BYU Law Review Volume 2011 | Issue 6 Article 5 12-18-2011 Beyond Fukushima: Disasters, Nuclear Energy, and Energy Law Lincoln L. Davies Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/lawreview Part of the Energy and Utilities Law Commons Recommended Citation Lincoln L. Davies, Beyond Fukushima: Disasters, Nuclear Energy, and Energy Law, 2011 BYU L. Rev. 1937 (2011). Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/lawreview/vol2011/iss6/5 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Brigham Young University Law Review at BYU Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in BYU Law Review by an authorized editor of BYU Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. DO NOT DELETE 12/20/2011 3:08 PM Beyond Fukushima: Disasters, Nuclear Energy, and Energy Law Lincoln L. Davies I. INTRODUCTION Fukushima changed everything. That, at least, was a popular view espoused after the disaster of March 11, 2011—in the press, by the talking heads in the international media, and across the blogosphere.1 A nuclear meltdown in such a densely populated, well- developed nation could scarcely do anything less than utterly transform how nuclear energy would be seen, used, and not used for years to come. That was the immediate reaction. As we inch away in time from the epicenter of the nuclear crisis at Fukushima Daiichi, however, the picture has become less stark than it often was painted in the days and weeks after the earthquake sounded, the tsunami struck, and a series of misjudgments, miscalculations, and chain reactions led to a partial meltdown of the Fukushima No.