Every cloud has a silver lining, every disaster an opportunity.  The devastation in parts of Japan as a result of the earthquake and tsunami six months ago is now ushering in a new age of renewable energy.

The job of rebuilding the neighborhoods and towns demolished by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami has begun but one area of cleanup will continue to be a problem for a long, long time.  TEPCO’s Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant has been a nightmare since the earthquake and tsunami knocked the units off line.  New information obtained with the installation of air purifiers that have allowed workers to reenter Unit One.

Algae may prove to be a simple way to clean up strontium 90, a dangerous waste component of nuclear energy.  Effective means of disposing of nuclear waste have been a long standing problem for the nuclear energy industry.  Using simple pond algae may take care of at least one element of the problem and it will allow for the separation of high level waste and low level waste.

Nuclear energy is currently on the ropes after the ongoing destruction of several reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.  Both the United States and Japanese governments are reevaluating the safety of nuclear power plants.  The European Union is calling for nuclear plant stress tests.  So the question really becomes, what risks are we willing to take when it comes to nuclear power?

Some environmentalists are looking at their previous stances and apologizing for them.  As if that isn’t a shocker, they are specifically saying that they were wrong to oppose genetically modified (GM) crops and nuclear power.  Give it a week and they will be called traitors by others in the movement and their apology will be seen as a victory for Global Warming deniers.

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) will be shutting down nine coal-fired units in the next five years starting in 2011.  Most of the units that will be taken off line are old and inefficient and will be replaced with renewable energy units like natural gas and biomass.

A North Carolina non-profit has assembled a report that compares the cost of solar energy kilowatt hours with the cost for nuclear energy.  Using several sources, the authors found that this year was a cross over year.  Right now, the costs for solar power and nuclear power are about even but in the coming years, the cost of power from solar installations will begin to decline while the cost from proposed nuclear installations will rise.

Few sources of energy are as controversial as nuclear energy.  Building costs balloon out of control.  Mishaps lead to shutdowns or melt downs. There is no good way to dispose of the waste.  Just saying nuclear energy can send people into a panic.  Enter NuScale Power.  They have developed a small modular nuclear reactor that is safer to build and safer to run.

North Korea claims that it has used special Korean technology to achieve what the rest of the world has not, nuclear fusion.  Why is the world working on perfecting nuclear fusion?  Simple.  Nuclear fusion would represent a cheap limitless supply of green power. 

Researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory have discovered an unexpected mechanism in nanocrystalline materials that allows them to heal after radiation damage.  The mechanism was discovered using three different computer simulation methods.