Reports say there was a fire yesterday at the nuclear plant which, incidentally, still hasn't been re-started since the earthquake in July 2007.

There's not much news either about any move to do anything with the facilities although I note that:

On August 23, 2007, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) received "information from the Tokyo Electric Power Company on non-conformities found in the inspection and restoration after the Niigataken Chuetsu-oki Earthquake in 2007.

It appears that they should be now have cleared away what was left of the contaminated leaked water - of which 1.2 m3 went straight into the sea and the rest spilled over the refueling floor of the reactor building - and will shortly be commencing removing the oil. Of the 438 drums of solid waste, 41 were found with their lids off.

The AFP report said that the earthquake which had forced the closure of the world's largest nuclear plant in Japan was about 2.7 times stronger than the maximum considered in the plant's design guidelines.

The Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), which operates the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant, registered the July 16 quake at 993 gals (the unit measuring the speed of acceleration).

The government's guidelines for the design of nuclear power plants only envisioned quakes of up to 370 gals. Eight of the country's 17 plants were built based on that estimate.

Japanese nuclear authorities expect the plant to be offline for about a year for safety checks, although the UN International Atomic Energy Agency said last week the plant had no major safety problems.

If it were me living in that area, I don't think I'd react in such a nonchalant way. What about you?

I'm so glad we're finally having a debate on wattwatt about this topic.

I'm not a dreamer and I have Scots origins which make me more than conscious of costs and efficiency(!) If it weren't for the fact that noone has yet found the solution for disposing of nuclear waste I'd encourage it. But they haven't and I don't think we should get rid of the bath water with the baby in it, i.e. we need to think of the impact of our behaviour today in terms of tomorrow's world. Just because there's no immediate danger and noone died (this time) doesn't mean that I can continue, or in this case my fellow citizens should be permitted to, generating a situation that we can't control in a durable manner.

Equally, I don't approve of the 1976 Seveso disaster, the 1984 Bhopal tragedy and I wouldn't endorse sloppy behaviour in any situation, especially when it endangers life.

But, to return to the subject, just because we're used to generating our energy in a particular way doesn't mean that we can't spend a little extra on setting up new methods, even if it does mean, in the first stages, having more people than previously running around with nuts & bolts, or whatever it takes to set it up.

To draw a parallel which is like comparing apples and oranges, if companies have found that it's worth their while spending more on being a little greener, it's because not only does it ease their conscience, but it also reaps benefits for them in terms of share prices and the stock market.

We can use wind as the source of power to get fuel cells to stock the hydrogen we extract from water. Yes, it might be a planner's nightmare.

On the other hand, how much does it cost to send in teams of experts to examine a nuclear plant from every angle to ensure its safety in every aspect? When there's an earthquake or any other type of threat to the plant, how much more does it cost to send in other experts to judge on the level of danger?

And while these highly qualified people are carrying out their dangerous jobs what happens to the others who used to work there? What's the social price that has to be paid? Meanwhile, the intermediary fallback solution is pumping out tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.

Could it be that PV does have a future after all?

An article in the New Scientist Environment talks of a "futuristic scheme to collect solar energy on satellites and beam it to Earth" saying that it "has gained a large supporter in the US military".

It sounds like a pretty 'huge' idea since we're talking of kilometre-sized panels and I do wonder how they plan to avoid hitting them while shooting around in space (see Antoine Rauser's pulse in French about pollution in the universe).

If that's a "comfortable" solution for spending more money on technology, I suppose it will profit someone. Eventually we tend to benefit in one way or another when more "down-to-earth" uses and applications are discovered for the original space-age developments...