Page 7 - Boric Acid News Today

Turns the turbine. you cool it off, pump it back through here and cool down the reactor. rather than burning coal and remember wag the steam, well, you have a reactor core and control rods and pods here warming with you are rain yum inside a nuclear reactor. those rods are warming water to warm water, to warm steam, to warm a turbine, and it goes on and on. and as long as processes are working, everything works great. the problem is that it didnt work right, because when the earthquake happened,...

The backups were little generators, literally, and then they got flooded by the tsunami. then they had to go to backup power by batteries. well, the batteries were only supposed to last for eight hours. put more batteries in, its going and going and going, they couldnt get it cool down, now theyve finally flood it with seawater and boric acid, hoping this is the final step. they have killed this reactor, it will never come back online, but thats the only thing at this point that they can get thi...

The iaea was informed by the japanese authorities, that the explosion occurred outside of the people mary containment vessel, at unit one. and, the integrity of the vessel is confirmed. >> eric: what could happen next, could there be a full melt down? jim walsh is with the mit security studies program. welcome to fox news, this sunday morning, the report we got 20 minutes ago, there is excessive radiation reported at another nuclear facility, now. what does that mean and, how bad could the scena...

Reactor core and control rods and pods here warming with your uranium inside a nuclear reactor. those rods are warming water to water warm to warm steam to water a turbine. goes on and on and on. as long as all processes are working, its great. the problem is it didnt work right because when the earthquake happened, power got shut off. this was generating its own power. the power shut off and then the backups came in. the backups were a little generator, literally. they got flooded by the tsunam...

Attempt to manage the cooling there and now, unit 3, which is in the same vicinity, is facing the same problems. the japanese officials suspect there has been a partial melt down. and, more importantly, they decided to flood that one with sea water and boric acid, writing off another billion dollar plant that never will operate again. but that is what you do when you have no other options left and you are desperately trying to cool the plan and as you say, they have taken samples around the plan...

Cool the plant down and that is why theyve made the decision to flood it with sea water and boric acid. and there is a last line of defense here. to protect the environment and the people in the surrounding area. and that is -- that reactor is surrounded by a containment vessel. a concrete reinforced steel -- a bubble around the plant that is supposed to protect it. in case there is a full melt down. now, you will remember back during the -- we had the chernobyl disaster and they didnt have cont...

That was the good news. they say it was an outer wall, and the roof of the building, thats where the explosion actually happened, no harmful substances were released into the atmosphere. in fact, they say radiation has been slowly coming down throughout the day. but, of course, as you say, they have increased this exclusion zone. thats been interesting too, john. you can almost track this crisis through the exclusion zone itself. initially it was a mile, mile and a half, then extended to six mil...

Boric acid to try to cool it all down, is that a good idea? >> its hard to say. i imagine their judgment is this is the only tool left in their tool kit, but it -- sea water, with all the salt it contains, can be extremely corrosive to equipment, especially at high temperatures, so i expect this is a last ditch effort to cool the core, but it will ultimately destroy most of the reactor. >> very quickly, what if that doesnt work? >> if that doesnt work, then well be faced with further core meltin...

Its not just the one plant that weve been focusing on. we have another plant next to it and then two other plants at a site nearby. so this is a growing issue here. now, as to the issue of the meltdown, its unclear which of the two plants the government is referring to. earlier today, they put seawater and bo and boric acid into it. now were getting reports that -- if theyre pouring seawater in there and its not cooling, then that would seem to suggest that there might be a leak. if thats the ca...

The latest. a red alert with reports of another reactor possibly having an issue. japan the third largest producer of nuclear power. how many reactors are being talking about and how significant is right turn alert? >> there is seert of alerts. first alert came when they evacuated people out about two or three kilometers. that is when the cooling system shut down of the first reactor the one that is having the most problems. then today unfortunately the cooling system of two additional reactors ...