At 3:40pm local time in Japan’s Fukushima Prefecture, an explosion shook the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Four people were reported injured from the initial blast, but broader concerns over increased radiation leakage have lead officials to double the evacuation zone around the plant from 9 to 19 kilometres. What the ultimate fallout will be is anyone’s guess.
Great. The guys who built Chernobyl, dropped 456 atomic bombs near an area with one million people and built atomic lighthouses only to abandon them engulfed in a radioactive fog are now building floating nuclear reactors on the Arctic Sea.
Wired has a fairly epic look into a material that could make nuclear power both clean and safe called thorium – named after the Norse god of thunder. Of course, scientists recognised its promise back in the 1950s.
The space race is on again: The Russians are planning a nuclear-powered spacecraft that will get them to Mars faster than Duck Dodgers in the 24-and-a-half century. Space Agency chief Anatoly Perminov promises a design by 2012:
The China Syndrome was a movie about how dangerous nuclear power plants are that, fortunately for the producers, came out 12 days before the Three Mile Island disaster. You can thank it for why we’re still reliant on coal power.
