The good news is that four U.S. nuclear reactors have retired so far in 2013.  The latest is at San Onofre, California.

The bad news is that even after permanent shutdown, retired nukes leave a very long and dirty trail.  

It will be many decades after shutdown before they can be buried and uneasily forgotten; and long after then, it will be millennia before the byproducts of their brief curtsey on the energy stage no longer pose a threat to all living things.

But this is still 2013, and far more of these infernal engines continue to tick away, answering  the call of a bottom line so compelling that it will not hear the awful truth:  that nuclear isn’t clean, isn’t safe, isn’t cheap; and, if recent events are anything to go by, certainly isn’t reliable.

Japanese citizens have learned that the hard way.

Now some are finding that all those claims that health impacts from the Fukushima accident would be minimal were just as false as early press releases from TEPCO and their own government that  minimized the danger and advised many to “shelter in place,” when they should have been evacuated.

This past week, it was reported that there are twelve confirmed and fifteen suspected cases of thyroid cancers already in the aftermath of the 2011 accident.   This number was recorded from among 174,000 individuals aged 18 or younger.

The official take on this news was myopic denial:

Researchers at Fukushima Medical University, which has been taking the leading role in the study, have so far said they do not believe that the most recent cases are related to the nuclear crisis. They point out that thyroid cancer cases were not found among children hit by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident until four to five years later.

Yes, we all know how reliable those Soviet era records from Chernobyl were.

Some countries, like Germany, and even Canada, are beginning to get the message, though.  

As in the U.S., one of the advantages the nuclear energy industry enjoys in Canada is a liability limit that essentially indemnifies the industry against the crushing cost of major accidents.  Now Canada is rethinking that policy and preparing to increase the industry’s liability there.  This should prove very interesting because the relatively low cost of insuring nukes has been one of the traditional supports that has served to artificially decrease the cost of nuclear power.

If “cheap” is removed from the industry’s talking points, how well will “safe” hold-up with customers in the aftermath of Fukushima?

We can only hope that nuclear is poised to go out with a whimper rather than a bang.