Tag Archives: no nukes

Activists plant cherry trees in Fukushima anniversary memorial at nuclear plant

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Greenpeace activists plant cherry trees in front the Duke Energy Harris Nuclear Plant near New Hill, N.C.

Monday will mark the two-year anniversary of the day that the disastrous Japanese earthquake and tsunami were exacerbated by the manmade disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Two years after the meltdowns and explosions at the nuclear plant, tens of thousands of people in Japan still cannot safely return to their homes as a result of the disaster.

After Fukushima, many companies and governments finally accepted what they should have known all along: nuclear power is a bad bet. Aside from being far more expensive than safe, clean forms of energy like wind and solar power, nuclear plants simply present too great a safety risk to allow their continued construction. Continue reading →

How can the nuclear industry profit from nuclear disasters?

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Activists from Greenpeace Turkey protest in front of the Hagia Sofia.

At 2:46pm, 11 March 2011, a massive earthquake and tsunami hit north east Japan, triggering three meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Since then, an unthinkable amount of radioactive contamination has been discharged to our sea, our air, our land, and onto ourselves. It has changed the lives of millions of people, destroyed local farmlands and fisheries that were carefully protected for generations.

The most contaminated areas of Fukushima nuclear disaster remain inhabitable, and will for decades. This leaves the 160,000 ordered to evacuate stuck in limbo, unable to go home, and unable to build new lives elsewhere because they lack proper compensation and support. Continue reading →

The future of Vermont’s lone nuclear power plant

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Vermont residents and activists join a Greenpeace rally outside the Statehouse, following a vote by Vermont Senate to retire the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant in 2012.

In February 2010 Greenpeace and our Vermont colleagues convinced the Vermont legislature to reject the license from the state’s lone nuclear plant, Vermont Yankee and shut the plant down in 2012. The Vermont Senate voted 26 to 4 that operating Vermont Yankee was not in the best interest of Vermonters.

Entergy, the out-of-state corporate owners of Vermont Yankee, challenged this ruling in court. Last January U.S. District Court Judge Murtha sided with Entergy and said that Vermont was improperly motivated by safety.

The State of Vermont appealed that ruling and was in court in New York yesterday.

Below is an account of yesterday’s hearing from Richard Watts, University of Vermont professor and author of Public Meltdown: The Story of Vermont Yankee. Continue reading →

54 reactors down: Japan breaks free of nuclear power

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Greenpeace activists march in the "Energy Shift Parade" through Shibuya on the three-month anniversary of the East Japan earthquake disaster and the start of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear crisis. Greenpeace and the people of Japan are marching in protest against nuclear energy, and calling on the Japanese government to follow the lead set by Germany and Switzerland, and abandon nuclear energy to focus on clean, renewable technology.06/11/2011

With tomorrow’s scheduled shutdown of Japan’s Tomari nuclear power plant the country will be free from nuclear power for the first time since 1966. Can it seize this historic opportunity? Here at Greenpeace we believe it can.

All of Japan’s 54 nuclear reactors will be offline. Now, the country’s government must learn from its mistakes of the past, listen to its people and scientists, keep reactors offline, and usher in Japan’s renewable and sustainable future. History is within their grasp.

There will never be a better time. Since the terrible events of March 11 last year when an earthquake and tsunami triggered the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Japan has shown that nuclear power can be abandoned quickly and with an invisible impact on people’s daily lives.  The Minister for Economy, Trade and Industry Yukio Edano has said there will be no restrictions on electricity use or rolling blackouts.

The operator of the destroyed Fukushima reactors, Tokyo Electric Power added “for the electricity supply and demand in the foreseeable future, we expect to maintain stable supply.” If there are electricity shortages this summer it will be the fault of the government who instead of properly planning energy conservation and pouring resources into renewables have been obsessed with restarting Japan’s discredited nuclear reactors as fast as possible.

So why is the government frantically trying to restart the country’s reactors without the consent of the people living nearby? Why should the people of Japan suffer more nuclear risks? The country’s nuclear reactors and infrastructure are in no state to withstand another major earthquake that experts warn is almost inevitable.

Continue reading →