Japanese Nuclear Disaster Now Raised to Highest Alert Level: 7/7

For all updates, click here.

Remember, our Secretary of Energy, Stephen Chu, a nuclear physicist, said his worst nightmare was coal.

It's interesting to read the "spin" regarding nuclear energy. In this article, the expert says that the reaction to the disaster in Japan "may mark a high point in anti-nuclear hysteria." He goes on to say that “the average coal plant releases 100 times more annual radiation than a comparable nuclear plant.”

Unless, of course, the nuclear plant releases all that radiation at once, as in a nuclear meltdown.

Downs goes on to cite the rarity of these kinds of events in the 60-year history of the commercial nuclear energy, especially ones that cause civilian casualties.

“Although there may very well be deaths associated with the Japanese meltdown in the months and years to come, the only reactor incident to cause civilian deaths to date was Chernobyl, a poorly run facility in the bankrupt late-Soviet Union (amazingly built with no containment vessel),” said Downs.

"The rarity of these kinds of events..." well, that's reassuring. Of course, if nuclear plant disasters weren't rare, the disaster in Japan would not be a front page story either. 

International Nuclear Event Scale linked here.