devastating earthquake and tsunami destroyed Fukushima. The prime minister took the decision to re-boot Ohi reactors 3 and 4, based on the findings of geological safety groups. Ohi sits on a seismic fault line, however, and the specialists still can't agree whether it's active. Like most of Japan's 54 reactors, the sea is just a stone's throw away. Although they are anxious about having the plant active again, residents in the region remember the rolling blackouts in the aftermath of last year's disaster, with power shortages caused by the earthquake. In Tamba, 80 km from Ohi, the 42 villagers have built a solar farm, on their own initiative. This has made them largely self-sufficient for electricity. They don't yet have storage batteries, so at night and in poor weather they feed off the grid, but otherwise they contribute excess power to the grid and so break even. Yasuhiro Hosoda, the man who got them started on the project, said the Fukushima disaster happened after they had begun building, and that it certainly gave them food for thought. They no longer want to rely on nuclear power. The solar field is in the midst of unthreatening, traditional rice paddies. Most of the villagers are <b>...</b>
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The Land Of The Rising Sun Shines On SunPower And First Solar Trefis The solar power industry is witnessing a boom of sorts in Japan, the world's third largest economy. Attractive new incentives and measures to supplant the country's besieged nuclear power facilities have boosted domestic solar shipments by 80% y-o-y ... and more » |
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To Slow Warming, Tax Carbon New York Times Europe, in particular, has put great effort into being a “world leader” on climate change and has spent lots of money on wind farms and rooftop solar panels. Sadly, this has had almost no global effect. The main reason emissions have been going up is ... and more » |
First Solar: A Bright Spot In a Cloudy Sector The motley Fool (blog) The reason why these solar energy companies have failed is that their cutting-edge products were also being made in China with far more government support than has ever been contemplated in the American industry. Just in 2010, the ... The United States ... and more » |
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