It's worst case scenario, and the contingencies are working, even if they are pretty much leading to permanent shutdown in some cases. But people are probably going to be mostly safe from radiation exposure. We're so nuclear shy here, but really, I've changed from being anti-nuke to neutral to pro.

When I did a volunteer trip to the USSR in 1991, one of the guys I worked with was a Ukrainian firefighter. Who had worked the Chernobyl disaster in the early days. He casually remarked that drs told him not to get sunburned, ever. And of course, he did (we were working at cleaning up a monestary in prep for restoration.) I really wonder if Erik is still alive.

msbelle, the permaglaze stuff is probably gonna be a good thing for my tub as well. And maybe some of the cracked tiles. So very thank you.

New earthquake new tsunami warning. Did not want to argue,but uranium mining is really awful. Also wind power cheaper and cleaner than nukes.

Liese, I love your kitchen!

I made lemon meringue pie for tomorrow. The lemon curd is more mustard coloured than bright yellow, because I forgot to check how much white sugar I had, and ended up having to use some brown sugar in the curd. Having a stand mixer makes meringue SO MUCH easier to do. I bow down before the gods of Kitchen Aid.

Ooh, yum! I love lemon meringue pie.

I love the appliance garages! We use our corner lazy susan cabinet, which works as well--except I have to take the top off the blender.

Did not want to argue,but uranium mining is really awful.

So is coal mining.

Also wind power cheaper and cleaner than nukes.

I don't necessarily disagree, but the wind doesn't always blow and until we can effectively store electricity, we're not going to be free of coal and nuclear. I still don't see any way to scale up alternate energy to U.S. demand.

This NY Times article [link] is less optimistic but probably pretty accurate. Matt Wald is the only major journalist with nuclear expertise.

We can effective store small amounts of electricity. We can effectively move electricity. We could put what we spend on stupid wars into renewables (including storage, transmission and natural gas backups) and get a 98% fossil fuel grid less expensively than we could do the same thing with nukes. I've been cricitioal of nuke industry and it has never been about safety of power plants but about what we could do with today's technology cheaper than nukes.

Transmission is a HUGE issue as it stands now. I wouldn't say we can effectively move electricity. I've been through the brownouts when the grid fails. It is not nearly as robust as it should be.

NM is largely fueled by coal. And it is local. But when the TX power plants went down, it was bad, and NM is a net exporter.

I have to say, I'm hugely impressed that they can suffer an 8.9 (!) earthquake and contain the damage to the nuclear plant. Which is just as well, because they won't be short of other demands on their disaster relief efforts.

As sarameg says, we really can't effectively move power now, and while there's a lot of talk about improving the grid and implementing smart grid technology, I don't see where the money's coming from.