A year after one of the worst industrial disasters in history - the triple reactor meltdown and spent fuel fires at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant - we still don't have a very clear idea about the full ecological, health and economic consequences facing Japan and the world.Yet, while staggering amounts of radiation were released into the environment (the danger of new discharges lurks: even the plant director acknowledges that the reactors are "still rather fragile"), the global nuclear industry seems unfazed.
Its executives have good reasons to be cheerful, despite the gloom that had started to spread among them last year. The human lust for power - in the forms of cheap energy and nuclear weapons - is unquenchable, and seems stronger even than the fear of death and collective destruction. Meanwhile, alternative sources of such power beyond carbon fuels and nuclear energy, despite decades of efforts, are still underdeveloped. Read More
