I have in the past urged that the U.S. be much more committed to developing nuclear power for domestic energy needs than we have been over the last several decades. Nothing that has happened in Japan in the last few days persuades me that I should change my mind.
So far as I know as I'm writing this no one has died from radiation exposure or has even been exposed to dosages that would be lethal or life-threatening. That may change, of course, but even if it does why should that inhibit us from developing nuclear power? More people die in coal-mining accidents in one year than have died as a result of nuclear contamination, but we don't stop mining coal. Coal causes more long-term health problems in the general population than did the Chernobyl nuclear accident, but we don't stop burning it. Even if the death toll in Japan turns out to be in the hundreds from radiation exposure that many people could die in an airplane crash, but we don't stop flying airplanes. Tens of thousands of people are killed and maimed in auto accidents every year, but we don't stop driving cars. Nor did we stop the space shuttle program after the Challenger and Columbia disasters. Nor should we declare a moratorium on nuclear power.
There are currently three nuke plants under construction in the U.S. and two dozen more in the pipeline. The plants currently under construction are designed to be safer than the Japanese plants, which are forty years old, and much less likely to suffer the perfect storm of circumstances that led to the reactor failures at Fukushima.
We're going to need all the electricity we can generate in the 21st century and windmills aren't going to help much. Let's not make the same mistake we're making with our refusal to drill for offshore oil. Let's continue to develop a power source that, compared to any plausible alternative, is clean and safe.
