California is on the same ‘Ring of Fire’ around the Pacific Rim that Japan is. So vulcanism, earthquake, tsunami and kaiju threats are likely similar. Reactors that crappy and that old tend to get shut down. Since that Simpsons episode, the map has changed a lot. Many of the remaining plants are trying to get operating license extensions, buying influence as needed, but they can’t operate like that forever. Luckily, somebody bought the wrong kind of kitty litter so, at least, babysitting privately-owned waste stockpiles means jobs at the plants for another however-many ages of geologic time.

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Like with companies proudly jacking up prices for desperately-needed medication, the Fukushima disaster shows some things ought not be left to corporations. Companies like TEPCO exist as cut-outs to channel profits into private hands, and will disappear as quickly as those profits; meanwhile the risks and the consequences of those risks will be left behind for tens and hundreds of thousands of years. It was bad enough when the world economy crashed — all the profits had already been privatized, all the losses were socialized. The near future had worse in store. When the tsunami left behind runaway meltdowns — all the profits had already been privatized, all the survivors were ionized. Standard nuclear power advocates avoid counting real costs, happy to pretend governments, survivors and the future will somehow metabolize their waste. Waste that can be much more readily hidden on their profit and loss statements than on the power plant grounds, or under some subterranean federal rug.