Fox News hosts fear that the disaster in Japan may lead to a push for cleaner energy here in America.

Bill O'Reilly

Bill O'Reilly

Bill O'Reilly was deeply sympathetic to the plight of the people in Japan who are struggling to cope with the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami, and the developing nuclear disaster, but his main focus, as always, was the potential consequences for America, which he discussed with two expert guests, Rita King, a former nuclear industry journalist and Dr Daniel Branovan, president of Project Chernobyl (view clip; read transcript). Neither guest sought to downplay the longterm harmful effects of radiation or the possibility of similar disasters occurring in the US. King pointed out that at least two nuclear reactors located in California (a seismic zone that many experts say is long overdue a massive earthquake) are only built to withstand a 7.5 magnitude quake. She also pointed out that 8% of the nation's population live within a 50 mile radius of the oldest reactor in the US, Indian Point, (located about 35 miles north of midtown Manhattan), which, though not in a seismic zone, has already had a lot of problems and probably does not meet current safety standards.

Dr Branovan discussed the dangers of radiation and said that in Chernobyl, hundreds died from immediate exposure but tens of millions were affected by low-level exposure and incidents of thyroid cancer abounded years after the incident. O'Reilly agreed that exposure to radiation is hard to measure and that the long-term consequences take a while to manifest.

Look what happened with 9/11 with breathing in that debris and then it comes seven, eight years later, where they have all kinds of health problems. That's what you are seeing at Chernobyl: it took a long time for the health problems to develop in some people there.

Yet, O'Reilly remained concerned that our attempts to increase our reliance on nuclear power and to build more nuclear power stations in the US may be stymied now because of the disaster in Japan. Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume agreed with him, saying that already you are hearing comments from people all over the place saying that we should perhaps be seeking out alternatives, which neither man thought realistic.

Isn't it prudent, though … look, to be realistic, we are not going to get away from foreign oil unless we get an expansion of nuclear power. Alternative fuels are not going to be ready for decades on a mass level. Now people are going "uh-oh". Saying, look, Diablo Canyon [one of the plants in California], the plant here in New York, all these things are not built to withstand a calamity like a 9 on a Richter scale earthquake. People will say, "Well, then, we don't want them."

You don't often hear Bill O'Reilly talking about the need to move away from dependence on foreign oil, so that's progress I suppose. Yet it seems that no matter how high the cost or the body count (from either oil spills or nuclear power accidents), both he and Brit Hume still seem to think that steering any investment toward alternative forms of energy that would almost certainly be less dangerous and, possibly in the long run, cheaper is still absolutely out of the question.

Sean Hannity

Sean Hannity

Hannity discussed the potential dangers of exposure to radiation with a panel of experts including Jay Lehr from the Heartland Institute, Margaret Harding, a nuclear safety consultant, and Ira Helfand, a member of the board of Physicians for Social Responsibility (two pro-nuke experts and one not so pro). Hannity asks Lehr (in the pro camp) how realistic the threat of a meltdown is and whether the people within close range of the reactors are at risk (view clip). Lehr assured Hannity that he can attest "with the utmost confidence there will not be any health impact of anything that's going at at the Fukushima power plant."

Hannity asked Ira Helfand if he agreed with Lehr's assessment. Helfand replied that he could not disagree more because although we cannot tell yet if there will be a significant breach of containment at the plant, such an occurrence is certainly possible. Helfand also indicated that the fact that workers have had to resort to unprecedented measures, not in the playbook, such as pumping sea water into the reactors even though that will destroy them (and lead to long-term power supply disruptions) should be a cause for concern. That was all he got to say, and Hannity allowed the rest of the discussion to be monopolised by Margaret Harding and Jay Lehr, who both tried to reassure viewers that everything at the Japanese plant was working according to plan and there was no real cause for concern.

Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck was back from vacation and ready to stick it to the New York Times for suggesting last week that Fox News may not renew his contract at the end of the year because he is "crazy", "apocalyptic" and that he's "kind of a downer to watch" (view clip). He pointed to some recent Times headlines, such as "Japanese scramble to avert nuclear meltdown", which he countered were also fairly apocalyptic and kind of a downer. And so he vowed to shed some sunlight on the Japanese situation and to assure his viewers that while the earthquake and tsunami are very bad things, the nuclear meltdown is really nothing to work up a sweat about.

The size and magnitude (of the tsunami) is mind-boggling. Thousands today are dead in Japan and missing. But out of all of the things that could go wrong, and they did, of all of the things that would affect the lives of the average Japanese person and affect your life, I'm trying to figure out how it (the meltdown) is even in the top three? I'm looking at this story and, at best, I see a lazy media.

So, determined not to be lumped in with the rest of the lazy journalists who are spreading stories about radiation and broadcasting images of reactors exploding and acting like it's a big deal, Beck decides to demonstrate with the assistance of some props (a wok, a steamer, a saucepan, a cutlery container and some tubes of M&Ms) why we should not be in any fear of falling ill or dying from exposure to radiation.

Beck puts the tubes of M&Ms (which represent nuclear rods) into the cutlery container and then into the steamer (the nuclear reactor) which he seals tightly. Then he places the "nuclear reactor" into a large saucepan and seals it off with an upturned wok. Beck then explains that the footage we saw on our televisions of the reactors exploding was just the upturned wok or lid being blown off the saucepan but that the steamer inside, with the nuclear pellets, was still intact. Having thus reassured his audience that there is nothing whatsoever to worry about, he chastises the mainstream media (like the New York times) once again for their fear-mongering tendencies.

So, why would the media focus on the Japanese nuclear meltdown and try to tell you that you should prepare in California because of an earthquake?! If you're living in California and you don't know you could be hit with an earthquake, a tsunami and a nuclear power plant sliding into the ocean, you're too dumb to live anyway!

You can see why Beck gets frustrated that he's the one being called apocalyptic.

• This article was amended at 15:55 GMT on 16 March. It originally referred to "nuclear explosions" taking place in Japan. This has now been corrected