German Nuclear Waste Shipment Protest

On Wednesday, November 23 2011, a train carrying 11 tubular containers of highly radioactive nuclear waste departed Normandy, France. The nuclear waste, which originated in German reactors years ago and was processed for storage by a French firm, is now bound for a temporary storage facility in a former salt mine near Gorleben, Germany. 

The 750-mile trip has taken far longer than anticipated, due to thousands of protesters causing disruptions along the way. Staging sit-ins, chaining themselves to the rails, and even sabotaging the railway, demonstrators are denouncing the transportation of dangerous material through populated areas. This is the last of 12 contractually obligated shipments of nuclear waste from France. Germany recently pledged a complete phase-out of nuclear power within a decade and has already shut down 8 of its 17 reactors. 

Hundreds of demonstrators were removed from railroads and streets by an estimated 20,000 police deployed along the German portion of the route, and the shipment is now near its final destination.

Two girls have their faces painted with the symbol for nuclear radiation as they attend a demonstration by pupils from a local school against the unsafe storage of nuclear waste, on November 24, 2011 in Luechow, Germany. (Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images)

One of eleven Castor (Cask for Storage and Transport of Radioactive material) nuclear waste containers is lifted from a train onto a truck at an embarking station in Dannenberg south of Hamburg, on November 28, 2011. The controversial shipment of Castor containers with spent German nuclear fuel from the French reprocessing plant in La Hague will be loaded onto trucks in Dannenberg before its final transportation to the nearby intermediate storage facility in the northern Germany village of Gorleben. (Reuters/Wolfgang Rattay)  

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Inside Fukushima Dai-ichi Exclusion Zone

In June, National Geographic sent AP photographer David Guttenfelder into the exclusion zone around the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station, which was badly damaged in the earthquake and tsunami earlier this year. He captured images of communities that had become ghost towns, with pets and farm animals roaming the streets. 

Later, in November, Guttenfelder returned to photograph the crippled reactor facility itself as members of the media were allowed inside for the first time since the triple disaster last March. In some places, the reactor buildings appear to be little more than heaps of twisted metal and crumbling concrete. Tens of thousands of area residents remain displaced, with little indication of when, or if, they may ever return to their homes. 

Collected here are some images from these trips.

After the disasters of March 11, tens of thousands were ordered to leave their homes in the vicinity of the damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station, some of their footprints now frozen in the mud. (© David Guttenfelder /National Geographic) 

Two dogs scrap on Okuma's empty streets. In the early days of the crisis the no-go zone was alive with roaming farm animals and pets: cows, pigs, goats, dogs, cats, even ostriches. Often defying police patrols and barricades, volunteer rescuers rounded up and decontaminated some pets, returning them to their owners, and fed others. But by midsummer, a number of the pets had perished of starvation and disease. (© David Guttenfelder/National Geographic)  

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Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster Anniversary

2011 mark the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. On April 26, 1986, a series of explosions destroyed Chernobyl's reactor No. 4 station and several hundred staff and firefighters tackled a blaze that burned for 10 days and sent a plume of radiation around the world in the worst-ever civil nuclear disaster. 

More than 50 reactor and emergency workers were killed at the time. Assessing the larger impact on human health remains a difficult task, with estimates of related deaths from cancer ranging from 4,000 to over 200,000. The government of Ukraine indicated early this year that it will lift restrictions on tourism around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, formally opening the scene to visitors. It's expected, meanwhile, that a 20,000-ton steel case called the New Safe Confinement (NSC), designed as a permanent containment structure for the whole plant, will be completed in 2013.

Nowadays, Nuclear Power Plant is known as sophisticated and complex energy systems ever designed. However, any complex system, no matter how well it is designed and engineered, cannot be deemed failure-proof. There are trades to be made between safety, economic and technical properties of different reactor designs for particular applications. Since Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, many involved now consider informed consent and morality should be primary considerations.

For me, it is time that we in Malaysia to embrace nuclear energy as a cornerstone of the carbon-free revolution the world needs to address climate change and long-term energy security in a world beyond fossil fuels. Advanced nuclear power that provides the technological key to unlocking awesome potential of these energy metals for the benefit humankind and for the ultimate sustainability of our global society.

Bring in the nuke now...

Repairs are carried out on the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine on October 1st, 1986, following a major explosion in April 1986 which, according to official statistics, affected 3,235,984 Ukrainians and sent radioactive clouds all over Europe. (ZUFAROV/AFP/Getty Images) 

A military helicopter sprays a decontaminating substance over the region surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear power station a few days after its No. 4 reactor's blast, the worst nuclear accident of the 20th century. (STF/AFP/Getty Images) 

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Nuclear Bombs Testing

Since the time of Trinity, which is the first nuclear explosion in 1945, nearly 2,000 nuclear tests have been performed, with the majority taking place during the 1960s and 1970s. When the technology was new, tests were frequent and often spectacular, and led to the development of newer, more deadly weapons.

Judging from the amount of nuke test done, I just can imagine the amount of radiation human kind had been exposed.

Starting in the 1990s, there have been efforts to limit the future testing of nuclear weapons, including a U.S. moratorium and a U.N. comprehensive test ban treaty. As a result, testing has slowed, though not halted, and there are questions about the future. Who will take over for those experienced engineers who are now near retirement, and should we act as stewards with enormous stockpiles of nuclear weapons? 

Gathered here are images from the first 30 years of nuclear testing.

Exposed wiring of The Gadget, the nuclear device which exploded as part of Trinity, the first nuclear weapons test of an atomic bomb. At the time of this photo, the device was being prepared for its detonation, which took place on July 16, 1945. (U.S. Department of Defense)  

Upshot-Knothole Grable, a test carried out by the U.S. military in Nevada on May 25, 1953. A 280mm nuclear shell was fired 10km into the desert by the M65 Atomic Cannon, detonating in the air, about 500 feet above the ground, with a resulting 15 kiloton explosion. (U.S. Department of Defense) 

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