A government panel proposed additional measures to lessen the radioactive water crisis at Japan’s crippled nuclear power plant, saying Tuesday that current plans are not enough to prevent the risk of a disaster. Officials on the Industry Ministry’s contaminated water panel also said that the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant could run out of storage space for contaminated water within two years if current plans are ...

KUALA LUMPUR - Consumers should brace themselves for a 10 per cent-20 per cent hike in electricity tariffs next year. "The quantum (of increase) is not finalised … but anything below 20 per cent is reasonable," said Energy, Green Technology and Water Minister Datuk Seri Dr Maximus Ongkili. The final decision on the increase has yet to be made by the Cabinet, but the hike could happen anytime in 2014, he tol ...

A bomb blast near India's biggest nuclear power plant killed six people, police said Wednesday, sparking a probe into whether the explosion was linked to protests against the facility. The home-made bomb accidentally exploded overnight in a village near Kudankulam power plant in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, destroying three homes and causing injuries, the district police chief told AFP.   "The bom ...

A "safety-related action" automatically shut down one of South Korea's 23 nuclear reactors on Thursday, the country's nuclear operator said, bringing the tally of those closed to six and hiking the chances of power blackouts this winter. Asia's fourth largest economy faces severe power shortages again this winter due to cuts in nuclear power use after a corruption scandal that started in late 2012. News of ...

Renewable energy sources can generate up to 10 per cent of Singapore's power demand by 2020, compared to less than 1 per cent today. According to a white paper released by the Sustainable Energy Association of Singapore (SEAS), this potential can be achieved without government subsidies but requires an estimated S$4 billion investment from the private sector over the next 12 years. The association currently ...

SEVERE winter gas shortages in northern China have been forecast to continue until at least 2020, raising the potential for Australia's burgeoning LNG export industry to tap surging seasonal demand for increased spot cargo deliveries at higher pricing levels. According to global energy consultant Wood Mackenzie, winter residential demand in some northern Chinese cities will increase by up to tenfold from no ...

A Japanese utility plans to construct two cutting-edge coal power plants in Fukushima, an area severely hit by the 2011 nuclear disaster, a report said on Saturday. Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), the cash-strapped operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, and three Mitsubishi group companies are seeking to open the new facilities as early as 2020, the leading Nikkei business daily said. Th ...

Singapore is keen on importing shale gas from the United States, and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong raised the issue during his visit to the White House earlier this year. Foreign Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam revealed this during a dialogue session at the South Asian Diaspora Convention on Thursday. He was replying to a question on the impact of the US discovery of shale gas on the region. Shale gas ...

The safety of South Korea's nuclear reactors "should be improved significantly", although no immediate actions are needed, an international nuclear safety evaluation body said after completing a five-month review of the country's reactors. Seoul has been hit with a series of nuclear safety scandals since late 2012, when certificates supplied for some reactor parts turned out to be fake. Some reactors have b ...

Japan has slashed its carbon dioxide emissions reduction target.   Japan says it now tentatively aims to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 3.8 percent from fiscal 2005 levels by 2020 instead of the 25 percent cut from 1990 levels as promised in 2009.   The announcement Friday from the world's fifth-largest emitter of carbon dioxide struck a blow to the United Nations' Nov. 11-22 climate talks ...