I generally see people talking about how safe the new reactor designs are, and how it's a tragedy that people are so afraid of nuclear that they won't let them be built. The reactors in Japan are 40-year-old designs. You can't compare them on the same level. It's like saying that people in favor of nuclear power claim that Chernobyl never happened because 'safe nuclear' == 'never was a reactor that was unsafe ever built.'