This alone is reason enough to oppose nuclear power:

TOKYO — The operator of Japan’s tsunami-damaged nuclear power plant told safety regulators less than two weeks before disaster struck that it had failed to carry out some scheduled inspections at the facility.

The equipment missed in scheduled inspections included a motor and a backup power generator for the No. 1 reactor, the firm said in a report available on a company Website.

The exchange between the utility and safety regulators regarding safety misses at the plant has attracted attention because of its timing, and the equipment involved.

The failure of backup power systems is a key element of the current crisis, which has prompted a massive effort to contain radiation from the stricken plant.

In its response to the Tokyo Electric report, Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency gave Tokyo Electric until June 2 to draw up a corrective plan for the plant, the utility’s oldest nuclear facility, which dating back to the 1970s.

The nuclear safety agency said in its March 2 response, available on the agency’s website, that it did not believe there was an immediate risk to safety as a result of the missed inspections.

For profit corporations will cut any corners they think they can get away with to increase the bottom line.  They co opt regulatory agencies to facilitate this.  At this time there is no way to know if those cut corners had anything to do with the current crisis at Fukishima and we never will.

Commenter Pale Scot reminds us in this post at Newshoggers of the efforts of authorities around the world of covering up the damage caused by previous nuclear accidents.

Three Mile Island; the official estimate of total radiation release is a sham.
http://www.ontheissuesmagazine.com/2011spring/2011spring_Charman.php

“Lochbaum says that figure is grossly underestimated, because it is based on a measurement of radiation levels on the Three Mile Island site a year after the fact and does not account for shorter-lived radionuclides like iodine-131, which would not have been measurable by that time. Nor, he says, does the official figure include any leakage from the containment building, the concrete dome surrounding the core of the reactor… Dr. Gordon MacLeod, Pennsylvania’s Secretary of Health at the time, tried to ensure all health impacts from the accident were fully disclosed. He was fired by then Governor Dick Thornburgh for his effort”

Chernobyl: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5384001427276447319#
At an international meeting headed by Hans Blix held the year after the event the Russians estimated that there would eventually be 40,000 deaths directly caused Chernobyl. There was no estimate of disease or birth defects. The Western experts ardently dismissed the number, over the weekend they argued the Russians down to 4000, which was conveniently the number arrived at by the UN in 2006. There are no overall statistical studies available; but raw numbers such as that 200,000 of the 500,000 member cleanup brigade have died is a terrible indicator, the majority of those men were young healthy soldiers who replaced the robots when the radiation ionized the circuit boards. Watch the documentary I linked to from the 1:15:00 mark to get the gist.

Japan; it is likely that the events will prove to be the result of trying to save the economic value of the reactors.

The profits seeked by the nuclear industry are based on charging for the fuel enrichment, specialized metallurgy and machining required to build Boiling Water Reactors or similar machines. There are only a few countries that have the tech to do this, all these reactors can meltdown if enough things go wrong.
The safer heavy water reactors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor) are lower tech and also cheaper to build=(less profitable). The only way I see to use nuclear power (which will prbably be necessary when the oil runs out) is to standardize the reactor designs and everything else, which the industry would fight to the death, (they’re already seeking patents and permits for 36 different reactor designs) and remove the liabilities limit imposed by the Price/Waterhouse act. But neither of those are likely to happen unless the costs suffered so far are exposed.

Can man be trusted with the power of the sun?

Cross posted at Newshoggers