The earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan on March 11 last year took more than 20,000 lives, caused the evacuation of about 300,000 people, and set off the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl. The meltdowns of the Fukushima Daiichi reactors ended Japan's plans to produce half of its electricity through nuclear energy.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Friday ordered U.S. nuclear power plants to begin implementing safety recommendations made in an effort to prevent a crisis from occurring as it did in Japan after last year's devastating earthquake and tsunami.
As the United States prepares to build its first new nuclear power reactors in three decades, concerns about an early generation of plants have resurfaced since last year's disaster in Japan.
How's this for a real estate buzz kill?
Typical solar power plants stop working when the sun sets, but a new one in southern Spain, called Gemasolar, can stay awake all night.
A new solar plant in southern Spain can produce electricity at all hours, even when the sun goes down. Al Goodman reports
The CEO of Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant says what's happening to their plan in Nebraska is not another Fukushima.
Tim Nellenbach is on a mission as he shows a small group of journalists around his workplace. The manager of the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant and his colleagues are bent on dispelling rumors about the condition of their facility: rumors about a meltdown, about a loss of power. The rumors are patently false, they say, and it's frustrating to have to deal with them while also battling a genuine crisis.
In the shadow of the nation's oldest operating nuclear power plant, Alfonse Esposito fishes along Oyster Creek in central New Jersey, where he's caught and eaten bluefish and kingfish for 37 years.
TEPCO releases video of 48-foot wave that crippled Japana's Fukushima Daiichi power plant.
A passenger driving through Japan documents the radiation levels and devastation as he approaches the radiation zone.
Beneath the cherry blossoms of Shiba Park, more than 2,000 people lined up for a Sunday afternoon march calling for Japan's nuclear power stations to be shut down.
Health and safety concerns about Japanese nuclear power plants after this month's earthquake and tsunami have Lindsey Schiller wondering what could happen across the street from her own house in her Philadelphia suburb.
CNN's Allan Chernoff gains exclusive access inside Indian Point's two nuclear reactors.
TVA officials reassure public with rare look inside a nuclear plant. David Mattingly reports.
Since Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant suffered damage from a massive earthquake and tsunami March 11, you might be a little more aware of the nuclear power plant nearest you. Does it really need to be there? Is it safe?
The devastating earthquake and subsequent tsunami last week has claimed an untold number of Japanese victims, but there's one casualty in the U.S. that won't go down without a fight: the nuclear power industry. The resulting damage to one of Japan's nuclear power plants has resurrected old debates about the safety and soundness of nuclear technology and its ability to be used as a viable power source.
We are all deeply saddened by the news of the terrible devastation, destruction and death that occurred in Japan on March 12 from the incredible destruction brought on by a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and resulting tsunami. As if this were not enough, on the heels of these two events, several large nuclear power plants are in severe peril.
People in northeast Japan are warned to remain indoors due to the rise in radiation levels. CNN's Stan Grant reports.
In Japan's earthquake-triggered nuclear emergency, at least 200,000 people who live within 21 kilometers of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station outside Tokyo have been removed from their homes -- residents who are already victims of the worst earthquake to hit Japan since records were kept.
Boeing is making changes to the electrical system of the new 787 Dreamliner after a fire onboard caused a power failure during a test flight earlier this month.
In recent years Portugal has been harnessing its enviable southern European climate to benefit more than just its tourism industry.
When the natural gas ignited, it caused a blast so powerful that people 30 miles away thought there had been an earthquake. Inside the almost finished power plant in Middletown, Conn., around 11:15 a.m. on Feb. 7, the explosion blew the siding off the structure, crumpled construction trailers, and sparked a conflagration that sent a dense plume of black smoke hundreds of feet in the air. Six men died. Another 50 were injured, some of them gravely.
CNN's Anna Coren heads to South Korea for a tour of what promises to be the world's largest tidal power plant.
Engineers claim to be close to a breakthrough that could make coal less polluting. Earth's Frontiers investigates.
In the energy business, Jim Rogers is an anomaly. His company, Duke Energy, relies heavily on coal, a rock that accounts for 45% of America's energy use. Yet Rogers is also an environmentalist and a believer in renewables.
Nuclear power is inadequate, hugely expensive, unnecessary and dangerous.
Say you were to give Bill Gates a really great present -- like the ability to cure crippling diseases or to pick all U.S. presidents for the next 50 years.
Fortune: Nukes in my backyardupdated: Thu Mar 11 2010 10:31:00
Long left for dead, the U.S. nuclear power industry appears poised for a comeback.
Two new missile production plants opened in Iran on Saturday. The inauguration of the production lines for the anti-helicopter Qaem missile, and the anti-armor Toofan-5 (Hurricane) missile, came three days after Iran test-launched a rocket capable of carrying a satellite, a launch deemed a "provocative act" by Washington.
CNN's Anjali Rao has a preview of the upcoming climate summit in Copenhagen, Denmark.
The world has taken a step closer to "clean coal," thanks to new technology that actually uses CO2 to make power generation more efficient.
Whatever happened to all those new nuclear power plants the country was supposed to build?
David Crane, CEO of NRG Energy and a father of five, was standing in a stubby cornfield in Bucks County, Pa., one windy evening last October when his BlackBerry began to stir. He checked his in-box, but he didn't respond, not right away. It was Sunday night, and he was on an outing with his family, waiting in line for a Halloween hayride. Nor did he respond an hour later on his way to the Amtrak station to catch a train to Washington, D.C. How could he, when he drives a Mini Cooper with a stick shift? You need both hands to manage a car like that. So it wasn't until after nine at night, having found a quiet corner of the waiting room behind a Dunkin' Donuts kiosk, that Crane finally got around to calling back John Rowe.
Scientists in the United States are developing a "synthetic tree" capable of collecting carbon around 1,000 times faster than the real thing.
Is it really so smart to forge ahead with the high technology, digitally based electricity distribution and transmission system known as the "Smart Grid"? Tests have shown that a hacker can break into the system, and cybersecurity experts said a massive blackout could result.
Think of the future of green energy and the mental picture you may conjure up is one of vast solar plants glinting like a beetle's eye in the sun, or ranks of wind turbines turning in the breeze.
Concerns over testing at Iran's first nuclear power plant in Bushehr has ignited fierce debate. CNN's Reza Sayah reports.
Iran tested its first nuclear power plant Wednesday, a stride that prompted one Iranian technician to declare it was "independence day" for the Islamic republic.
Jyoti is the Hindi word for light. It's something Pranav Mehta has never had to live without. And he is lucky. Near where he lives in Gujarat, one of the most prosperous states in India, thousands of rural villages lack electricity or struggle with an intermittent supply at best.
Nuclear NRGupdated: Tue Jan 06 2009 06:39:00
David Crane is a man who isn't afraid of a challenge. When he took the helm at NRG Energy in the winter of 2003, the company was mired in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings -- just one of many companies caught in the meltdown of the U.S. power generation industry, instigated by the scandalous collapse of Texan power giant Enron in 2001.
Whilst the energy grids we rely on to provide us with cheap and reliable electricity may have been fit for purpose in the 20th century, it is now abundantly clear that the design of 21st century energy networks will have to be very different. In Europe, the foundations for a secure, flexible and more energy efficient future are already being laid.
The internationally renowned economist, social critic and author lends his expertise on the environment and energy to world leaders.
Twenty four hours before the greatest scientific experiment of our time gets underway at CERN's Large Hadron Collider, political and scientific dignitaries assembled at a site a few hundred miles north east of the French/Swiss border at a site in Germany to inaugurate another groundbreaking engineering test.
It looks like a scene from an old episode of The X-Files: As a red-tailed hawk circles overhead and a wild pronghorn sheep grazes in the distance, a dozen people in dark sunglasses move methodically through a vast field of golden barley, eyes fixed to the ground, GPS devices in hand. They're searching for bodies.
Jyoti is the Hindi word for light. It's something Pranav Mehta has never had to live without. And he is lucky. Near where he lives in Gujarat -- one of the most prosperous states in India -- thousands of rural villages lack electricity or struggle with an intermittent supply at best.
Sandwiched between two nondescript commercial buildings in a vacant lot squats what looks like a long, plastic-shrouded greenhouse. Hanging nearby is a cluster of five-foot-long plastic sacks bulging with green slime that resemble intravenous drip bags for the Jolly Green Giant. It doesn't look like groundbreaking technology, but these scum bags in Cambridge, Mass., just might help save the planet.
Halfway around the world, a zero-carbon, zero-waste, automobile-free city known as Masdar is rising from a 2.3-square mile plot of desert in Abu Dhabi.
Whisky is for drinkin', water is for fightin'.
Widespread anxiety about the damaging effects of burning fossil fuels, coupled with a genuine fear that oil and gas will become scarce before the century ends are fueling a renewed interest in renewable energy and, in particular, solar power solutions.
The proliferation of coal-burning power plants around the world may pose "the single greatest challenge" to averting dangerous climate change, an international panel of scientists have reported.
If you've read our story on Macquarie Bank you know that - regardless of that company's prospects - investors see plenty of opportunities in infrastructure.
Fortune: Going nuclearupdated: Tue Jul 31 2007 02:40:00
"We were at heightened security - we were at red," recalls Al Griffith, spokesman for the utility that owns the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant in New Hampshire.
Clouds hang low over the New Mexico desert, deep inside a military reservation a dozen miles south of Albuquerque. A breeze stirs the air; tumbleweeds roll by. Then the sun shines through and a low...
With global warming on everyone's mind, combined with a slew of electronic gadgets consuming more and more electricity, there's a greater need than ever for clean coal technology in the United States.
The Bush administration Tuesday applauded a Russian ultimatum to Iran that it will not supply fuel for Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant until Iran agrees to suspend uranium enrichment.
Most people don't spend an hour gabbing on their cell phone in the middle of the day. It's just too expensive.
Big lumps of sooty coal hardly seem like the future of energy, but that's exactly what the U.S. Department of Energy predicts. Consumption of the fossil fuel --the main source of greenhouse gas and a major contributor to acid rain, smog and mercury poisoning --will hit 10.6 billion tons a year by 2030, a near doubling of the 5.4 billion tons burned in 2003, according to the agency.
The planet's most pressing environmental problems—global warming, energy shortages, overfishing, pollution—may seem just too big to be solved with today's technology. But don't despair: A lot of br...
Space weather forecasters revised their predictions for storminess after a major flare erupted on the sun overnight threatening damage to communication systems and power grids while offering up the wonder of Northern Lights.
"This is my sandbox, where I play," says Tom Kiser, pulling his big Chrysler sedan into the parking lot of Professional Supply Inc. We're in Fremont, Ohio, population 17,000. There's a sauerkraut f...
This is my sandbox, where I play,” says Tom Kiser, pulling his big Chrysler sedan into the parking lot of Professional Supply Inc. We’re in Fremont, Ohio, population 17,000. There’s a sauerkraut fa...
While the U.S. hems and haws over reviving nuclear energy as a less expensive alternative to oil, Russia has dug back 30 years in our nuclear history to find a solution for some of its own energy woes: the floating nuclear power plant.
Business 2.0: Tower of Powerupdated: Mon Oct 02 2006 11:07:00
Rattling down a red dirt road on the edge of the Australian outback, Roger Davey hits the brakes and hops out of a rented Corolla. With a sweep of his arm, he surveys his domain - 24,000 acres of e...
CNN.com asked users for their ideas on the best way to fuel America and break the country's dependence on fossil fuels, especially from foreign sources. Here is a sampling of the responses, some of which have been edited:
Fortune: Meet Mr. Nukeupdated: Thu May 11 2006 14:46:00
The CEO of Exelon is not the sort of man you'd expect to be king of America's nukes. His mammoth utility will soon have 20 nuclear plants in its fleet (the term harks back to the industry's roots i...
Look down from the cabin of Kevin Schieffer's twin-engine King Air 5,000 feet over Wyoming's Powder River Basin, and it's easy to see why he and his investors want to build the first major new rail...
Dean Kamen, the engineer who invented the Segway, is puzzling over a new equation these days. An estimated 1.1 billion people in the world don't have access to clean drinking water, and an estimated 1.6 billion don't have electricity. Those figures add up to a big problem for the world--and an equally big opportunity for entrepreneurs.
Business 2.0: Going Nuclearupdated: Sun May 01 2005 00:01:00
On a raw winter afternoon, the training manager at Cooper Nuclear Station, a power plant run by Entergy Corp. on the bleak plains of eastern Nebraska, sits across a conference table from his boss, ...
The answer to global warming may be blowing in the wind. It's probably also driving on four wheels and could be in your next tank of gas.
Business 2.0: Nuclear Springupdated: Mon Nov 01 2004 00:01:00
Outside, it's another warm summer afternoon in Madison, Pa., a forested suburb 30 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. Inside—in a brightly lit Westinghouse control room packed with computer monitors, sc...
North Korea is planning to carry out two more explosions as part of a hydroelectric power plant project after a major blast last week sparked speculation a nuclear test had taken place, Kyodo news agency has reported.
Rick Priory was on top of the world. It was early 2002, and as CEO of Duke Energy he had taken a conservative electric utility and plunged it headlong into the newly deregulated power market. Durin...
It took three cruise missiles and a direct hit by a 2,000-pound bomb to obliterate Baghdad's al Mamoun telephone exchange. Putting it back together has proved to be a bit more complicated. Bechtel ...
There was never much question that one of the first companies President Bush and his administration would call on to help with the vital task of rebuilding Iraq would be Bechtel Group.
When Chinese troops opened fire on Soviet counterparts at a border checkpoint in 1969, the shots reverberated across the oilfields of Daqing. For much of the decade, a cadre of Chinese geologists a...
In 1984, Oscar S. Wyatt Jr., the legendary oilman and corporate raider, made a $1.3 billion hostile bid for Houston Natural Gas Corp. Wyatt was building a network of natural-gas pipelines that wou...
A few years back, Duke Energy CEO Rick Priory left Charlotte, N.C., and headed north to make one of his periodic pitches to Wall Street. As far as Priory was concerned, he had a pretty exciting sto...
On the western edge of the vast Nevada Test Site, where hundreds of nuclear weapons have been detonated, lies a dusty ridgeline known as Yucca Mountain. Located in a desert region of north-south mo...
About a year ago Jason Selch, an analyst for Liberty Wanger Asset Management, had a eureka moment. Energy prices were soaring, and Dynegy, a Houston-based wholesaler of electricity and natural gas,...
Imagine a country-club dinner dance, with a bunch of old fogies and their wives shuffling around halfheartedly to the not-so-stirring sounds of Guy Lombardo and his All-Tuxedo Orchestra. Suddenly y...
Talk about a Freudian bad dream. In January, Charles Freude, a 38-year-old engineer at the University of Oklahoma's power plant, lost his job of 11 years because he accidentally misaddressed a tast...
So many companies have surprised Wall Street with their earnings announcements (see the story on page 75) that we went back to see how some of the stocks recently featured in these pages have done....
FOR THOSE who lead America's big power companies, decades of peaceful, regulated coexistence are nothing more than a memory. Today the shots of aggression ring loudly across the land, skirmishes ov...
WESTERN INVESTORS have poured some $15 billion into Eastern Europe in the five years since the Berlin Wall came down, but not everyone is happy. General Electric had to put an additional $400 milli...
Fortune: FUEL FROM OLD TIRESupdated: Mon Nov 15 1993 00:01:00
With energy prices in Europe as much as twice those in the U.S., it's no surprise that Europeans are guzzling U.S. ideas for alternative fuels. Elm Energy, a division of the U.S. utility Northern I...
IF YOU AIM TO PLAY in the business big leagues, it makes sense to study the moves of the established stars on the FORTUNE 500. But don't ignore the fast- growing, midsize companies struggling to ma...
Fortune: POWER GENERATORupdated: Mon Dec 18 1989 00:01:00
American managers may soon find themselves competing on their home turf with one of Europe's hottest CEOs -- a 6-foot 3-inch Swede with a goatee. Percy Barnevik, 48, is leading Asea Brown Boveri of...
HERE'S A TEST of your investment acumen. You have a choice of buying stock in one of two companies. Do you believe in return on shareholders' equity? For 1988, Company A had an ROE of 22%; Company ...
Managers and investors are starting to realize that Western Europe may well be the fastest-growing market for a host of businesses in the 1990s. Says Federal Express vice president Christos Cotsako...
With $15 billion in nongenerating power plants, the Tennessee Valley Authority was in a jam. So it hired a hotshot admiral from the nuclear Navy and gave him an army of engineers to make the plants...
THE FIRST NUCLEAR power plant in the Philippines sits on a verdant bluff overlooking the South China Sea, just off the road where U.S. soldiers marched to their death under the bayonets of Japanese...
NUCLEAR POWER was not a wonderful business to be in even before the disaster at Chernobyl. It now figures to become a lot less wonderful for utilities. Several companies that build and service nucl...
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