Lurker de-cloaking here partly to say thanks to the knowledgeable participants and excellent photo researchers
in this thread and partly to make a few random comments:
A) On useful vs. stupid coverage of this event: I've been using mainly the New York Times and Kyodo News for news, and I think they've been, not perfect, but pretty thorough and accurate. (For instance, somebody asked a few pages back 'where are our Predator drones'? Well, that was answered by the NYT a day or two ago: there is indeed one in use, and other military surveillance assets normally targeted at North Korea are also being used over the Fukushima site.) With the Times, you have to keep checking back, however -- they do this kind of running update to their main article, rather than publishing a new story every time something new happens.
I've also found the information from the Union of Concerned Scientists and the MIT Dept. of Nuclear Engineering to be valuable.
B) Seems clear that the central issue here at Fukushima is the extended "station blackout". As a layman who went to college (and only a state college, to boot!) and has some decent reasoning capabilities, I'm more than a little aghast that, apparently, in all the emergency contingency planning for NPPs it is simply assumed that a station blackout could never last more than 4-8 hours. I don't think NPPs should be forced to plan for events as unlikely as, say, an attack by Martians, but an event that could knock out grid power and your only set of emergency generators for more than 4 (or, at best, 8) hours? C'mon guys. I think that's grossly irresponsible safety planning, and though I'm not anti-nuclear at all, I am very strongly anti-stupidnuclear.
I look at San Onofre and Diablo Canyon in earthquake-prone California and think they've got to do some serious, and quick, thinking about how to increase redundancy and survivability in their power supplies. Just simply putting some additional diesel generators in a hurricane/tornado/earthquake hardened building a few hundred feet up the hill to a nice elevation, and running some electrical cable underground to the reactor buildings would seem like a simple, and prudent, step that could be taken pretty much now. If I lived in California I would push my elected officials to mandate it now (and be willing to pay a special sales tax or something to pay for it). But I majored in English, so what do I know.
C) One thing on media coverage that I think would be useful is the information that one of the health risks being talked about most here, which is thyroid cancer induced by accumulation of Iodine-131 in the thyroid gland, is actually not that serious a public health threat, relatively speaking. So-called Differentiated Thyroid Cancer (the kind produced by radiation damage) is almost 100% curable in any modern medical system. It ain't fun, but it's not a medical catastrophe in nearly all cases. (I've had it, so speak from personal experience.)
Diablo Canyon NPP:
San Onofre NPP:
[PLAIN]http://images.ocregister.com/newsimages/undefined/2008/07/30_sanonofre1_large.jpg
