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TOKYO (Reuters) - The head of the U.N.

Dear EarthTalk : Can earthquake energy be harnessed for power, particularly in places like Japan? Also, how can Japan, so vulnerable to earthquakes, even have nuclear power?

Two billion years ago-- eons before humans developed the first commercial nuclear power plants in the 1950s-- seventeen natural nuclear fission reactors operated in what is today known as Gabon in Western Africa [Figures 1 and 2]. The energy produced by these natural nuclear reactors was modest. The average power output of the Gabon reactors was about 100 kilowatts, which would power about 1,000 lightbulbs

LONDON (Reuters) - An invasion of jellyfish into a cooling water pool at a Scottish nuclear power plant kept its nuclear reactors offline on Wednesday, a phenomenon which may grow more common in future, scientists said. Two reactors at EDF Energy's Torness nuclear power plant on the Scottish east coast remained shut a day after they were manually stopped due to masses of jellyfish obstructing cooling water filters. [More]

By Michael Avok BROWNVILLE, Neb (Reuters) - A top regulator said on Sunday that a nuclear power plant threatened by flooding from the swollen Missouri River was operating safely and according to standards. [More]

Plutonium has a half-life of about 24,000 years. And scientists have known for decades that even in small doses, it is highly toxic , leading to radiation illness, cancer and often to death. After the March nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan, people the world over worried that plutonium poisoning might affect those near the compromised plant--and beyond

By Sylvia Westall and Fredrik Dahl VIENNA (Reuters) - The U.N. atomic agency chief said on Friday he had broad support for his plan to strengthen international safety checks on nuclear power plants to help avoid any repeat of Japan's Fukushima crisis

Dear EarthTalk: Radioactive rain recently fell in Massachusetts, likely due to Japan’s nuclear mess. Given the threats of radiation, wouldn’t it be madness now to continue with nuclear power? How can President Obama include nukes as part of a “clean energy” agenda

By Kevin Krolicki and Chisa Fujioka FUKUSHIMA, Japan (Reuters) - A decade and a half before it blew apart in a hydrogen blast that punctuated the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, the No.

More than three months after a powerful earthquake and 14-meter-tall tsunami struck Japan, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant remains flooded with a salty mix of fresh and sea water--saltwater contaminated with the radioactive residue of three reactors and four spent fuel pools' worth of nuclear fuel. Every day an additional 500 metric tons of seawater is poured onto the still hot nuclear fuel in the stricken reactors and fuel pools.

* Tsunami advisory lifted an hour after quake * Nuclear watchdog, Tepco: no impact on nuclear power plants [More]

(Reuters) - The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) said Wednesday it was closely monitoring conditions along the Missouri River, where floodwaters were rising at Nebraska Public Power District's Cooper Nuclear Station and Omaha Public Power District's Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant in Nebraska

LONDON -- One of the driest spring seasons on record in northern Europe has sucked soils dry and sharply reduced river levels to the point that governments are starting to fear crop losses and France, in particular, is bracing for blackouts as its river-cooled nuclear power plants may be forced to shut down. [More]

By Yoko Kubota TOKYO (Reuters) - The operator of the stricken Japanese nuclear power plant said on Friday that more radioactive water could begin spilling into the sea later this month if there is a glitch in setting up a new decontamination system. [More]

By Quirin Schiermeier of Nature magazine Radiation released by the tsunami-struck Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant could have long-lasting consequences for the natural environment in the vicinity of the damaged plant. Scientists estimate that in the first 30 days after the accident on 11 March, trees, birds and forest-dwelling mammals were exposed to daily doses up to 100 times greater-and fish and marine algae to doses several thousand times greater - than are generally considered safe. Radioecologists with the French Institute of Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety (ISRN) in Cadarache converted concentrations of radioisotopes measured in the soil and seawater into the actual doses that various groups of wildlife were likely to have received