Via The Japan Times, which has had a very pretty website makeover: Abe looking to renege on emissions pledge. Excerpt:
Japan will drop its pledge to the global community to cut greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent by 2020 because of the country’s reduced future reliance on nuclear power, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told a government panel Friday.
During a meeting of the panel, which is discussing economic revival measures, Abe stated that he will revise the energy strategy compiled by the previous administration of the Democratic Party of Japan, which aimed to completely phase out atomic energy by the 2030s.
He instructed Environment Minister Nobuteru Ishihara and other members of his Liberal Democratic Party-led Cabinet to alter the DPJ’s target of reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and other gasses blamed for greenhouse warming by 25 percent by 2020 compared to 1990 levels.
Domestic utilities have become increasingly reliant on fuel oil and gas for thermal power generation since almost all of the nation’s nuclear reactors remain offline for safety reasons following the March 2011 meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 plant.The Japan Times also reports that Tepco plans to dump "cleaned" radioactive water from Fukushima Number 1 into the ocean because it's afraid it will run out of storage space for the coolant it uses to keep the ruined reactors from melting down yet again.
