Japan Nuclear Crisis?

I find the fever over the ongoing nuclear crisis in Japan not surprising. The TV networks and cable operations are frankly using this situation to push viewership levels up. I long ago learned that cable tv and many in the news media will blow stories up time and and again for their own purposes. If you are an investor you learn to ignore the main media and dig to find facts. One note here, my brethern in most of the print media has shown retraint here, including my local large daily The News and Observer.

From everything I can gather this morning from people who really know the nuclear plants the ones in Japan are working almost perfectly as planned, except for some diesel generators that broke down and are not pumping water as planned. The people in charge instead are using seawater to cool down the reactors. This unforunately corrodes pipes and metal which will make it likely unusable in the future. There has been no nuclear explosions, only steam explosions. The reactor chain reactions were stopped days ago. The problem now is cooling off the residual heat built up when they were producing chain reactions and electricity. Also note any radiation released presently is not long lived radiation and quickly disapates. Yes, Japanese officials are being extra cautious, but to keep panic down there they have to. If only we could stop the panic in the news media here.

Now who prospers from this situation? Anyone who does not want nuclear power plants built and traders who short stocks. If you want to make money on this situation short the uranium stocks or wait until the stocks get killed and buy them. CCJ, Cameco Corp in Canada, is the main player here. Now George Soros is trying to make money here too, by planting news stories in the media that everyone could die from radiation poisoning due to this crisis and we need to stop immediately building or even operationg nuclear plants. He owns gas and oil facilities in Nigeria and Brazil. So if you want to make money that way join him by buying some PBR Pertobras, the main oil company in Brazil.

Also note there are numerous advocacy groups who want us to stop using nuclear power and go totally green fuels. Frankly that is not possible since there is no way modern society can produce enough energy to run with green fuels. The point here is the old rule if there is an advocacy group there must have a problem to solve. Amazingly if you remove the group most times the problem goes away by itself. The news media noted above generally goes to these groups for their quotes and guests during times like this. Do not be taken in here and go out and buy some solar or wind power companies.