One year ago this Sunday a massive earthquake devastated northeast Japan. The Japanese barely had time to catch their breath before waves of water 30 feet high crashed down on the coast. Twenty-thousand people died; 90,000 were evacuated. The natural disasters were soon followed by a nuclear crisis. In the year since the meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, Japan has had to face difficult questions on the state of their nuclear regulations and the country’s energy future. How have Japan’s energy policies changed? What lessons has the U.S. learned from the Fukushima disaster? David Biello, associate editor of environment and energy at Scientific American, joins us to answer these questions.
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