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This week, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) re-launched its website, Energy.gov, to provide tools to help individuals and businesses better understand how to save energy and money. You can type your zip code into the site and get hyper-local information about your city, county and state, including information on tax credits, rebates and energy saving tips.

The site presents DOE data visually using the open source MapBox suite of tools, and localized data and maps can be shared or embedded on any website or blog. Other data sets the DOE is mapping include alternative fuel locations and per capita energy usage. Anyone can now compare how his state’s energy usage compares with others across the country. In addition to making the data more palatable for the public, the DOE is offering open data sets for others to use.

Our goal is simple — to improve the delivery of public services online. We’re using government data to go local in a way that’s never been possible before. We’re connecting the work of the Energy Department with what’s happening in your backyard,” says Cammie Croft, senior advisor and director of new media and citizen engagement at the DOE. “We’re making Energy.gov relevant and accessible to consumers and small businesses in their communities.”

As the deepening crisis in Japan presents the nuclear power industry with its gravest test in years, President Obama has emerged as a critical ally and defender. Repeatedly in recent days, Obama has peppered public remarks on Japan with assurances that U.S. reactors are sound and that nuclear energy remains a key component of his energy agenda.

The president’s stance once again puts him in direct opposition to his political base, with many environmentalists and a plurality of Democratic voters in a new survey saying that nuclear power is not safe. But Obama has experience with the industry. His home state of Illinois has more nuclear power plants than any other state, and Chicago is the headquarters for Exelon, which operates the country’s largest fleet of nuclear plants. And as president, Obama has proposed a dramatic expansion in government-backed loans to build new plants.

The president’s stance underscores the important role nuclear power plays in his broader energy agenda. In the State of the Union speech this year, Obama presented a goal of generating 80 percent of the country’s electricity from clean energy sources by 2035. Citing support among different constituencies for wind, solar, nuclear, “clean coal” and natural gas, the president declared: “We will need them all.”

Reconsidering my support for nuclear energy I have found that it is only based in a desire to use it as a tool in the rather important fight against global warming and global meltdown. That in turn makes it possible to say “I hate nuclear energy. I just hate global warming more. So I support using it exactly until that problem is solved.” I said as much in my post yesterday with the nice title “Shut down those filthy nuclear reactors”.

So, what is there to hate about nuclear energy? Imagine you are a supporter of nuclear energy that is pushed by a silly reason like anger over being insulted by some random stranger on the Internet to actively look for anything that might be a problem with your former position. That is exactly what I have done. As a result, I have found basically two problems with it. One, which is the more important point, is the fact that the pro-nuclear position has lost in Germany, the only country where I actually have a vote. There is no German party I could vote for that supports building new nuclear reactors.

The victory of German anti-nuclear forces was quite decisive. That means as far as Germany is concerned, nuclear is just not a realistic option any more. Pro-nuclear advocacy is a waste of time, and a fringe minority position. Japan, the other country I might have some influence, is not quite as hopeless. Still advocating for a large increase in nuclear energy there does not seem a promising strategy.

Related Story Content Story Sharing Tools Share with Add This Print this story E-mail this story Related Related Links Japan PM feared nuclear disaster worse than Chornobyl Special Report: Disaster in Japan Japan ignored own radiation forecasts FAQ: Radiation's health effects Timeline of events at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex FAQ: Nuclear reactorsAccessibility Links Beginning of Story Content TOKYO –

 Related Story Content Story Sharing Tools Share with Add This Print this story E-mail this story Related Related Links Japan PM feared nuclear disaster worse than Chornobyl Special Report: Disaster in Japan Japan ignored own radiation forecasts FAQ: Radiation's health effects Timeline of events at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex FAQ: Nuclear reactors Accessibility Links Beginning of Story Content TOKYO –  The scars of Japan’s March 11 disaster are both glaringly evident and deceptively hidden. Six months after a tsunami turned Japan’s northeast into a tangled mess of metal, concrete, wood and dirt, legions of workers have made steady progress hauling away a good portion of the more than 20 million tonnes of debris covering ravaged coastal areas. The Environment Ministry says it expects to have it all removed by next March, and completely disposed of by 2014. 'I think Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), as well as the Japanese government, made many mistakes.' —Shoji Sawada, theoretical particle physicist But a weightless byproduct of this country’s March 11 disaster is expected to linger for much longer.  The Japanese learned a lot about the risks posed by radiation after the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Now, once again, they are facing this invisible killer. This time, the mistake is of their own making. "I’m afraid," says Shoji Sawada, a theoretical particle physicist who is opposed to the use of nuclear energy .  Sawada has been carefully monitoring the fallout from the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant. “I think many people were exposed to radiation. I am afraid [they] will experience delayed effects, such as cancer and leukemia.” Evacuation zone Japan's government maintains a 20-kilometre evacuation zone around the Fukushima Daiichi plant, with no unauthorized entry allowed. The government has urged people within a 30-km radius of the plant to leave, but it's not mandatory. Some people say the evacuation zone should include Fukushima City, which is 63 km away from the plant. At the moment, the roughly 100,000 local children are kept indoors, schools have banned soccer and outdoor sports, pools were closed this summer, and building windows are generally kept closed. A handful of people argue the government should evacuate all of Fukushima prefecture, which has a population of about 2 million.  Sawada dedicated his career to studying the impact radiation has on human health, particularly among the survivors of Japan’s atomic bombings. His interest is both professional and personal. When he was 13 years old, his mother urged him to flee their burning home in Hiroshima. She died, trapped beneath rubble . “I think Tokyo Electric Power Company [TEPCO], as well as the Japanese government, made many mistakes,” he says. Those mistakes have been clearly documented since the earthquake and tsunami triggered meltdowns and explosions at TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi, some 220 kilometres northeast of Tokyo. Warnings to build a higher tsunami wall were ignored; concerns about the safety of aging reactors covered up; and a toothless nuclear watchdog exposed as being more concerned with promoting atomic energy than protecting the public

The scars of Japan’s March 11 disaster are both glaringly evident and deceptively hidden. Six months after a tsunami turned Japan’s northeast into a tangled mess of metal, concrete, wood and dirt, legions of workers have made steady progress hauling away a good portion of the more than 20 million tonnes of debris covering ravaged coastal areas. The Environment Ministry says it expects to have it all removed by next March, and completely disposed of by 2014.

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according to Sankei Shinbun, who has been unabashedly pro-nuclear energy and in favor of dispersing radioactive materials throughout Japan via the disaster debris to share in the "pain".The paper has an article about the meeting between the Ministry of the Education officials and the heads of the municipalities within the 20-kilometer radius "no entry zone" where the heads of the municipalities received the information from the Ministry about their lot - whether they can return after the decontamination work by the national government or not.

But that isn't the interesting part of the article.At the end of the article, there is a separate section that the newspaper writes about what "decontamination" is, according to the Ministry of the Education:

Decontamination: "It is like a cleaning job of stubborn dirt or stains" (Ministry of the Environment senior officials). Basically, it relies on manpower, using hand tools like shovels and scrubbing-brushes. According to the guideline published at the end of last year by the Ministry of the Environment, what can be easily removed, such as dead leaves, is to be removed by hand. The roofs are to be washed down by high-pressure washers, and the concrete surface such as the entrance of a house is to be scrubbed by scrubbing-brushes and deck brushes. As for the grassland and the soil where radioactive materials have penetrated, the surface is to be removed using shovels or diggers. Workers must pay attention not to get exposed to radioactivity by wearing the protective gear.

Setting the scene for its revealing report on the plight of workers at Fukushima Daiichi, the Economist details conditions outside the stricken plant. “Patrol cars stop passing vehicles,” notes the reporter, “The police are particularly vigilant in preventing unauthorised people getting near the stricken plant.” Meet the Workers

The air of secrecy is compounded when you try to approach workers involved in the nightmarish task of stabilising the nuclear plant. Many are not salaried Tepco staff but low-paid contract workers lodging in Iwaki, just south of the exclusion zone.” “It is easy to spot them, in their nylon tracksuits — They seem to have been recruited from the poorest corners of society”: One calls home from a pay phone because he can’t afford a mobile phone Another has a single front tooth Both are reluctant to talk to journalist (condition of employment is silence) They share their concerns about safety One said he got 30 minutes of safety training He said almost everything he learned about radiation risks came from TV

Conditions On-site Hiroyuki Watanabe, an Iwaki official reports there are “many safety breaches.” “Workers wading through contaminated water complain that their boots have holes in them — Some are not instructed in when to change the filters on their safety masks,” according to Watanabe. “Even such basic tools as wrenches are in short supply, he claims. Tepco is shielded by a lack of media scrutiny. The councillor shows a Tepco gagging order that one local boss had to sign. Article four bans all discussion of the work with outsiders. All requests for media interviews must be rejected.”

In addition to regulating commercial nuclear power reactors that generate 20 percent of the nation’s electricity, the NRC also regulates much smaller reactors used for research, training and development. These “research and test reactors,” often called RTRs or non-power reactors, contribute to almost every field of science including physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, geology, archeology, and environmental sciences. Most are located at universities or colleges. (The NRC does not regulate research reactors run by the Department of Energy.) The most common use for these small reactors is for experiments. One widely used type of experiment is neutron scattering. Radiation from the reactor is directed at the material to be studied. The manner in which the radiation interacts and bounces off, or scatters, from the material provides information on structure and properties. Neutron scattering is an important tool in experiments dealing with superconductors, polymers, metals, and proteins.

Neutron radiography is another experimental technique. It is similar to medical or dental X-rays. These experiments are used to determine structural integrity and provide quality control for aerospace, automotive and medical components. NRC experts inspect each RTR periodically to ensure they are being operated according to the agency’s safety and security requirements, and the facility’s own license conditions. The NRC uses a graded approach in its inspection program so there are less frequent and detailed inspections at facilities that pose a lower risk.

There are two types of inspection programs for operating research and test reactors: • For reactors licensed to operate at power levels of 2 megawatts or greater, the inspection program is completed annually. • For reactors licensed to operate at power levels below 2 megawatts, the inspection program is completed every two years.

Lucas W Hixson may have uncovered a major abuse of the public trust by the NRC. In late March 2011 the NRC issued a directive that allowed the nuclear industry lobbyist group NEI to supply radiation monitoring data to the NRC who would then forward it to the EPA. March 24th the NRC discussed handing over radiation monitoring to nuclear industry lobbyists, April 14th RadNet was shut down and went back to routine monitoring schedules. This meant no ongoing food,water and air filter testing. Only the radiation level monitors were left operating. The EPA claimed that levels were going down as the reason for shutting down the expanded monitoring, but places like Idaho did not have the decreases seen at other sites.

The NRC directive put commercial nuclear power plant owners in charge of voluntarily providing the public with radiation monitoring data but it would be run through their nuclear industry lobbyists before it would then be provided to the NRC. Raw data was not provided directly to the NRC. Considering the massive US nuclear industry offensive to flood the media with propaganda downplaying the Fukushima nuclear disaster, they are hardly a reliable source to tell the public what the radiation levels are.

RadNet itself had many problems, stations didn’t work, some were not calibrated before the disaster. Even more disturbing is that the EPA does not even handle their own radiation monitoring network. The important function falls to a former Bush administration appointee running a business out of a rundown storefront in New Mexico. Under a $238,000 no bid contract Environmental Dimensions supposedly manages, maintains and operates RadNet, the only tool the public has to see if we are being subjected to nuclear fallout. The blogger that broke this story states that Environmental Dimensions has tripled their revenue in recent years. The company cites a different address as their mailing address. This shows up as a tiny house in Albuquerque. EDI was also part of a 12 million dollar contract in 2010 along with a couple of other contractors. The contract provides environmental & remediation services to the US Corps of Engineers. EDI claims to have been in business since 1990 but owner, Ms. Bradshaw worked for the DoD in 2006.

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission will begin a special inspection at Progress Energy‘s Brunswick-2 unit in North Carolina after the utility said Friday the reactor pressure vessel’s lid was not adequately tightened when it restarted earlier this week.  Most of us are also paying close attention to the events at Brunswick Nuclear Power Plant, and today I talked with a former nuclear engineer  Chris Harris about the recent developments.

The unit shut Wednesday morning after the reactor leaked. An investigation showed the inadequately tightened reactor vessel head was a potentially “significant” safety issue, Progress said in a report filed Friday with the NRC. Workers seeking the source of the leak found that at least 10 of the 64 bolts that secure the reactor vessel head to the pressure vessel were not fully tightened, Progress spokesman Ryan Mosier said in an email Friday.

The unit had been in a maintenance outage, was in the process of restarting and was operating at 7% power when workers discovered the leak in the reactor coolant system, Progress said in an event report filed Wednesday with NRC. When the leak exceeded 10 gal/minute, the unit was shut, Progress said.

With Poland evaluating two GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) reactor models for the country’s first nuclear power plant projects, GEH today announced it has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Warsaw-based engineering firm Energoprojekt Warszawa, S.A. (EW) to discuss the feasibility of partnering on future reactor projects.

The MOU with Energoprojekt Warszawa is the latest in a series of preliminary agreements that GEH has signed with Polish suppliers as the government prepares to develop Poland’s first two nuclear generating stations to diversify the country’s energy supplies. Under the new MOU, both companies will explore how EW could provide specific engineering services to GEH for the potential development of new nuclear power plants in Poland.

“This initial action shows the future possibility of creating jobs and cooperation related not only to Polish suppliers of fixtures, construction and installation works, but to Polish planning and engineering during the plant’s construction process.”

Breaking News: High level of radiation is making hydrogen from H2O, Fukushima Diary by Mochizuki, September 26, 2011:

These are the tonight’s tweets of actual Fukushima worker called Happy20790 I managed to come back safely today. We couldn’t work at reactor 1 today, again. Last week, they said they detected 4% of hydrogen but it turned out to be over 100%. The current measurement tool is to detected only flammable gas, but Tepco says probably it is all hydrogen. [...] We would have been all dead if we cut of the pipe [reportedly using blow torches]. Unbelievable story, but as our original schedule, we didn’t plan to check the presence of flammable gas. The process was added the day before the day. It’s so scary. [...] [T]hen we are going to inject nitrogen to cut out to pipes. but normal air contains 18% of oxygen, which is enough to cause a hydrogen explosion even without fire. It’s so scary. Injecting nitrogen may also cause lack of oxygen. [...] It’s probably that high radiation is producing hydrogen out of H2O. [...] From his valuable statements, we can tell the hydrogen is still being produced by the very high radiation hitting H2O in the reactor. Nobody has seen it by their own eyes, but the melted fuel rods must be very active still. TEPCO: It May Be 100% Hydrogen Gas Inside the Pipe Connecting to Reactor I Containment Vessel, EX-SKF, September 24, 2011:

A nuclear or radiological emergency presents complex public health, environmental and engineering challenges. A constant flow of detailed, reliable information is indispensable to be able to marshal and coordinate the needed response which includes the prompt mobilisation and dispatch of specialised human and equipment resources, as requested. The global focal point for such coordination and information exchange is the IAEA's Incident and Emergency Centre, or IEC. It is the IEC's task to inform many different official designated actors around the world as quickly as possible whenever a nuclear or radiological emergency occurs. A sustained and reliable information flow is one of the most important resources in effective incident and emergency response. New Platform

One of the IEC's tasks is to develop and improve the communication and coordination systems that deliver authenticated and verified information to the emergency responders who need it. During the emergency response to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident, the IEC launched a new, secure web-based communications platform, the Unified System for Information Exchange on Incidents and Emergencies, or USIE. The new system, which had been in development since 2009, replaces two existing communication systems, thus simplifying the emergency information exchange. "The new USIE system delivers a solution the emergency response community needed and requested from the IAEA," said Denis Flory, IAEA Deputy Director General for Nuclear Safety and Security. "When the IAEA's Member States respond to a nuclear incident or emergency, they need a single, secure, straight-forward system that easily adapts to their needs. That is exactly what USIE does."

Alert System Like its predecessor systems, USIE is a secure website to which registered users have access. Instead of monitoring two separate systems that previously reported on different types of incidents, users now receive alerts from the new USIE system when new information is issued about any type of incident, ranging from a lost radioactive source to a full-scale nuclear emergency. The platform delivers alerts, based upon the user's preferences, via text messages delivered to a mobile device, or via email, or via fax. The system tracks multiple events, issuing information that has been authenticated by the country reporting an accident or incident. The platform meets demanding security standards thus offering its users the assurance that the information received is reliable.

A week ago, a busy 55th General Conference closed at the IAEA, where major issues in nuclear science, nuclear safety and nuclear power were discussed, and successful projects undertaken throughout the year were highlighted. Keynote Address This year's Scientific Forum focused on water and the efforts being made by the IAEA and its partners to improve its availability and management. In his keynote address to the Scientific Forum, U.S. Secretary for Energy and Nobel Laureate Steven Chu described how nuclear techniques have proven to be powerful tools that successfully and efficiently help to find, measure, monitor, characterize and manage aquifer and ground water. "Nuclear technologies and techniques can - and must - play an important role in solving the global water challenge. Isotope hydrology can provide critical information about water resources, so we can better manage them", he said. He also described how isotopic analysis can be used to verify the anthropogenic causes of climate change. In closing, Secretary Chu called for "a sustained commitment to scientific research and development to address the great challenges of our time" since support from governments is critical to unleashing innovation".

Nuclear Safety Nuclear safety has been on a global concern since the devastating nuclear accident in Japan in March. The IAEA Member States developed a Nuclear Safety Action Plan that the Board of Governors approved and the General Conference endorsed. A new system which makes it easier for Member States and the Agency to exchange emergency information was launched. Following the first meeting of the Nuclear Industry Cooperation Forum, its Chair, Garry Young, who is also the Director of Nuclear Business Development at the US nuclear power operator, Entergy, talked to Sasha Henriques from the IAEA Division of Public Information, about how important it is for nuclear power plant operators from around the world to work together to avoid another major nuclear accident like Fukushima Daiichi. Listen to the interview here:

Senegal signed the Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage during the General Conference. Among other things, the Convention establishes an international fund to increase the amount available to compensate victims of nuclear accidents. Mauritania deposited the instruments of accession to three international safety Conventions on 19 September 2011: the Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident; the Convention on Assistance in the Case of a Nuclear Accident or Radiological Emergency and the Joint Convention on the Safety of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management.

Fukushima Prefecture has begun holding training seminars for workers who will be cleaning areas contaminated with radiation from the Daiichi nuclear power plant. Fukushima plans to conduct the 2-day technical seminars around the prefecture. On Tuesday, 113 civil engineers, painters and other volunteers who have just begun cleanup work took part in the first seminar in Koriyama City. An expert from the Japan Atomic Energy Agency spoke about what kind of tools should be used to effectively remove radioactive materials from home gutters and roadside ditches. The participants also learned how to protect themselves while they are working. On the second day, they will receive practical training using dosimeters. A man from Iwaki City said he has volunteered several times for decontamination work and would like to learn how to prevent polluted water from spreading. He said he wants to decontaminate Fukushima quickly and restore the area to what it was before. The prefecture plans to hold 10 seminars by the end of the year and hopes to train as many people as possible to help accelerate the cleanup process.

One person has been killed and four injured, one seriously, in a blast at the Marcoule nuclear site in France.

But interior ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet later said there had been no leak of radiation, neither inside nor outside the plant.

None of the injured workers was contaminated by radiation, said officials. The worker who died was killed by the blast and not by exposure to nuclear material.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission last fall began identifying hundreds of employees with expertise it deems too valuable to lose.It captures that expertise by a variety of means — recorded presentations and interviews, collected documents — for posting on the online NRC Knowledge Center. Veteran employees also connect with staff through mentor programs, job shadowing and brown-bag lunches."The workforce today doesn't have the 30 years of experience in licensing and inspecting nuclear power plants," said Patricia Eng, NRC's senior adviser for knowledge management. "In 2009, 50 percent of the NRC staff had been with us for less than five years," which created a "huge training issue," she said.

. There are virtual communities of practice, based on profession and skill set, where members can post questions and answers, documents and videos that are permanently stored and available for view.

soon be able to subscribe to RSS feeds.

Shorts, short-sleeve T-shirts, no masks, sneakers, with small kids. (In other words, all the things you should never do.)As "decontamination" is set to become a new bubble for Fukushima Prefecture if not for entire Japan, the national government strongly encourage citizen volunteers to "decontaminate" their own neighborhood.So, one elementary school in Tsukuba City in Ibaraki Prefecture called on the parents to do the "decontamination" of the school yard on September 9, and Ibaraki City proudly posted the photographs of the occasion on its webpage.

Except... oops one of the photos showed the presence of small children. It was supposed to be done by adult volunteers only, for the safety for the kids. People started to question the wisdom of "decon" with children, so the city quietly substituted the photo with the one without any children in it.

Professor Hayakawa of Gunma Prefecture (of radiation contour map fame) is one of those people who happened to capture the photo before Tsukuba deleted from its site: