I read some blog comments by nuclear zombies who like to continue to develop current nuclear energy as usual despite of the current situation: some desperately manage to say because of.
People in general are not thinking about Thorium nuclear energy whose half life is ~ 300 yr and does not produce nuclear bomb quality west. If that technology becomes feasible, it can become a viable option. That is totally different from nuclear power plant Japan already has. Thorium reactors in China and India probably use mix of plutonium and thorium so that is not something we like to use. Clean thorium reactor is still under development. (Kyoto university is developing it, among others.)
Russia/Ukraine are seismically stable and Chernobyl accident is not related with any external natural hazards other than human brain malfunction and the bad reactor design. And they are big countries. So they may have more space to waste. If Russians lived in Japan, they would use nuclear plants more wisely.
Japan on the other hand is most seismically active land; 10% of all earthquakes in the globe occur in Japan. Tsunamis are very common in geological time scale.
Also Japan dose not have any practical strategy for nuclear spend fuels. Fast breading reactors are now dead zombies which cannot even die properly any more. Rokasho storage space will be filled up soon.
Italy, Germany and Swiss decided to say goodbye to the nukes. Germany is a extreamly serious country and methodologically harvested renewable energy, so they now can rely more on renewable energy. France and other countries with nukes do provide electricity to Germany but EU as a whole has the will and strategy to tackle these challenges. France itself likely reduces nuclear dependency since many of its nuclear power plants are located sessimiscally active locations. A French science magazine I bought has detail risk analysis: general conclusion is that French nucears can suffer a similar nutural disaster Fukushima.
Saudi is doing nuclear partly because they like to have nuke weapons. Also getting proper cooling water seems to be difficult for them. If they really care about energy, Saudi should make use of solar energy.
A Pillow Diary of an Expatriate Scientist 