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Fukushima: Amidst Radioactive Ruins, Renewable Energy Revolution Soars
The catastrophe that began at Fukushima four years ago today is worse than ever.
But the good news can ultimately transcend the bad--if we make it so.
An angry grassroots movement has kept shut all 54 reactors that once operated in Japan. It's the largest on-going nuke closure in history. Big industrial windmills installed off the Fukushima coast are now thriving.
Five U.S. reactors have shut since March 11, 2011. The operable fleet is under 100 for the first time in decades.
Mar 11, 2015
The catastrophe that began at Fukushima four years ago today is worse than ever.
But the good news can ultimately transcend the bad--if we make it so.
An angry grassroots movement has kept shut all 54 reactors that once operated in Japan. It's the largest on-going nuke closure in history. Big industrial windmills installed off the Fukushima coast are now thriving.
Five U.S. reactors have shut since March 11, 2011. The operable fleet is under 100 for the first time in decades.
Ohio's Davis-Besse, New York's Ginna, five reactors in Illinois and other decrepit American nukes could shut soon without huge ratepayer bailouts.
Diablo Canyon was retrofitted--probably illegally--with $842 million in replacement parts untested for seismic impact. Already under fire for illegal license manipulations and an avoidable gas explosion that killed eight in San Bruno in 2010, Pacific Gas & Electric has plunged into a legal, economic and political abyss that could soon doom California's last reactors.
Meanwhile, Germany is amping up its renewable energy generation with a goal of 80 percent or more by 2050.
France--once nuke power's poster child--has turned away from new reactor construction and is moving strongly toward renewables.
Worldwide the Solartopian revolution is ahead of schedule and under budget. Predictions about its technological and economic potential are being everywhere exceeded.
More than twice as many Americans now work in solar as in coal mines. As the head of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund recently put it: "We are quite convinced that if John D Rockefeller were alive today, as an astute businessman looking out to the future, he would be moving out of fossil fuels and investing in clean, renewable energy."
Even America's Tea Party has developed a green wing promoting renewables.
Vital focus now centers on battery breakthroughs needed to escalate rooftop solar, electric cars and other post-nuke game-changers.
But there's plenty of bad news. The State Secrets Act of Japan's authoritarian Abe regime renders unreliable all "official" information from Fukushima. Grassroots nuclear campaigners are under serious attack.
At least 300 tons of radioactive water still pour daily into the Pacific Ocean. The utility wants to dump even more untreated outflow into currents that are already testing radioactive along the California coast. Details of fuel rod bring-downs and site clean-ups remain unknown.
Thyroid damage rates are soaring among downwind children. Abe is forcing evacuees back into areas that are seriously contaminated. Fukushima's owner (Tepco) is the #1 money funnel to his Liberal Democratic Party, which flips untold billions back to the utility.
More than 128,000 petitioners asking that the world community take charge at Fukushima have been ignored by the United Nations since November, 2013.
Throughout the world decaying reactors threaten our survival. Ohio's Davis-Besse containment is literally crumbling. Diablo Canyon is surrounded by 15 known fault lines, one just 700 yards from the cores. New reactor sites in Finland, France and Georgia show slipshod construction, substandard parts and corrupted supervision that would make them instant threats should they go on line.
Citizen activism challenges all that. Today Solartopian activists will picket Japanese consulates worldwide.
An evolving electricity boycott to "unplug nuclear" and a growing grassroots demand for green energy herald a new era of people power.
Four years after the endless Fukushima disaster began, that renewable revolution defines our survival.
It's a fight we can't afford to lose. It's a victory we must soon embrace ... with the utmost relief and joy.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Harvey Wasserman
Harvey Wasserman is an activist and author. His first book "Harvey Wasserman's History of the United States" was published in 1972. Harvey edits www.nukefree.org.
The catastrophe that began at Fukushima four years ago today is worse than ever.
But the good news can ultimately transcend the bad--if we make it so.
An angry grassroots movement has kept shut all 54 reactors that once operated in Japan. It's the largest on-going nuke closure in history. Big industrial windmills installed off the Fukushima coast are now thriving.
Five U.S. reactors have shut since March 11, 2011. The operable fleet is under 100 for the first time in decades.
Ohio's Davis-Besse, New York's Ginna, five reactors in Illinois and other decrepit American nukes could shut soon without huge ratepayer bailouts.
Diablo Canyon was retrofitted--probably illegally--with $842 million in replacement parts untested for seismic impact. Already under fire for illegal license manipulations and an avoidable gas explosion that killed eight in San Bruno in 2010, Pacific Gas & Electric has plunged into a legal, economic and political abyss that could soon doom California's last reactors.
Meanwhile, Germany is amping up its renewable energy generation with a goal of 80 percent or more by 2050.
France--once nuke power's poster child--has turned away from new reactor construction and is moving strongly toward renewables.
Worldwide the Solartopian revolution is ahead of schedule and under budget. Predictions about its technological and economic potential are being everywhere exceeded.
More than twice as many Americans now work in solar as in coal mines. As the head of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund recently put it: "We are quite convinced that if John D Rockefeller were alive today, as an astute businessman looking out to the future, he would be moving out of fossil fuels and investing in clean, renewable energy."
Even America's Tea Party has developed a green wing promoting renewables.
Vital focus now centers on battery breakthroughs needed to escalate rooftop solar, electric cars and other post-nuke game-changers.
But there's plenty of bad news. The State Secrets Act of Japan's authoritarian Abe regime renders unreliable all "official" information from Fukushima. Grassroots nuclear campaigners are under serious attack.
At least 300 tons of radioactive water still pour daily into the Pacific Ocean. The utility wants to dump even more untreated outflow into currents that are already testing radioactive along the California coast. Details of fuel rod bring-downs and site clean-ups remain unknown.
Thyroid damage rates are soaring among downwind children. Abe is forcing evacuees back into areas that are seriously contaminated. Fukushima's owner (Tepco) is the #1 money funnel to his Liberal Democratic Party, which flips untold billions back to the utility.
More than 128,000 petitioners asking that the world community take charge at Fukushima have been ignored by the United Nations since November, 2013.
Throughout the world decaying reactors threaten our survival. Ohio's Davis-Besse containment is literally crumbling. Diablo Canyon is surrounded by 15 known fault lines, one just 700 yards from the cores. New reactor sites in Finland, France and Georgia show slipshod construction, substandard parts and corrupted supervision that would make them instant threats should they go on line.
Citizen activism challenges all that. Today Solartopian activists will picket Japanese consulates worldwide.
An evolving electricity boycott to "unplug nuclear" and a growing grassroots demand for green energy herald a new era of people power.
Four years after the endless Fukushima disaster began, that renewable revolution defines our survival.
It's a fight we can't afford to lose. It's a victory we must soon embrace ... with the utmost relief and joy.
Harvey Wasserman
Harvey Wasserman is an activist and author. His first book "Harvey Wasserman's History of the United States" was published in 1972. Harvey edits www.nukefree.org.
The catastrophe that began at Fukushima four years ago today is worse than ever.
But the good news can ultimately transcend the bad--if we make it so.
An angry grassroots movement has kept shut all 54 reactors that once operated in Japan. It's the largest on-going nuke closure in history. Big industrial windmills installed off the Fukushima coast are now thriving.
Five U.S. reactors have shut since March 11, 2011. The operable fleet is under 100 for the first time in decades.
Ohio's Davis-Besse, New York's Ginna, five reactors in Illinois and other decrepit American nukes could shut soon without huge ratepayer bailouts.
Diablo Canyon was retrofitted--probably illegally--with $842 million in replacement parts untested for seismic impact. Already under fire for illegal license manipulations and an avoidable gas explosion that killed eight in San Bruno in 2010, Pacific Gas & Electric has plunged into a legal, economic and political abyss that could soon doom California's last reactors.
Meanwhile, Germany is amping up its renewable energy generation with a goal of 80 percent or more by 2050.
France--once nuke power's poster child--has turned away from new reactor construction and is moving strongly toward renewables.
Worldwide the Solartopian revolution is ahead of schedule and under budget. Predictions about its technological and economic potential are being everywhere exceeded.
More than twice as many Americans now work in solar as in coal mines. As the head of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund recently put it: "We are quite convinced that if John D Rockefeller were alive today, as an astute businessman looking out to the future, he would be moving out of fossil fuels and investing in clean, renewable energy."
Even America's Tea Party has developed a green wing promoting renewables.
Vital focus now centers on battery breakthroughs needed to escalate rooftop solar, electric cars and other post-nuke game-changers.
But there's plenty of bad news. The State Secrets Act of Japan's authoritarian Abe regime renders unreliable all "official" information from Fukushima. Grassroots nuclear campaigners are under serious attack.
At least 300 tons of radioactive water still pour daily into the Pacific Ocean. The utility wants to dump even more untreated outflow into currents that are already testing radioactive along the California coast. Details of fuel rod bring-downs and site clean-ups remain unknown.
Thyroid damage rates are soaring among downwind children. Abe is forcing evacuees back into areas that are seriously contaminated. Fukushima's owner (Tepco) is the #1 money funnel to his Liberal Democratic Party, which flips untold billions back to the utility.
More than 128,000 petitioners asking that the world community take charge at Fukushima have been ignored by the United Nations since November, 2013.
Throughout the world decaying reactors threaten our survival. Ohio's Davis-Besse containment is literally crumbling. Diablo Canyon is surrounded by 15 known fault lines, one just 700 yards from the cores. New reactor sites in Finland, France and Georgia show slipshod construction, substandard parts and corrupted supervision that would make them instant threats should they go on line.
Citizen activism challenges all that. Today Solartopian activists will picket Japanese consulates worldwide.
An evolving electricity boycott to "unplug nuclear" and a growing grassroots demand for green energy herald a new era of people power.
Four years after the endless Fukushima disaster began, that renewable revolution defines our survival.
It's a fight we can't afford to lose. It's a victory we must soon embrace ... with the utmost relief and joy.
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.