Antinuclear

Opinion:

¶ “Australian solar financing at ‘tipping point'” • A host of factors point to a boom in a recently beleaguered sector. The past 12 months have seen a deluge of debt finance pour into large-scale solar projects, enticed by falling costs and a favorable political environment. Experts claim that solar power can now compete with gas on price. [Global Trade Review]

Australia

Science and Technology:

¶ The Neo-Carbon Energy research project enables production of synthetic fuels straight from the air. The solution is built on carbon dioxide capture, water electrolysis, and subsequent synthesis to methane and liquid fuels. It depends on very low cost renewable electricity based on wind and solar. The process is carbon neutral. [Science Daily]

World:

¶ Sri Lanka’s Cabinet of Ministers has approved plans to build a hybrid renewable energy park including 240 MW of wind and 800 MW of solar…

Six years after the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, the government has lifted evacuation orders on four municipalities around the plant, allowing residents to return home for the first time since the meltdowns. The author, who has been involved in reconstruction planning since the evacuation orders were first given, calls for a multiple-track plan to meet the complicated needs of those who return and evacuees who continue to live elsewhere as evacuees.

The Beginning of the End, or the Prelude to New Heartache?

The Japanese government on March 31 and April 1 of this year lifted evacuation orders for areas around the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station it issued in the wake of the nuclear accident at the plant more than six years ago. The decision finally allowed some 32,000 residents of the four radiation-affected municipalities of Iidate, Kawamata, Namie, and Tomioka to return to their homes…