I did an Internet search to learn the status of the containment structures of the damaged reactors, and the most recent posting I could find was April 6. Most of the articles were posted in March. I’m guessing major news media outlets are losing interest because a “China Syndrome” meltdown (although the exit point from Japan would be somewhere in or near Uruguay) hasn’t occurred. So what is the impact of the disaster if the containment structures hold? There is no doubt the disaster will further add to the fear of nuclear power generation. Japan is hydrocarbon deficient, and had been generating a third of their power needs with nuclear plants. They have stepped up their importation of liquid natural gas via tankers to fill the immediate needs, but that will undoubtedly add expense to an economy that doesn’t need additional expenses.

Do I continue to advocate that nuclear power generation should be a part of our future? You bet I do, and I write that despite Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and now Fukushima. My favorite source of information about energy generation is Dr. Petr Beckman, who published the book “The Health Hazards of NOT Going Nuclear” in 1976. The primary point of the book, which is still very valid today, is that there is no safe way to make energy. “Energy is the capacity for doing work, and as long as man is fallible, there is always the possibility that it will do the wrong kind of work; to ask for safe energy, therefore, is much the same as asking for incombustible fuel.” Nuclear energy is “…far safer than any other form of energy.”

I’m baffled at how casually we accept risks from activities that don’t have the word “nuclear” in their title, even when we have no control over these risks. Anyone who advocates that no risk is acceptable should cut themselves off the power grid. About 1000 people die per year in the U.S. from electrocution. If you overlook the risk of electrocution, what about the risk from mining and burning coal to generate power? There have been 819 deaths in the United States and 52,785 in China from coal mining since 1990. That doesn’t consider the risks to people from the emissions and wastes generated from burning coal. As Dr. Beckman said, there is no method of making energy that is completely “safe.” He advocated that producing plentiful energy is required to preserve economic freedom and prosperity. China, India, Korea, and Russia are not delaying construction of new nuclear reactors, but the United States and some European countries are responding to the Japanese crises by rethinking plans for nuclear facilities. France generates 75% of its energy with nuclear power, and I haven’t found that they intend to shut down their plants.

One consequence of the reactor crises is an increase in “atomic tourism.” Attendance was up by 12 percent on a recent weekend at the Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas and by 20 percent at the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History in Albuquerque. A spokesman there was quoted as saying, “Folks definitely want information about nuclear reactors and nuclear radiation.” People pay $250 a person to tour Chernobyl and the nearby ghost town of Pripyat in the Ukraine. I didn’t find any indications that visits are up at the Nagasaki and Hiroshima museums. However nuclear engineer Joseph Gonyeau said that visits to his excellent and extensive web site was up by 119 percent in March. There are updates on that site about the Japanese disaster from the International Atomic Energy Agency, Japan’s Nuclear and industrial Safety Agency, and the Tokyo Electric Power Company.

The bottom line is that we should do everything possible to learn from this disaster to improve safety. We should not cripple our economic prosperity in decades to come by being the only country that decides not to use nuclear energy to produce electricity.