Fukushima Nuclear disaster: How worried should we be? Will it impact us?

http://www.alternet.org/environment/fukushima-fallout-should-you-be-worried?akid=13405.294211.No2D79&rd=1&src=newsletter1041291&t=12

Last week, amid anti-nuclear protests, Japan restarted its first nuclear reactorsince the Fukushima disaster in March 2011. Despite strong opposition, including from former prime minister Naoto Kan, Kyushu Electric Power put one of the two reactors at its Sendai facility along the nation's southwestern coast back online. The second is scheduled to restart in October.

In the face of opinion polls showing most voters oppose restarting the country's nuclear power generation, prime minister Shinzo Abe argued that it is not economically feasible to keep importing foreign oil and natural gas, and that the nation's increasing dependence on thermal energy threatens greenhouse gas emission reduction goals.

But as Japan's concerns about its nuclear future grip the nation, North America continues to worry about the ongoing fallout caused by the Fukushima meltdown as ocean currents carry radioactivity to the western coasts of Canada and the United States.