After the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe in Japan - a lot of people wondered out loud just what the hell the Japanese were doing building nuclear power plants along the coast of an area prone to earthquakes and tsunamis.

It’s as though they were just asking for this to happen - who could have been so stupid??

Surely - here in the United States we're a lot more careful with where we build OUR nuclear plants right??

Well…no. This is the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant just outside Omaha, Nebraska, and no - it’s not supposed to be completely surrounded by water (more images).

But I suppose that’s what happens when you build a nuclear plant right in the middle of the flood plain of the Missouri River.

Flood waters from the rising Missouri River have settled at a foot and a half ABOVE where the plant sits - and the only thing stopping Fort Calhoun from flooding just like Fukushima flooded is a six-foot high rubber wall surrounding the plant.

But that’s not the only nuclear power plant in danger.

Just down the river in southeast Nebraska - the Cooper Nuclear Plant - is also on the verge of flooding out.

That plant sits at 903 feet above sea level - but on Sunday - flood waters from the Missouri River peaked at 900 and a half feet - meaning just two-and-a-half feet stood between Nebraska - and a Fukushima-like disaster.

So yeah - we almost lost Nebraska over the weekend…and yet no one seems to know about it.

Back on June 7th - when the floodwaters first started threatening the Fort Calhoun plant - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission received a “notification of an unusual event” - the lowest level warning on the NRC’s 4-stage disaster classification system.

No big deal, they said - keep moving, no droids in this car.

But it does seem a little odd that since June 6th - the FAA has been enforcing a no-fly zone above the crippled plant.

When asked about the no-fly zone - the FAA responded by saying it was put in place for, “security reasons that we can’t reveal.”

Just like the no-fly zone over the BP oil spill - which successfully stopped both news reports and scientific analysis of the water over the spill.

You now, whatever is going on in Nebraska - this is a warning that Fukushima could happen here in the United States with very little warning.

Not only do we operate nuclear plants in flood basins in Nebraska - but we also have plants built on fault lines in California - and in the path of tornados in the American Midwest.

And for those who are more superstitious - there’s the Diablo Canyon power plant in California - that is not only named after the devil - but it also sits on top of an Indian burial ground.

So is it REALLY that our nation’s nuclear plants are more secure than Japan - or are we just - so far - really, really lucky?

Frankly, I think it’s time to stop rolling the dice with nuclear power.

In the last decade - Germany built the equivalent of ten nuclear power plants by putting solar panels on the roofs of hundreds of thousands of homes.

And with that renewablel power Germany has announced they will completely close down every single nuclear plant in their nation.

And just last week - voters in Italy took to the polls to reject - by a 95% to 5% margin - a plan to build nuclear power plants in that nation.

And in Denmark - a country that as far back as 1988 banned the construction of nuclear power after Chernobyl - more than 20% of their electricity is generated through wind power - and within a decade that'll be a half; 50%.

Japan has just announced they are ditching nuclear power...for obvious reasons.

The Swiss have announced no more new nukes.

Even China has suspended the construction of all new nuclear power plants there.

But here in the United States? We're building rubber walls around our submerged nuclear plants, and just praying that the waters don’t keep rising.

And in an environment that’s growing increasingly volatile with more flooding and more tornados thanks to global climate change - that strategy is almost certainly destined for failure.

It's time to ditch nuclear power here in the Unuted States.

Look at what's going on in Nebraska right this very minute - and let's hope we're not too late

That's The Big Picture.