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日本原子力委員会委員長代理が福島復旧計画の課題を吟味する。主要な短期的問題としては、損傷を受けた原子炉の安定化や10万トン以上の汚染水の管理などがある。長期的には、当局は、貯蔵プール内にある使用済み燃料、原子炉内の損傷した燃料、破損した原子炉などの問題を処理しなければならない。

On March 11 -- just days after the Bulletin's special issue on the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl tragedy was published -- I sat in my home office in Washington, DC, listening to NPR, my stomach knotting with each passing hour.

"… At least two nuclear power plants are in trouble, thousands of people have been evacuated from the area near those plants on the coast in Fukushima Prefecture. The situation seems especially bad at one nuclear plant in particular. …"

History repeats itself, the saying goes, first as tragedy and then as farce. This characterization could readily be applied to the international community's efforts to negotiate a treaty banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons. A longstanding objective of the international community, the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) has, tragically, never been the subject of even preliminary negotiations, as the nuclear powers that allegedly support it avoid taking any effective action on the treaty while, farcically, bemoaning its absence.

2011年4月12日――マグニチュード9.0の地震と津

2011年3月11日に日本を襲った巨大な波は、甚大な人的悲劇と未曾有の原子力発電所の危機をもたらしただけ

使用済み核燃料を再処理して、高速増殖炉を開発するという日本の長年の計画の妥当性が、ポスト・フクシマの文脈において国内で問われ始めている。

Even though it was downgraded to a Category 1 storm, Hurricane Irene still packed a serious punch. My family and I spent several nights in darkness, and our front yard turned into an ankle-deep bog.

The catastrophe now referenced by a single word -- Fukushima -- is not merely a major natural disaster. The events of 3/11 sent shockwaves through the nuclear industry and governments around the world and constitute the end of a certain economic development model and the industrial risk calculation that underlies it. Giant, centralized electricity production sites that rain kilowatt-hours onto consumers who are constantly increasing their consumption -- while accepting risk that can potentially harm millions -- are now outdated.