The debate regarding the safety of the nuclear industry has gone on for decades. I don't have any new information to add to it that can't be found by googling, but I do have a different insight base having lived in both Japan and Richland Washington (home to the Hanford nuclear reservation) for a number of years.
Both give me keen insight as a lay person to the nuclear industry. Additionally, I have a vested interest in not glowing in the dark or seeing my family struggle with radiation poison, cancer, or mutations from potential accidents, natural disasters, poor designs with old technology or because of greed over safety.
As Monticello, Minnesota has the very same model as Japan's Fukushima Daiichi plant, the General Electric Mark I reactor, built in 1971, and there have been claims of it's design now being recognized as out-of-date and having design flaws that lead to the current Japanese containment issues...just seems like we should as some relevant questions and pay close attention to the answers.
Hanford (Washington)
Near Richland, WA, the nuclear reservation of Hanford was established in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project. The reactors at the site created the plutonium for the bomb, Fat Man, that was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, during World War II.
The Hanford site grew up until 1989. By then, nine nuclear reactors plus five large plutonium processing complexes on the site had been decommissioned. In fact when we first moved into the area in 1989, it was like a ghost town because so many workers lost their jobs, homes, boats and cars in the closure and failure of the WWPPSS nuclear energy bond debacle. I remember driving on an 8 lane (4 in each direction) highway and being the only car during working hours! Unemployed, many families left signs on their homes and lawns telling the banks to come and get the items, that they were moving on. It was very sad to see families leaving their lives behind because they no longer could pay bills and there was no hope for jobs.
Since then, the area has grown back again and produces a lot of food items because of the Columbia River basin irrigation projects. However, it is also the most contaminated nuclear site in the United States. It still hosts one commercial nuclear power plant, the Columbia Generating Station. This reactor has more backup systems than Japan's Fukushima Daiichi and was built to handle a magnitude 6.9 earthquake, the maximum quake projected to hit the area. But scientists are finding new faults in the region that could generate bigger earthquakes.
While massive cleanup efforts have gone into the Hanford site during the last three decades, contamination of the ColumbiaRiver seems to be a certainty even though billions have been spent to date trying to avoid that outcome. So while there is no earthquake, no fires, no meltdown...it is a looming disaster that has yet to completely play out.
Japan
The Fukushima Daiichi reactors are BWR (Boiling Water Reactors) just like the one in Monticello Minnesota. They are of the same model, sole designer and manufacture. Compared to industry standards, the 1970 plants are recognized to be out-of-date with design flaws that could lead to containment issues like Japan is experiencing now. Because this design is 40 years old, they are a modification of a graphite reactor which was suitable for the production of plutonium for nuclear weapons, and not the 'from scratch' designs for civilian power in use now with an emphasis on safety.
Due to the cost of replacement of these older BWR models coupled with the costs of cleanup, most operators have opted for a 'patching' approach to keep plants running including defining the acceptable levels of radiation released.
Unlike the Unite States, Japan has an effective, well maintained disaster relief infrastructure, making it able to respond quickly to the current disasters. Yet the problems of a design flaw coupled with natural disasters, backup failures, and dense placement of spent fuel rods have made the current disaster, one that might not be recoverable.
Lastly, there is a charge that the industry is too lax in regards to policing itself. The IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency, a UN Nuclear Energy Watch Group) dependent on member states for voluntary compliance and control and information. There appears to be a seemingly cozy relations within the nuclear industry between regulators and the operators.
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