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Fukushima’s Impact on Plans for Nuclear Power Explored in Report

Researchers using ProQuest’s professional information service create a global snapshot of the renewed controversy surrounding the energy source and its future

May 11, 2011 (Morrisville, North Carolina) — Dialog, a ProQuest business unit supporting professional research, has released “A power greedy world — Can innovation save the day?,” a report featuring the current worldwide status of nuclear energy. The disaster at the Daiichi nuclear plant in Fukushima, Japan, has been covered in detail by the world’s journalists as it relates to their countries’ interests, adding to a wealth of specialized content on the industry and illustrating the need for an expert summary. The report encapsulates information from Dialog’s authoritative resources, providing a unique global snapshot of response to the disaster, along with the plans for continued growth of nuclear energy and resulting safety concerns.

“There’s been a remarkable amount of information generated from journalists covering Fukushima,” said Tim Wahlberg, ProQuest Senior Vice President and Dialog General Manager. “The challenge comes in making sense of the new information and putting it in context with what was known prior to the Daiichi issue. Dialog provides a powerful and precise way of analyzing information and using it to understand what’s coming next.”

“A power greedy world — Can innovation save the day?”provides an interesting look at pre- and post-Fukushima attitudes. Nuclear power had been enjoying resurgence in popularity prior to the disaster in Japan. For example, a Gallup poll of Americans done in 2010 found 28 percent “strongly favor” nuclear power, the highest Gallup has measured since the question was first asked in 1994. And a poll by the Nuclear Energy Institute in 2006 indicated 80 percent of Americans believe electric utilities should prepare now to build new reactors. But, March’s massive earthquake and resulting tsunami prompted the world to rethink nuclear expansion. Immediate worldwide reaction included:

• Germany’s three-month shutdown of reactors built before 1980, with three permanent closures
• China’s halt of nuclear project approvals and institution of safety inspections of new facilities.
• South Korea’s development of a detailed safety check on its 21 reactors to ensure they are able to withstand worst-case disasters.
• Chinese diplomats’ call for resumption of six-party nuclear talks with North Korea.
• Taiwanese environmentalists’ press for a governmental no-nuclear policy, starting with an immediate suspension of work on the yet-to-be completed No. 4 nuclear power plant in northern Taiwan.
• Renewed worries in Latvia and Lithuania about risk from the neighboring Belarus nuclear plant.

The report reveals exceptions to the global worries, including the Turkish government’s indication that there is no turning back on its plans for a new nuclear plant.

“A power greedy world — Can innovation save the day?” also provides detail around a driving force behind the growth of nuclear power: worldwide thirst for power that’s both clean and cheap. It closes with a note from Hans Bethe, one of the great atomic scientists and a member of the Manhattan team, who remarked long ago that even “if nuclear energy is the only option for a power-greedy world, it is not compatible with management by private enterprises that ignore safety to make money.”

“A power greedy world — Can innovation save the day?” is available in Eye on Innovation, a bimonthly electronic publication from ProQuest that explores scientific advancement through analysis of authoritative information sources. Eye on Innovation researchers use the Dialog search service to gather relevant data from a pool of millions of authoritative information sources, and then uncover emerging trends. Eye on Innovation readers gain a unique global perspective about important issues and topics, but also learn how to manipulate information for insight into what’s next. To obtain this report and subscribe to future issues visit
support.dialog.com/enewsletters/eyeoninnovation/201102/.

About Dialog
ProQuest’s business unit Dialog pioneered online searching in advance of the internet. As the global leader in providing mission-critical information that drives innovation by professionals of all kinds including scientists, engineers, legal practitioners and business analysts, Dialog is renowned for enabling precision search of content from the world's most authoritative publishers. Sources include massive deep web repositories of scientific, technical and biomedical literature, patents and trademarks, and thousands of industry, news and company information sources — now being made accessible through the powerful and intuitive ProQuest Dialog™ search service on the new ProQuest platform.

Professional searchers such as librarians, researchers and information users from corporate, professional and government organizations in more than 100 countries prize Dialog for depth of content, advanced searching and the ability to provide complete solutions.

Dialog is headquartered in Morrisville, North Carolina, with offices in Sunnyvale, California, and London. Learn more about Dialog (www.dialog.com) and the entire ProQuest family of brands and companies at www.proquest.com.

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