Japanese officials are preparing to finally declare the Fukiushima power plant in a state of cold shutdown as early as 9am tomorrow (GMT). Now they can begin the estimated 40-year process of dismantling the site and repopulating the area.
Problem: nobody knows just how bad the radioactive contamination is at Fukushima, nine months later. Prediction: still pretty bad. Solution: send in a bunch of monkeys armed with radiation meters and GPS collars, hope for the best. Let’s do it!
On a quest to prove that security measures surrounding nuclear facilities are ill-considered, nine Greenpeace activists broke into a French nuclear power plant and hung a banner that said “HEY” and “EASY” on it. Even after Greenpeace told police about the stunt, it took them several hours to track them down.
The French are great at lots of things: bread, cheese, wine, shrugging. Sadly, their nuclear power stations aren’t so amazing. They’re unsafe and need a massive overhaul.
The radioactive element iodine-131 has been spreading around Europe in heightened concentrations and everyone is confused as to why it is happening or who is responsible. Hungary thinks they know who: the Budapest-based Institute of Isotopes.
For the first time since the tsunami-induced meltdown at a Fukushima power plant, Japanese health officials have discovered excessive concentrations of radioactive caesium in rice harvested from the region.
Iodine-131 is a dangerous radioactive isotope. It can clog up your thyroid gland and contaminate food. It’s been a big problem in Japan (for obvious reasons), but now it’s been scarily detected throughout Europe. And nobody knows the source.
“Backscatter” X-ray machines, which bombard your body with radiation at the airport, are a subject of controversy in the US. Not in Europe, Mother Jones reports — the machines are now banned throughout the entire EU over cancer risks. Good.
In 1943, the US government needed a reliable centre for processing the Manhattan Project’s nuclear material. Officials chose the 568-acre Hanford site in the deserts of Washington State to house nine nuclear reactors and 143 single-walled, underground waste tanks.
