El Reg used to have a reputation for facts, not propaganda
1/ Plutonium is coming from Reactor #3 which used MOX for fuel (mix of plutonium and uranium, with 2-8% plutonium), so PLEASE check for the facts before writing articles..... The fact that it leaked out, is bad news, as leaks do not seal on their own, they only get worst, and plutonium is highly toxic to humans and all forms of life.
2/ It looks like at least 4 reactors in Japan need to be permanently sealed in concrete, and a large area will be lost for human habitation in Japan for at least a couple of generations to come. Latest reports on the issue state that by now, Japan's nuclear problem is worst then Chernobil, with a big part of the blame going to the power plant management who decided to store a lot more spend fuel on site then the plant's designs called for (25x the amount of nuclear fuel available in Chernobil). This is something not even mentioned in the article.
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/03/amount-of-radioactive-fuel-at-fukushima.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1371793/Japan-nuclear-crisis-Fukushima-plant-entombed-concrete-radiation-leak.html
3/ The story is not done yet - when (looks we may be past the "if" stage) melted fuel hits water you can expect a big steam explosion, and a lot will depend on which way the wind blows at the time. If anything, the media is NOT reporting the full extent of the problem (and for good reason, as people already leave Tokyo and you do not want Japan's economy to slow even more).
http://blogs.knoxnews.com/munger/2011/03/ex-sandia-engineer-talks-about.html
4/ One of the much talked about terror scenarios is an attack on the spent fuel storage facilities, and a "radiologic weapon". This is exactly what is going on in Japan, at a huge scale, with spent fuel rods exposed to the elements, and some of them converted to dust and blown away (look at the photos of the damaged buildings), plus contaminated water going into the sea and water tables. The breach of the containment pressure vessel in at least one of the reactors makes the situation even more "interesting", specially for the teams fighting the issue. I am not aware of any other kind of power plant which may create so much mayhem for the population in the area, except for broken dams for the guys living downstream, but a 30+Km radius probably beats the area affected by any dam by a large margin.
5/ I have friends who were expats in Japan and left the country with their families and are not going back. They talk about food and water shortages, and rolling blackouts in Tokyo (no heat, no elevators, no light for the stairways). There is a significant flux of people who are getting out of Japan, and they are the ones needed to keep operations going for the trans-national companies they work for. I have yet to see in El Reg a real analysis of the impact of the events in Japan on the rest of the world - the link below is a good start:
http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4214018/Japan-quake--Tracking-the-status-of-fabs-in-wake-of-disaster What it all means is a severe hit to the worldwide recovery, maybe (some say likely) a push into a new down cycle. A lot of people seem to be ignorant of how many products Japan used to make and is no longer making, due to the tsunami and energy shortages. You cannot run a fab with rolling blackouts, and there are some parts which are only made in Japan (high temp lytics, some kinds of mold compound / epoxy and chip packages, specific ASICs and chips used in automotive controllers for Toyota, Honda, Subaru, etc.). For some electronic parts, Japan is not sole source, but has a significant volume (flash, opto-electronics, tantalum caps, ceramic caps and crystals for automotive applications, etc.), so prices will go up and shortages are already impacting operations worldwide (SSD and DRAM prices are also likely to go up). In US, GM already closed a plant due to Japan related shortages, and so did Honda US, Toyota, Subaru, and I understand that the list is going longer, not shorter. Real issue is the domino effect - for one part you cannot get from Japan, you cannot make a car, and the suppliers for all other parts have to stop production as well, idle their workers, their sub-suppliers, and nobody makes any money in the process. I have not seen yet an US automotive engine controller without at least one part made in Japan.
To say the events in Japan have been overplayed by the media is idiotic, to put it mildly.
Yes, it could have been worst, but at the very minimum, Japan will have to reconsider its emergency procedures for nuke plants - things went wrong, and no, a nuke plant in an earthquake prone area is NOT a good idea, no matter what. People may also look a lot closer at having second sources for pretty much all their raw materials (reversing the trend toward single sourcing to maximize volume and beat down the price).