Radiation is everywhere. We catch it from the sun’s rays in the sky, and from the rocks beneath our feet. It comes from television sets, radios and mobile phones. We absorb it from certain fruits, vegetables…
Last week’s crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan saw radioactive water leak again from the crippled facility, raising fears that groundwater flowing into the Pacific Ocean could be contaminated…
Just over two years after the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in eastern Japan in March 2011, public attitudes worldwide remain hardened against nuclear power. It may have fallen from the…
Recent data shows Japan posted a record high trade deficit of ¥6.93tn (A$73.16bn) in 2012. Japan is struggling with rising imports as it tries to replace the energy lost when it shut down of most of its…
On 14 September 2012, the Japanese Government considered a new policy that excited many self-proclaimed environmentalists and anti-nuclear power protestors. Following intense political wrangling, they…
The 2011 tsunami that devastated Japan was undeniably a tragedy on many scales. Thousands killed, tainted agriculture, disappearing tourism and overall economic gloom. It’s little wonder the Japanese government…
A study of nearly 10,000 residents in a town located 23 kilometres north of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has found low levels of radiation exposure. In a research letter published in the Journal…
Tomorrow Australia will place a price on carbon. The former climate change adviser to the Federal Government, Ross Garnaut, a Professorial Fellow in Economics at the University of Melbourne, led the push…
It could all be a fanciful face lift, a matter of pure appearance. Behind the pretty face of a regulated nuclear world, the somewhat more lethal effects of meltdown and its associated dangers are concealed…
A year can be a long time in politics. But for the radioactive particles released from Fukushima’s damaged nuclear reactor, a year is just a moment in their life of hundreds or thousands of years. So…
The magnitude 9.0 Tōhoku-Oki earthquake of March 11 last year was the largest earthquake in Japan’s modern history. In fact, it was the fourth-largest earthquake anywhere in the world since 1900. The earthquake…
It is a year since the Fukushima reactor was swamped by a tsunami, knocking out the cooling systems and causing a series of explosions. A large area is still off-limits to the local people, with about…
Darren Plett, Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics
Japan’s tsunami of March 11 2011 brought a wall of water laden with debris up to 5 kilometres inland from the sea. After the surge receded, the surrounding farming area was left covered in debris and a…
Australia aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 5% by 2020 and 80% by 2050 (compared with 2000 levels). This will be achieved by substituting renewable energy and gas for coal and adopting carbon capture…
A year ago yesterday the Tōhoku-Oki earthquake and resultant tsunami hit the Japanese coastline, triggering the Fukushima nuclear reactor disaster. A year on, many questions are being asked about how bad…
Recently, Jenny Corbett, Executive Director of the Australia-Japan Research School at ANU, sat down with Tatsuo Hatta, Professor Emeritus at Osaka University and a former President of the Japanese Economic…
Project: Quantify the benefits of decentralised, renewable energy production Cost: $3 million Timeframe: Three years Burning fossil fuel causes CO₂ pollution. But organisations making profits from selling…
An explosion at a nuclear waste facility in Southern France has killed one and badly burned another but is unlikely to cause a dangerous radioactive leak, experts said on Tuesday. The blast occurred late…
Former Finance minister Yoshihiko Noda has become Japan’s sixth prime minister in five years after winning a leadership vote in the parliamentary wing of his Democratic Party of Japan. Noda replaces Naoto…