It's all the fault of Twitter.

>>We have experts telling us it's dire and experts telling us it's hardly anything to worry about at all.<<

The sad reality is that we have become so obsessed with "instant information" that we have already started to use it as a kicking-off point for discussion, instead of waiting for fact-checking and verification to click in.

As far as I can tell from what I have so far seen, heard and read, no-one actually knows for certain what the extent of the damage is, or the likelihood of it turning into a massive nuclear disaster.

So the phenomenon we are witnessing here is commentators making their "observations" and drawing "conclusions" from absolutely no real data whatsoever. Which is why every single one of them merely reflects their own pre-existing prejudices and ideals.

And thanks to our apparently insatiable appetite for 24-hour news coverage, the media are forced to drag out of hiding anyone with even the vaguest notion of what might be happening, and put them on the spot for their "views".

No wonder the stories range from "business as usual" to "armageddon".

Given the damage caused by the earthquake and the tsunami, I doubt whether anyone yet has actually been able to make a detailed analysis of what the danger might be.

But it would appear that we want to hear, instantly, someone, saying something.

So we can all go ahead and argue about it.

Doh! Get thouest real.

Unlike some - I'm not deferentially keeping my head in the sand.

Yes we should wait some years for agreed information from an international committee (not).

We should be informational kowtowers until our betters tell us to form an opinion.

In fact we have a right to know how far the radiation is spreading.

Pete

Some of the posters here are talking about this as if it is all cut and dried. “It in not as bad as Chernobyl, it is easily fixed” and so on. This is an ongoing nuclear disaster and could eventually mean the indefinite evacuation of the whole of the North Island of Japan.
No one at this stage has any idea of how long this emergency will go on for and how many it will effect.
The pro nuclear lobby is already with a set of pat answers from “ well it was an old plant” to "well we could build it with 100% safety now” and they are still hoping that their dream will come true one day.

The whole point about Nuclear power stations is that they cannot be retrospectively brought up to date correcting design faults. The enormous costs in dismantling even a working plant in good condition (not to include safety aspects) show that. To rebuild a plant that has been the subject of an accident from whatever cause is not feasible.
So it is better to not have them in the first place but to find another solution.
There are other solutions but the nuclear lobby will not make money out of them so they are ridiculed.

I think this event is a blessing in disguise if it stops any further push for nuclear power.

sarnian it might all be fine as well .. we're not saying it is not troublesome or that there are no difficulties, but you guys all seem to be saying it is either zero or one .. it is either nothing or WORSE THAN CHERNOBYL .. !! with nothing in between

I do note the anti nuclear lobby are the ones out there wailing and writing articles in the "I told you so OMG we're all going to die" vein, and people such as yourself seem to be very happy to bury the nuclear industry without any evidence or data at all, though on AGW you want to side with scientific "authority" .. why ditch it now?

let's wait and see .. or are you of the theory we need to DO SOMETHING .. NOW! Even if it's wrong!

Wait .. give them time .. take it easy

"The pro nuclear lobby is already with a set of pat answers"

The "anti" nuclear lobby is already with a set of pat hysterics .. fixed

Well done, Jim.

And over in A. Bolt's most predictable diatribe, he ignores:

• that it's six reactors, not "a reactor"
• that the fire at the spent fuel rods pool has no safety containment vessel - just like the Chernobyl disaster
• that it's Associate Professor Tilman Ruff of the Medical Association for the Prevention of War (www.mapw.org.au), not "Dr" Ruff, an "activist".
• that the WHO Chernobyl report ignored the latent periods of cancers, that most (53%) of the radioactive fallout actually landed on Europe (conveniently omitted in many studies of the '86 disaster), and that the WHO has a fundamental relationship with the IAEA and its vested interests.

Bolt is long overdue in being sacked for spreading blatant untruths concerning matters of public health.

Atman, yes indeed: "The author is a long term campaigner against Nuclear power and is definitely not a dispassionate observer."

So where lies the greater integrity? In someone who, if he wins his campaign is out of a job? Or in those who, if they win via disinformation hope to further their vested interests in the uranium market?

Meanwhile, this week Ziggy has attempted to sprout amazingly ignorant statements that somehow Australia is immune from tsunamis, hurricanes (cyclones), seismic activity, floods, fires or heatwaves - all of which have caused shutdowns of nuclear facilities...

Reliable baseload, or baseless load of bs?