( humor break) Solylent green?  Umm it is a 'green' food, by definition, yes?      (end humor break)

Curious how many of the "experts" are the same, few people...

But regardless, I find it interesting that many people jump on the "nuclear is bad" boat without looking at this as a simple, man-made neglect issue, not a natural disaster.

Read this

These BWR Mark 1's should have been decommissioned in 2011 or given the proper safeguards to increase their longevity.  

This was a preventable tragedy, short and sweet.  Human error strikes again.

This video explains more in detail how the Thorium Fuel cycle works. Should answer a lot of question people had.

Fukushima and US:  Quote from document/site SivCorp mentions:  "  The investigation included more than 900 hours of hearings and interviews with 1,167 people. The commission also made nine visits to nuclear power plants, including the Fukushima Daiichi plant. After their six-month-long investigation, the investigative panel concluded that the accident was the result of “collusion” between the government, the regulators and the Tokyo Electric Power Co., and the “lack of governance” by all three parties.   "  (italics mine).  What is really sad is this is exactly what has happened to most regulatory entities in the USA.   The leading members of the regulated entities, via a revolving door, take turns becoming lead administrators /expert consultants of the regulator/watchdog entities, and way too may governmental entities/elected officals take kickbacks, bribes, or legal (in USA) reelection monies in exchange for going soft on this revolving door.  Wolves guarding the hen house after bribing the farmer to look the other way.  Human nature doesn't change. 

edit  misspelled  Fukushima, very sorry, I am truly embarrassed. 

Perhaps the future will be safer if nuclear plants are everywhere. That means that policymakers, regulators and inspectors and their families also live close to nuclear plants. It will make them more careful.

Interesting read - http://www.turnerradionetwork.com/news/183-mjt

Check both pages.

and .... http://www.turnerradionetwork.com/news/185-pat

Seems hyped to me, those radiation levels are only 30% above average. Could that perhaps be due to a solar flare? There was a big one recently.

Or the foundations of the reactors have cracked and fuel is starting to slowly leak through it.

Our newspapers here in Sweden haven't said a word about Fukushima except when the states propaganda channel (SVT) talks crap about nuclear stuff so I didn't know it was still serious over there.

I'm guessing the water they use to cool the nuclear stuff can't be cleaned in an easy way either....guess they have to get a really big watertank to store it at.

Right...after all, who are they and what do they know compared to you, GeomanNL?

I've read about this and the journalists probably haven't.

http://www.livescience.com/42407-sun-unleashes-major-solar-flare-video.html

Well lets hope the solar flare is indeed the cause.

The levels measured? Done by scientists, GeomanNL at the Nuclear Emergency Tracking Center (NETC.com).

But then, you know so much more than they do.

Scientists measure it. The journalist makes an interpretation.

Levels in the US rise 30% because a bit of water vapor rises from a reactor in Fukushima 10,000 km away?

Even in Tokyo, a few hundred km away, that story would be hard to sell.

It would've to be an extremely toxic cloud and would've fried everyone in the vicinity of the reactor in order to be noticeable so far away.

A solar flare is so much easier to explain the small rise in the background radiation. This radiation comes from space (deep space and the sun) in the first place. I call it "small" because the rise falls within natural variation.

Sure doesn't 

Though that modular, prebuilt reactor Idea that EadTaes posted looks promising.  Now if they could just make it idiot proof.

You can't.

Just when you thought you had ...someone comes along with a new and improved idiot....;)

Jafo.  Like in Idiotocracy? 

Good movie...PRESIDENT CAMACHO!

I had a science teacher who would drag me out the front of the class by my ear and call me an idiot to humiliate me in front of everyone...

"What are you?"

"I'm an idiot, sir."

"And I expect you will always be an idiot."

Anyhow, one day in chemistry I made a stink bomb and dropped it in class.... "Alright, who's the idiot who did that?"

"Um, that idiot was me, sir.... I trust that I have exceeded your expectations of me."

Got six of the best for that one, but it was worth it just to see the look on his face.  Poor ol' Mr Brimecombe.  For all his efforts to keep me in my place....

His first name was Eric, but we all addressed him as Julius because he sounded awfully like Professor Julius Sumner Miller when he was teaching physics and/or chemistry.  Thing is, once we got past the shenanigans at the top of the lesson, he was a damned good teacher who made the classes entertaining as well as interesting and informative.  Sadly, teachers of his ilk are a thing of the past.

Sounds a bit like our Maths teacher...Ewart Ackroyd....we'd call him EEE-wart ... but his 'true' nickname was 'Stumpy' [cos he was short].  Brilliant bloke...;)

While on the subject of teachers, my English teacher, Mrs Russell [who looked every bit like granny on the Beverley Hillbillies] retired and was replaced by, get this... a Miss Memery.  Well.... to put it bluntly, she was BUF [Big Up Front] and thus her nickname was easily decided/chosen.... Miss Mammary.  Every kid in that school had a crush on her

We also had a short teacher, Mr Robbins, who was head of our Manual Arts department.  He was 5 foot nothing and probably just as big around as he was tall... and again a brilliant teacher who actually cared about his students and the education thet received.  I wasn't much into biology maths or algebra, so Mr Robbins took me and another lad who struggled with those subjects and gave us the opportunity to learn bricklaying, concreting and formwork.  It was our final year of high school, and between us we built a tennis pavillion to store the equipment and provide a change room with a couple of showers. 

That was back in 65-66 and I was 15 going on 16.  When my sister visited the UK in 2002 it was still standing and in use... so we must've done summat right.  We also built a pond to keep biology specimens in... that was also still in use almost 40 years later

They just don't build em like they used to... 

Anyone who thinks Fukushima and Chernobyl are the only nuclear disasters needing cleanup, and we're safe in the USA has really not studied the issue.

Hanford (in southeastern Washington State, USA) was closed down decades ago but isn't even close to being cleaned up.  In fact, just a few years ago a major new underground water contamination was discovered that threatens the entire Columbia River system downstream -- all the way down to Portland, which is the largest city in Oregon.

Most reactors in the U.S. are built to less stringent standards than Fukushima was, and rely on rare (but historically proven to happen) events never happening, such as tsunamis or 9.0-strength earthquakes never occuring in the eastern U.S. which defies historic record.  In 1811 and continuing into 1812, for instance, a series of earthquakes estimated to have been around 9.0 strength struck with their epicenters near the Kentucky/Missouri state borders; these quakes were so strong, in fact, they generated a tsunami on the Mississippi River, uplifting the terrain such that a portion of the river reversed course, backfilling and creating a (then) brand new permanent lake, now named Reelfoot Lake.  Less than 60 years prior, in 1755 a similarly estimated 9.0-strength earthquake struck off the coast of Portugal in Europe, generating a tsunami that crossed the Atlantic, causing damage from Ireland to the Caribbean.  Were a tsunami to strike anywhere in the Atlantic today, there would be no warning because the Atlantic ocean, unlike the Pacific, has no tsunami detection -- and, as mentioned, U.S. Atlantic seaboard cities and nuclear reactors (many of which are on rivers, as most nuclear reactors like Fukushima require water) are not designed to withstand even moderate earthquakes nor tsunamis.  Even a heavy storm surge from a potent hurricane would be sufficient to essentially repeat the Fukushima disaster in many U.S. reactors, knocking out pumps and generators required to keep water flowing which is what keeps nuclear reactors from melting down (and this was the essential cause of the Fukushima disaster:  the tsunami generated by the quake knocked out the water pumps, cutting off the essential water supply required to keep the reactor cool and with no cooling system, the Fukushima reactor melted down).

Now that's gloomy. Is that for real?