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These aren't just some random leaky pipes. We're talking about both steam generators, on both units. What happened was the old steam generators were at the end of their design life, so they were replaced with what was supposed to be like-for-like replacement. It turned out the new ones had a design flaw which caused the tubes resonate and vibrate, causing damage early on. The original cost of the steam generators was nearly $1 billion. While they could get new steam generators, it would probably take at least two years to have them made and installed. The lost generation during that time, combined with all sorts of regulatory costs, would be too much to make it worth it.

I am held AGHAST by the biblical-level hysteria that is circulating about Fukushima these days. It is being served up and replicated with the relish of the street-corner preacher with an end-of-world sign. Every die-off of fish is related (ignore the Atlantic), the melting starfish (never mind it's happening worldwide), from mammals to narwhals there is some serious confirmation bias being stirred.

The computer model plume of currents has DEATH arriving at the United States West coast; mere detection of miniscule amounts of Cesium -- which science is capable of to an extraordinary level of precision -- is being fronted as a radioactive death sentence.

There seems to be no deference to expert or even medical opinion on true risk factors; and in the tired vein of disaster porn, any appeals to consider such generates a (predictable) backlash of conspiracy coverup allegations. At times it is literally a no-think zone.

Radioactivity is the new whipping boy of disaster porn.

NO-HYPE Fukushima information:

Fukushima Accident Updates. Leslie Corrice has done an excellent job chronicling the accident from 2011. Following the latest posting thread backwards in time (some 60 pages so far) is a detailed account you will find nowhere else.

Fukushima Accident Commentary Leslie Corrice again, exhibiting a level of journalistic integrity that is fast-fading on today's news and Internet sources, has maintained a separate thread of personal opinion and commentary. It is as fascinating a read as the last, here you will find topics of politics, culture and status and observation of the Fukushima victims' compensation fund and resettlement.

Nuclear Industry source: Nuclear Street tag: Fukushima

Rod Adams' Atomic Power Review has scaled down its Fukushima coverage as of late, but in the archives you will find some detailed articles with week-by-week coverage.

Do add more!

Your efforts to dismiss the OP's idea as assinine are purely ignorant.

As this article on the situation clearly indicates, the tank level monitoring would have been extremely useful.

In a release, the company said the drop in the tank's water level indicated about 300 metric tons had leaked, although it could not identify where the leak was located.

http://nuclearstreet.com/nuclear_power_industry_news/b/nuclear_power_news/archive/2013/08/23/fukushima-daiichi-nuclear-plant-weekly-review-082302.aspx

This is an excellent opportunity for Toshiba to seize the moment and take nuclear power generation in a whole new direction.

Indeed. It will be ten year of court battles over anything and everything, before they break ground.

Construction is already underway. Note this is on an existing nuclear plant site, which should help mitigate the red tape.

If you haven't seen, the scale of construction on these projects is mind-bogglingly large. See here for some juicy pictures of the site under construction. It's just astounding.

I think we Americans should have more trust in our leaders. President Obama in 2009 very wisely said:

"There's no reason why technologically we can't employ nuclear energy in a safe and effective way. Japan does it and France doesn't and it doesn't have greenhouse gas emissions, so it would be stupid for us not to do that in a much more effective way" Source

Integral Fast Reactors are awesome

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_Fast_Reactor
http://www.skirsch.com/politics/globalwarming/ifr.htm
http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/02/21/response-to-an-integral-fast-reactor-ifr-critique/
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/phy99/phy99xx7.htm
http://nuclearstreet.com/nuclear_power_industry_news/b/nuclear_power_news/archive/2009/10/21/how-the-integral-fast-reactor-was-killed-10214.aspx

Key parts of the reactor construction are being overseen by AREVA subsidiaries, the parent company of which is +90% owned by the French state.
http://blogs.knoxnews.com/munger/2010/01/areva_awarded_major_role_for_u.html
http://nuclearstreet.com/nuclear_power_industry_news/b/nuclear_power_news/archive/2010/01/22/areva-awarded-agreement-for-the-iter-project-01221.aspx
The race was tight between Japan and France, and France then became the hosting partner. Most of France's attention to nuclear energy is fission, but they have subsidiaries devoted to renewable and fusion.

I am wary of the cancer risks from ionizing radiation, especially backscatter x-rays since the scattering is caused by x-ray energy being absorbed by the body's cells. No matter what PR bullshit they give out, its bad for the human body.

Actually, the risks might be over-stated, if you believe this guy. It might even be good for you, or so he claims.

Well, in addition to the Chinese HTR-10, which they are now selling around the third world in mass production, South Africa is gearing up production- if the third world can do it, I don't see why we can't.

1. Don't reference Other Countries nuclear programs. This is the United States,

My $4/W figure was the estimate for new United States reactors, according to the interdisciplinary MIT study The Future of Nuclear Power (the 2009 update).

Referring again to the MIT study, they explain in detail what goes into their cost models (the 2003 full report, appendix 5). It encompasses EVERYTHING - the entire plant (steam turbines and all), the operating costs over 40 years of operation, 40 years' worth of fuel, the decomissioning costs after those 40 years, the waste disposal cost under the current 0.1 c/kWh DoE fee, etc. The TOTAL cash flow is estimated at $4.5 billion (nominal) during the construction phase - see the supplemental paper Update on the Cost of Nuclear Power, table 6A (this doesn't include the financing costs - go down to 6C).

Of course, what's really interesting is the levelized lifetime cost, per kWh. The MIT study estimates this at 8.4 c/kWhe; I've surveyed a dozen other such levelized cost studies on my blog. Feel free to follow the links and read up on them.

By the way, the NRC fees a very tiny part of costs - currently $4.6 M/year, out of of the MIT estimate of $56 M/year of fixed O&M costs (for a 1 GW plant).

6. Definitely not an engineer. Megawatts are always comparable, they are absolute quantities. A MW produced by a wind farm is the same MW produced by a nuke.

Nameplate capacities are incomparable. They represent peak power generation; but some power plants always operate at full power, and others operate intermittently, hence the energy yields (integral of power * dt) are completely different.

Yes, while wind provides a smaller percentage of it's capacity factor when compared to nuclear, that can be (supposedly) be defeated with large numbers of geographically dispersed wind farms.

No, that's a fallacy. 1 MWe of wind (nameplate capacity), at 30% capacity factor, averages 300 kWe (averaged over long time periods), with an instantaneous range of 0-1000 kWe. Adding together a thousand such (identical, independent) turbines gives you an average of 300 MWe, albeit with lower statistical variance - smaller fluctuations.

You are conflating two separate issues. One, is that the average output of a windfarm is a fraction of its nameplate capacity. Two, is that the output over time has very large variations. See? They are separate problems.