Nuclear power: Hell and high water

The clean-up at Fukushima after its tsunami-sparked nuclear meltdowns is unlike anything humanity has ever undertaken, Japan's prime minister said on Saturday during a tour of the plant.

CLICK TO ENLARGEA look at the nuclear crisis in 2011.

A blackout at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan left three fuel storage pools without fresh cooling water for hours this week, the Associated Press reported, creating fresh fear that a meltdown could occur. Now the company that runs the plant have announced they think they know who was behind the potentially disastrous power cut — a dead rat. Tokyo Electric Power Company released this picture of the suspected culprit today:

Article written by Prieur du Plessis, editor of the Investment Postcards from Cape Town blog.The report below comes courtesy of Mikka Pineda of Roubini Global Economics.

Workers at Japan's crippled atomic power plant on Wednesday plugged a hole spewing highly radioactive water into the ocean, boosting efforts to contain the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.But in an illustration of how fragile progress is at the Fukushima plant, operator Tokyo Electric Power said it was now concerned that a build-up of hydrogen gas at a different reactor could cause another explosion at the site.The firm has said it may inject nitrogen gas into the reactor container to prevent a possible explosion from the hydrogen build-up.

Japan said Friday it will continue exporting atomic power plants, despite uncertainty over its own use of them as it continues to grapple with a crisis at the tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear plant.Tokyo actively promoted nuclear plant exports until a massive quake and tsunami on March 11 sent the Fukushima Daiichi facility into meltdown, causing it to leak radiation in the world's worst nuclear accident since the 1985 Chernobyl disaster.

Workers at Japan's crippled atomic power plant on Wednesday plugged a hole spewing highly radioactive water into the ocean, boosting efforts to contain the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.But in an illustration of how fragile progress is at the Fukushima plant, operator Tokyo Electric Power said it was concerned a build-up of hydrogen gas at a different reactor could cause another explosion at the site.