Nuclear Energy in Japan: July 15 brief update

-TEPCO has begun nitrogen injection into No. 3 plant's dry well at Fukushima Daiichi.

-The Japanese government is now reported as taking the position that it will suspend all talks with other nations about the export of Japanese-built nuclear plants. Japan had, as announced on this blog last year, begun a government-backed program to export nuclear energy technology.

-NHK is reporting that if Japan were to stop all nuclear energy, its production of CO2 gas would increase annually by 210 million tons.

-Naoto Kan now indicates that he did NOT mean to imply that a "nuclear free future" is an official government policy, but only a personal aim. This is a reversal from the implication of his original statement, which Cabinet Secretary Edano later clarified.

6:05 AM Eastern Friday July 15, 2011
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