How Safe Are We?

With the recent incidences of multiple earthquakes, tsunami, and explosions in Japan ... and the 4 possible nuclear meltdowns going on ... naturally people are concerned that there may be simular incidences here in the US.

Now the issue isn't actually the earthquake - it was the flooding that occured afterwards that knocked out the power that ran the water pumps to keep the plants cooled.  The newer plants are supposed to have taken this into consideration, basically those less than 20 yrs old, but what about those which are older?

the older ones seem to be located closer to the east coast while the newer ones towards the Pacific ocean.

From Ginger Gargoyle's Gems

From Ginger Gargoyle's Gems

Hopefully these are showing up nicely ... really the placement of the plants aren't as important as the numbers above.
as you can see the mass of the reactors we have are over the 20 yrs period of newer precautions!

And since they aren't allowing the building of newer plants, we are dependent on the older less prepared facilities ... instead of updating facilities and then doing a switch over and then phase out and dismantle the older plants.

seems logical to me.