Several months after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, we鈥檙e beginning to get a sense of the likely long-term impacts.
Radiation has spread across much of the northern hemisphere and parts of the southern hemisphere, including northern Australia.
Japan鈥檚 Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency estimates the radioactive release at 770,000 terabecquerels in the first week of the crisis.
Total radiation releases will probably fall somewhere between 10-40% of those from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Radiation releases have not been stopped and will continue for some months.
Jim Green
With the 25th anniversary of Chernobyl falling on April 26, a debate is brewing over the estimated death toll from the nuclear disaster. The debate has erupted with a heated exchange between prominent British columnist George Monbiot and anti-nuclear campaigner Dr Helen Caldicott.
the 鈥渙fficial death toll鈥 from Chernobyl is 43. the death toll at 985,000. Someone's wrong. Perhaps they both are.
A poll by Roy Morgan Research several days into the Fukushima nuclear crisis found that 61% of Australians oppose the development of nuclear power in Australia, nearly double the 34% who support it.
The growth in support for nuclear power over the past five years has been totally erased 鈥 and then some.
There was undoubtedly growing support for nuclear power until Fukushima, but the issue had been the subject of a great deal of hype and spin.
Prominent British columnist George Monbiot announced in the British Guardian on March 21 that he now supports nuclear power. That isn't a huge surprise 鈥 having previously opposed nuclear power, he announced himself 鈥渘uclear-neutral鈥 in 2009.
What's the best mix of electricity supply sources for Australia in the context of growing scientific and public concern about climate change? Energy efficiency and conservation provide the first part of the answer 鈥 they can provide large, quick, cheap greenhouse emissions reductions.
There's every likelihood that radioactive by-products of Australian uranium have spewed into the atmosphere from the nuclear reactor plant at Fukushima in Japan.
How have Australian scientists handled the difficult task of keeping us informed about the unfolding nuclear disaster in Japan? Only a few Australian scientists have featured repeatedly in the media.
Traditional owners of Muckaty Station in the Northern Territory have launched a federal court challenge over a proposed nuclear waste dump on their land.
A small group of traditional owners signed a deal for $12 million in exchange for roads, housing and infrastructure, but senior elders from all five of the clan groups for Muckaty maintain that they did not consent to the waste dump proposal.
There are three main problems with the nuclear 鈥渟olution鈥 to climate change 鈥 it is a blunt instrument, a dangerous one, and it is unnecessary.
聯Integral fast reactors聰 and other 聯fourth generation聰 nuclear power concepts have been gaining attention, in part because of comments by US climate scientist James Hansen.
Nuclear power must be rejected as a climate change abatement strategy for three major reasons: a doubling of nuclear power would reduce global greenhouse emissions by no more than about 5%. A much larger expansion of nuclear power would deplete conventional uranium reserves in a few decades.
The connections between water scarcity, power generation and the federal government聮s promotion of nuclear power are worth reflecting on with National Water Week held from October 21-27.
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