So it appears Fukushima will become a full exclusion zone, not unlike Chernobyl.

[Stinky The Clown]

How many are we willing to tolerate?

Was one too many? Will two be?

Ten?

How many?

[Shining Jack]

1. It will happen again.

Damn!

[AllenVanAllen]

2. As long as it's profit over people,

this will continue to happen.

[Shagbark Hickory]

3. Imagine if there were a couple of these nukes leaking radiation. Developing nations are trying to

use these incredibly dangerous and dirty and harmful means of producing electricity.
When their shit hits the fan, you're not going to have the same resources as Japan has and the world's longest putzmeister and all that.

[ixion]

4. One was too many in my opinion.

If we were smart, we'd have learned something from that very close call. But, see, we're not that smart.

[Liberal Veteran]

5. I'm perfectly fine with nuclear power.

As long it is around 93 million miles away.

[Richard D]

6. I shudder . . .

. . . at this. Nearly forever is a long time.

And I can't help but think of what a similar state at San Onofre or Diablo Canyon would do.
(gonna go put my head in a hole for a while)

[cascadiance]

9. I found it rather ironic when the tsunami disaster happened, San Onofre came up...

... twice in two different media events then... That was about the same time Battle: Los Angeles came out, and the movie starts out all nice and "peaceful" like with military characters doing Camp Pendleton manouevres right in front of San Onofre. Probably an unintended "horror" reference by putting the nuke plant there not anticipating Fukushima.

Then the following Monday, the television show "The Event" had a whole show of the aliens threatening nuclear meltdown of San Onofre when they actually were stealing the fuel rods from it then. Another reference that wasn't expected.

Kind of like how "British" television show Doctor Who had an episode of aliens coming up out of the ground where they tried to "drill to deep" about the same time the Gulf Oil Spill happened from the "British" company BP.

Art imitates reality or reality imitates art?

[Paradoxical]

7. It heavily depends on the types of isotopes being released.

If it is predominantly short-lived isotopes, the area should be safe once they contain the reactors. Which could be years. But you get my point.

If the isotopes are mostly long lived, the area will be unlivable for decades or even centuries.

[mike_c]

8. an excellent question, for which I wish I didn't have an answer, but I fear that I do....

The answer is that we will tolerate as many as we have to in order to keep the energy flowing, just like we will ultimately burn ever erg of petroleum, poison every water table necessary to extract the last cubic centimeter of natural gas and shale oil, choke the last bastions of clean air with coal smoke, and sell our grandmothers into slavery to obtain the last joules of dirty energy in EVERY form because it's profitable and because it's necessary for maintaining our addiction to consumer lifestyles.

Chernobyl and Fukashima are just the beginning.

[bananas]

10. There would have been a meltdown every year if we followed the nuclear industries plans

Back in the 70s, they wanted to build 10,000 of these things world wide.
At an estimated one meltdown per 10,000 reactor-years, that would have been one meltdown every year.
And with so many reactors, most of them would be close to large cities, so the results would have been much worse than the relatively low-population areas of Chernobyl and Fukushima.