Today, Jake Adelstein and Stephanie Nakajima contributed a dispatch to The Atlantic Wire describing the Tokyo Electric Power Company--operators of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant--as the "symbol of everything that is wrong with the nation of Japan: cronyism, collusion, gentrification, corruption, weak regulation, and entropy." In response, commenter Pacifica Rising pointed out that we've got some problems closer to home, too:

Well written article. I'd just like to add... Japan. The U.S. The names may be different but they are all the same industries/corporations that reap the profits at the expense of the people and the environment.

While we keep one eye on Japan (as well we should), maybe we should keep a keener eye turned on our own aged nuclear plants here at home. Now with 2 plants in Nebraska starting to swim and 1 in New Mexico just out of reach of a raging wildfire and many on major fault lines, we need to take our lack of a plan in a nuclear emergency more seriously than ever.

As our population has grown and moved into areas that were relatively remote back when the plants were first built, our nuclear agencies have not kept up with our changing  world. Plants that were built to last 30 years have been pressed into much longer service with retrofits and patches. We need to quit thinking of this as some leftover Hippee movement from the 60's and 70's and realize the huge potential for getting to a point where there will be no turning back.

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Erik Hayden