Archive by category | Natural disasters Newer entriesOlder entries 15 Nov 2012 | 17:05 GMT Seismic study loses air over wildlife concerns Posted by Helen Shen | Categories: Energy, Fukushima, Natural disasters, Policy Bruce Gibson testifies against PG&E's proposed seismic survey. A California regulatory board has denied a key permit on 14 November for a proposed study of undersea faults near the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in San Luis Obispo County. The plant’s owners, San Francisco-based Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), had designed the project to aid the state in re-evaluating earthquake risks to California’s two nuclear facilities following the Fukushima Daiichi disaster in March 2011. Read more add a comment Email Share/bookmark 31 Oct 2012 | 19:51 GMT New York research facilities feel Sandy’s wrath Posted by Ivan Semeniuk | Categories: Lab life, Natural disasters It was sometime around 8:00 pm on Monday night when the surging East River, driven by Hurricane Sandy, broke its banks and a deluge of brackish water came pouring into the basement of New York University’s Smilow Research Center at 30th Street. For neurobiologist Gordon Fishell, who was weathering the storm at his home in Larchmont, New York, it was the worst-case scenario for his research. Read more add a comment Email Share/bookmark 25 Sep 2012 | 18:28 GMT Prosecution asks for four-year sentence in Italian seismology trial Posted by Brian Owens | Categories: Lab life, Natural disasters Public prosecutors in L’Aquila, Italy, have requested a four-year prison term for the six scientists and one government official charged with manslaughter after a magnitude-6.3 earthquake hit the city and its surroundings on 6 April 2009, killing 309 people (for more background on the case, read the Nature feature article ‘Scientists on trial: At fault?‘). Read more add a comment Email Share/bookmark 14 Sep 2012 | 19:17 GMT Japan’s nuclear sun to set? Posted by Declan Butler | Categories: Earth, environment & ecology, Energy, Fukushima, Industry, International Relations, Natural disasters, Policy Japan’s nuclear sun to set? A week can be a long time in politics, so today’s announcement by the Japanese government that it intends to phase out its 50 remaining nuclear reactors by around the 2030s is perhaps much less of a certainty than it might at first appear. Under the plan, existing reactors would be phased out when they reach 40 years of age so causing a gradual fall in nuclear’s share of electricity generation in Japan, as no new reactors are built to replace them. Read more 1 Comment Email Share/bookmark 20 Jun 2012 | 15:29 GMT Japanese science ministry takes partial blame for tsunami and meltdown Posted by David Cyranoski | Categories: Earth, environment & ecology, Fukushima, Natural disasters Japan’s ministry of science and education was supposed to be celebrating the 50th anniversary of its first annual White Paper on Science and Technology with the 2011 edition. Instead of a long spread of great achievements by Japanese scientists over the past five decades, however, the document, which was approved by the government yesterday, became the latest mea culpa for the poor handling of last March’s earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident. The document puts the spotlight on the responsibility of the countries’ scientists and engineers. Read more add a comment Email Share/bookmark 09 May 2012 | 16:40 GMT Fukushima owner is nationalized

It was as inevitable as cherry blossoms blooming in springtime: sooner or later, Japan had to nationalize the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the owner of the ruined Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Today the government announced a ¥1 trillion (US$12.5 billion) plan to bail out the country’s largest utility, and at least temporarily take control.