Page 8 - Containment Structure News Today

Worse that is three mile island. for one thing theres three reactors involved. theyre a lot smaller and less capable. they have had to vent a considerable amount of reactivity, so theres been a great deal more release. >> chernobyl was insanity because they didnt even have a containment structure. what happens if there is a meltdown? . in terms of spectacular energetic events, none of these reactors will be anything lying chernobyl. they dont have the mechanism for that neutronic excursion, the ...

Open, but if the containment were intact, the pressure inside would be maintaining constant and not decaying as it is or reports show that pressure is dropping. >> in terms of that word containment, it is a word we use commonly not as jargon, it is meant to be several types of structure. containment could be the outside building that surrounds the reactor as a whole. that was what we saw the explosion do so much damage to in the first two explosions, but containment also refers to the smaller co...

I am obviously a layman, trying to understand this for myself as well as make it understandable for viewers. >> it was a solid and accurate description of where we are today. >> okay. within the last couple hours, as i mentioned, a third explosion was reported at fukushima number 2 reactor. number 1 had explosion this weekend, number 3 did 24 hours ago. and now number 2 has happened as well. can we tell yet if this is a more consequential blast than the others or is this likely to be of the same...

Out someplace, perhaps through a breach, a crack, a valve left open, but if the containment were intact, the pressure inside would be maintaining constant and not decaying as it is or reports show that pressure is dropping. >> in terms of that word containment, it is a word we use commonly not as jargon, it is meant to be several types of structure. containment could be the outside building that surrounds the reactor as a whole. that was what we saw the explosion do so much damage to in the firs...

Building. and to be honest, what we know right now -- about the ground acceleration for the 8.9 earthquake that occurred in japan. our understanding is that it was .350 gs and the designs for the west coast plants exceed that by a significant amount. >> right now it looks like the folks in japan, the experts in japan, are really in unchartered territory. they are doing all sorts of things to prevent a meltdown and a nuclear crisis, including using sea water and other devices which arent normal o...

Certainly a challenge, we are going to try tho do our best for you. jack spencer is a nuclear energy specialist at the heritage foundation. when you hear the headlines what does that mean to you? >> well its not a good situation, that is for sure. but it isnt necessarily the catastrophe that i think many fear. look, what we need tho bear in n mind is that that containment facility is still intact, it hasnt been beached and thats what that is there for. all of the systems are in place to keep the...

Would become -- super, super, hot and somehow get out through the bottom of the containment structure and then into the atmosphere. that would be really, really bad. >> martha: affect ground water and the earth below that where it could cook basically for earth. >> brian: thats why people said it was a hail mary pass on saturday. some experts said, i never heard of this because of the explosion, they put in a -- they flooded in sea water into the area. that destroys the reactors, they did it to ...

Reactors one and three extended blow holes through the secondary containment structure. thats the concern, because spent fuel pools are inside that containment building and if those lose water, those heat up, then we could potentially have radioactive material going into the environment. so if i had to rate this on a scale of three-mile island or chernobyl, i would say this is probably going to be worse than three-mile island, but not nearly as bad as chernobyl. >> i never trusted the old commun...

Quickly as possible to minimize the exposure. >> lets take a look at this grid we have seen, its a horrific grid, but it compares the various nuclear meltdown scenarios. we have the chernobyl, of course, in our deep memory of the soviet union, where that occurred, and that was the worst. heres chernobyl. it has the highest rating, a seven. the levels below that are at five, three mile island, that got a five. the japanese officials are saying now that the situation at fukushima right now, the on...

And three blew holes in the secondary containment structure. thats a concern because theres pools inside that containment building and if those lose water and heat up we could potentially have radioactive material going into the environment. if i had to rate this on a scale between three mile island or chernobyl this will be worst than three mile island but not as worse as chernobyl. >> i never trusted the old communist soviet union. they never told us the truth. i dont think they gave us the tr...