japan nuclear reactor explosion, page-16

The power station suffering problems was built in 1971. An extract from today's sydney morning herald:

"current nuclear technology is far safer than that which disastrously failed at Three Mile Island in 1979 and at Chernobyl in 1986.

The two crippled reactors at Tokyo Electric Power Company's Fukushima power station include one at the end of its 40-year life, not representative of that technology advance. Not many countries planning nuclear reactors have geology as unstable as Japan's. "

In times of such personal tragedy it is hard to talk of economic consequences but the markets are a reality that needs to be dealt with. The economic effects on Japan will hopefully allow them to fix a lot of economic stresses, the main one being its debt being around 200% of GDP. This, in part, might be achieved by Japan increasing its very low tax rate.