The good news is that, because of aggressive action by the Nuclear Regulator Commission, we're not two feet from a 100% chance of a meltdown at Ft Calhoun. The bad news is that, if the flood level rises past 1008 feet to 1014 feet, we may well be right there.
According to a report from the Union of Concerned Scientist's excellent "All Things Nuclear" Blog, in 2010, the "NRC estimated there was a 100% chance of reactor core damage caused by a flood rising above 1010 feet"--i.e., America's own Fukijima.
A hard push by the NRC means that the plant is pretty safe unless the water goes above 2014 feet--but the flood waters are still rising.
What's truly astonishing is that the plant's operator responded, that, no, there wasn't a 100% chance--there was just a 19% chance! A one in five chance that some of the world's most fertile land would get fairly intensively irradiated.
Nuclear power operators wouldn't be in business unless the federal government provided them with virtually infinite insurance coverage. How comfortable would Ft. Calhoun's owners be with a 20% potential damage bill in the multiple tens of billions of dollars if they didn't have the federal government's pockets to pick?
And where would we be now if the NRC hadn't acted, and we were two feet of floodwater away from our own USA meltdown? Especially given that our Supreme Court and the House are in the pockets of business interests that seem to think deregulation is the only way to go.
I'm not unalterably opposed to Nuclear Energy. But the quote I have at the top of my phone directory is “Never ascribe to malice that which can be attributed to common stupidity.”
A friend of mine who was very active in the anti-nuke movement in the 70s and 80s and has since gone Wall Street recently attended a seminar on atomic power. He was stunned. "They weren't just talking about the same issues. It was the same people talking about the same issues with the same technology."
I just read that the first all digital control system has been installed at an American Atomic Power plant. My reaction was "Now? Only now?"
We are using obsolete technology run by rapacious companies. I'm just amazed all the cable companies aren't at Ft. Calhoun now running their countdown to disaster clocks.