But if you do a cost-benifit analysis of nuclear power and just add Fukushima to the cost column it is still an absurdly good idea to go nuclear. The status quo we currently enjoy is comparable to the worst-case in nuclear. If we applied nuclear safety standards I suspect coal fired power plants would have an exclusion zone too; they cause a lot of pollution and the health impacts around them are detectable.

You dont think plans on how to prevent a disaster caused by a Tsunami 3 years prior to a disaster caused by Tsunami is relevant? Interesting world view.

1) If you think that the disaster should be considered, I don't see why you think my view is interesting. I'm arguing we should just chalk it up to bad safety practices, which does happen from time to time. If we assume one Fukushima every 20-25 years (which seems absurdly pessimistic given that all the new designs are much safer than Fukushima from the get go and it took somethign close to a 1:500 year disaster to breach Fukushima's design) then the cost-benifits are still in nuclear's favour. A nuclear catastrophe is less damaging than business-as-usual for coal. Living next to a coal plant will have detectable negative health impacts in the community due directly to the coal plant. Living next to Fukushima - even up to the meltdown - won't. The economic consequences of owning property in the exclusion zone probably even that up, but I would still want to see the stats before accepting Fukushima is worse. Coal dust is nasty stuff.

2) If you think that the disaster was nearly prevented and should be discounted on that basis; that is a bad argument and you should abandon it. The disaster did happen and that needs to be dealt with.