[lacrew]

I'm not trying to diminish the seriousness of the situation...but didn't the U.S. detonate dozens of nukes on Pacific islands in the 50’s? Surely there was radiation and fallout...and it spread out in the ocean....but had a fairly limited effect on the environment. Why would releases from the power plants be any worse?

I understand that any extra radiation is bad...but its not the end of the world. The areas by the plants have been evacuated, and the radiation seems to be poised to blow out to sea.

I'm sure this event will be used to shut down nuclear power in this country (but somehow it will still be ok for Iran to ‘pursue nuclear energy’ in a seismically active region). The media will hype this up, etc...but in reality, we just saw the plants survive being very close to the epicenter of a monster quake, and so far they have survived the 30 ft tsunami without a major release. It could be viewed as a success story and/or learning experience to build upon.

[Mr. Silverback]

It should be pointed out that apparently the earthquake was seven times worse than what the plants were designed for, and we still don’t have a major release and almost certainly won’t.

[cookcounty]

"I'm not trying to diminish the seriousness of the situation...but didn't the U.S. detonate dozens of nukes on Pacific islands in the 50’s? Surely there was radiation and fallout...and it spread out in the ocean ...but it had a fairly limited effect......

I'm not so sure about that, it would have blown to California first and something definitely had some sort of delayed effect in screwing up the brains of California voters.