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London, England (CNN) -- Paving slabs that convert energy from people's footsteps into electricity are set to help power Europe's largest urban mall, at the 2012 London Olympics site.

The recycled rubber "PaveGen" paving slabs harvest kinetic energy from the impact of people stepping on them and instantly deliver tiny bursts of electricity to nearby appliances. The slabs can also store energy for up to three days in an on-board battery, according to its creator.

The young inventor envisages PaveGen systems being used to power off-grid appliances such as public lighting, illuminated street maps and advertising, and to be installed in areas of dense human traffic such as city centers, underground stations and school corridors

June Allen’s foresight on North Anna, Washington Post by Peter Galuszka, September 2, 2011:

[...] Now, according to an Associated Press investigation, the earthquake dangers faced at North Anna are seen as 38 percent more likely to cause damage to the cores of the two nuclear reactors at the plant than thought 20 years ago. [..] In 1967, when North Anna was on the drawing board, an environmental consulting firm found evidence of fault lines near the planned nuclear site, according to a report prepared in 2005 by the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League. In 1970, a construction excavation wall collapsed and inspecting geologists reported finding a major fault line. Vepco did not report the fault to federal regulators for three years. Vepco got its license to proceed with the plant. [June Allen, who headed the North Anna Environmental Coalition and who died in 2010] and other grass-roots activists smelled something rotten. In 1973, they formed their coalition and sued, claiming Vepco was lying about the fault lines. In 1975, the NRC accused Vepco of deleting files listing the fault lines in its reactor applications. The following year, Vepco was fined $32,000 for making materially false statements in its North Anna application. [...]

starting this week, which marks the beginning of a new fiscal year, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) and the Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan (NSC) have no budget. The new nuclear regulatory agency that was supposed to begin operations on April 1 in NISA's stead is now floundering amid resistance in the Diet from opposition parties. In other words, government agencies overseeing nuclear power now have an even more diminished presence.

According to Japan's general budget provisions, funds for a new government organization can be diverted to existing government organizations if the money is being used for its original purpose. The situation doesn't do much for morale, however. Back-scratching relationships between government ministries, the indecision of both the ruling and opposition parties, and the unchanging fact that much of the current crisis is still left in the hands of plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) remains the same

One of the biggest issues that we face is the possibility that the spent nuclear fuel pool of the No. 4 reactor at the stricken Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant will collapse. This is something that experts from both within and outside Japan have pointed out since the massive quake struck. TEPCO, meanwhile, says that the situation is under control. However, not only independent experts, but also sources within the government say that it's a grave concern.

: Dr. Helen Caldicott

All areas of Japan should be tested to assess how radioactive the soil and water are because the winds can blow the radioactive pollution hundreds of miles from the point source at Fukushima. Under no circumstances should radioactive rubbish and debris be incinerated as this simply spreads the isotopes far and wide to re-concentrate in food and fish. All batches of food must be adequately tested for specific radioactive elements using spectrometers. No radioactive food must be sold or consumed, nor must radioactive food be diluted for sale with non-radioactive food as radioactive elements re-concentrate in various bodily organs. All water used for human consumption should be tested weekly. All fish caught off the east coast must be tested for years to come. All people, particularly children, pregnant women and women of childbearing age still living in high radiation zones should be immediately evacuated to non-radioactive areas of Japan. All people who have been exposed to radiation from Fukushima – particularly babies, children, immunosuppressed, old people and others — must be medically thoroughly and routinely examined for malignancy, bone marrow suppression, diabetes, thyroid abnormalities, heart disease, premature aging, and cataracts for the rest of their lives and appropriate treatment instituted. Leukemia will start to manifest within the next couple of years, peak at five years and solid cancers will start appearing 10 to 15 years post-accident and will continue to increase in frequency in this generation over the next 70 to 90 years. All physicians and medical care providers in Japan must read and examine Chernobyl–Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment by the New York Academy of Sciences to understand the true medical gravity of the situation they face. I also suggest with humility that doctors in particular but also politicians and the general public refer to my web page, nuclearfreeplanet.org for more information, that they listen to the interviews related to Fukushima and Chernobyl on my radio program at ifyoulovethisplanet.org and they read my book NUCLEAR POWER IS NOT THE ANSWER. The international medical community and in particular the WHO must be mobilized immediately to assist the Japanese medical profession and politicians to implement this massive task outlined above. The Japanese government must be willing to accept international advice and help. As a matter of extreme urgency Japan must request and receive international advice and help from the IAEA and the NRC in the U.S., and nuclear specialists from Canada, Europe, etc., to prevent the collapse of Fukushima Dai-ichi Unit 4 and the spent fuel pool if there was an earthquake greater than 7 on the Richter scale.As the fuel pool crashed to earth it would heat and burn causing a massive radioactive release 10 times larger than the release from Chernobyl. There is no time to spare and at the moment the world community sits passively by waiting for catastrophe to happen. The international and Japanese media must immediately start reporting the facts from Japan as outlined above. Not to do so is courting global disaster.

Futaba is a modern-day ghost town — not a boomtown gone bust, not even entirely a victim of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that leveled other parts of Japan’s northeast coast.

Its traditional wooden homes have begun to sag and collapse since they were abandoned in March by residents fleeing the nuclear plant on the edge of town that began spiraling toward disaster. Roofs possibly damaged by the earth’s shaking have let rain seep in, starting the rot that is eating at the houses from the inside.

The roadway arch at the entrance to the empty town almost seems a taunt. It reads: “Nuclear energy: a correct understanding brings a prosperous lifestyle.”

Less than two months ago the crippled Japanese nuclear power plant at Fukushima was declared stable.Yet now it has emerged that radioactive water is continuing to leak at the stricken site. These were spotted by workers at the reprocessing areas and were found to release enough beta rays that can lead to radiation sickness.

Matsumoto said TEPCO also found that 8.5 tons of radioactive water had leaked earlier in the week after a pipe became detached at Unit 4, one of the plant's six reactors. The company earlier had estimated that only a few gallons had leaked. He said officials are investigating the cause of that leak, but that it was unlikely the pipe had been loosened by the many aftershocks that have hit the plant.The structural integrity of the damaged Unit 4 reactor building has long been a major concern among experts because a collapse of its spent fuel cooling pool could cause a disaster worse than the three reactor meltdowns.

While President Obama still favors nuclear energy after the Fukushima disaster, the New England state of Vermont wants to scrap it altogether. The Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant is slated for shutdown in March 2012.

Nestel has already been arrested 11 times in protests against the reactor. She is a member of the "Shut it down!" group, which consists of 12 women from the ages of 40 to 92. They all have the same mission: to shut down Vermont Yankee, and in doing so make Vermont a nuclear power-free state. "We have a lot to do," says Nestel. "We are always going to have protests at the reactor and we will always let ourselves be arrested. We don't leave until we're arrested. But they always drop the charges because we're so well-liked in the community."

Since the reactor, identical in construction to the one in Fukushima, went on line in 1972, it has made headlines time and again. In 2007 a cooling tower collapsed due to shabby wooden girders. When in 2010 it was discovered that radioactive tritium had seeped into the groundwater from a pipe leak, the Vermont Senate voted by a large majority to close Vermont Yankee by 2012. Differing opinions among politicians and population

Those who think Japan's Fukushima disaster is today's headlines and tomorrow's history need to take a good look at the Chernobyl disaster, which to this day is a continuing threat to the people of Ukraine. It will be hundreds of years before the area around the destroyed reactor is inhabitable again and there are disputes over whether or not Chernobyl's nuclear fuel still poses a threat of causing another explosion. There is also a teetering reactor core cover and the deteriorating sarcophagus itself that may collapse and send plumes of radioactive dust in all directions.

The New York Times article "Lessons from Chernobyl for Japan," reflects on the Chernobyl disaster and how its legacy still looms over us today as a very real threat. Those who believe in a quick fix for the Fukushima disaster would be wise to remember Chernobyl's legacy

More importantly, with tens of millions of lives at stake, nation actors that have the ability to assist in mitigating this disaster now, but choose instead to squander their manpower and resources elsewhere (like in Libya), must remember that their actions today will be remembered and judged for centuries to come.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency plans to start testing fish off the coast of British Columbia for the presence of radiation stemming from the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan earlier this year. The agency has not yet released any specific details on the testing program, but did say it expects the test results to be well below Health Canada's actionable levels for radiation.

Fisheries activist Alexandra Morton with the Raincoast Research Society says she supports the testing, but calls the announcement a political move. Morton says millions of sockeye have started returning to the Fraser River and the fishing season is already well underway. Salmon are a particular concern to Morton and others because their wide-ranging migration patterns can take them right across the Pacific Ocean to the coast of Japan.

"If they were actually concerned about the health of people and the fish, they would have started this actually at the beginning of the commercial openings. But to release this two days before the disease hearings at the Cohen inquiry, to me it's a political statement, it's a political effort to appear responsible," she said.

ScienceDaily (July 3, 2010) — after Fukushima, it is now imperative to redefine what makes a successful nuclear energy–from the cradle to the grave. If the management of nuclear waste is not considered by the authority, the public in many countries reject nuclear energy as an option, according to a survey appearing in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, published by SAGE.

According to Allison Macfarlane, Associate Professor of environmental science and policy at George Mason University and a member of the Blue Ribbon for nuclear future of America, resulting in storage for nuclear waste, which is still a last-minute decision to a number of countries outside of Japan. It is surprisingly common for reactor sites for overburdened with spent nuclear fuel without any clear plan. In South Korea, for example, saving to four nuclear power stations in the nation is filled, leading to a crisis within the storage potential of the next decade.

United Arab Emirates broke the ground for the first of four nuclear reactors on 14 March 2011, but has not set the precedence of storage. Hans Blix, former head of the International Atomic energy Agency and current President of the UAE’S International Advisory Council, noted: “it is still an open question of a draft final disposal and greater attention should be spent on deciding what to do.”