What does this mean for nuclear power? Only time will tell, but initial responses indicate that the consequences will vary dramatically in different places. In the United States, there are only two reactors that sit on a site that could conceiv­ably suffer a similar accident—Diablo Canyon, 12 miles southwest of San Luis Obispo, and San Onofre near San Diego, California. Both sit near faults and near the ocean. However, both are designed for worst-case earthquakes and neither is subject to a tsunami, since Diablo Canyon sits 85 feet above sea level and San Onofre sits 50 feet above sea level and also has a sea wall 30 feet tall. Both have cooling water reservoirs that sit above the reactor, so in the event of complete power failure, gravity would keep the water flowing (58). Thus, neither of these could suffer the same sequence of events that happened in Japan. There does not seem to be a groundswell against nuclear power, though it may impact the licens­ing of new reactors. However, a recent poll indicated that 80% of residents living within 10 miles of a nuclear power reactor supported the use of nuclear power to provide electricity in the United States and 83% thought the US nuclear industry was safe (59). US nuclear utility leaders are still interested in moving forward with nuclear, but how rapidly they move depends more on economic conditions than the accident in Fukushima (60).

The reaction in Europe varies. Germany and Switzerland have taken the extreme positions of deciding to end nuclear power. Switzerland has five reactors that provide 40% of its electricity and was planning to build two more, but the Parliament decided to phase out nuclear power by 2034 (61). Germany has long been somewhat paranoid about nuclear power, with a strong Green party that has vociferously opposed it since Chernobyl. Chancellor Angela Merkel had been supportive of nuclear power and just months previously had pushed through an agreement to extend the life of many of the existing 17 nuclear reactors that pro­vided 23% of Germany’s electricity. In an abrupt reversal in the face of public angst and anti-nuclear demonstrations, she decided to end nuclear power by 2022. This is in spite of the fact that Germany sits on no known fault lines and could not be subject to a tsunami and has never had a serious nuclear accident (62, 63). What it means is that Germany will buy more nuclear power from France, will burn more of its lignite “brown coal”—the poorest quality coal, which generates a lot of car­bon dioxide when burned—and will be more dependent on Russia for natural gas (64). It is highly unlikely that wind and solar can make up for the loss of nuclear power. Other European countries do not plan to reduce their nuclear power in response to Fukushima (62). Russia plans to continue its growth of nuclear power also, with 34 reactors being built or planned (65).

The most rapid growth of nuclear power is in Asia—China is building or plans to build 81 reactors, India 25, South Korea 10, and Japan had planned to build 14 in addition to the 54 it had before the accident (65). Except for Japan, it is not likely that these countries will greatly curtail their nuclear plans, since their needs for electricity are growing rapidly. Japan had 4 reactors destroyed, and shut down all but 19 of its 54 commercial reactors after the accident. By early 2012 it had shut down all of its reactors. Japan has few natural energy resources, so it depended on nuclear power for 30% of its electricity and is unlikely to permanently shut down a large number of its nuclear reactors. It is doing stress tests of the existing reactors to see how they would cope with a similar disaster (66). Most likely the undam­aged reactors will need to begin operating again.