Page 71 - Nuclear Explosion News Today

Under a situation that could never be expected. the public in japan has enough to worry about a horrible disaster without worrying there is going to be a nuclear explosion. >> sean: the safety agency rated the damage at the plant in fukushima at a 4 on a scale of 1-7. three mile island was a 5. chernobyl rated as a 7. do you agree with the assessment of jay? >> not at all. i was a 4 two days ago. very bad things have happened since. we dont know what is going to happen. there may not be a signif...

Theres huge defense and depth on these plans. they were designed to operate through an 8.2 quake. they survived this earthquake the tsunami took out some of the back-up systems. the ultimate back of up has been the reactor containment which are working. seawater option was built into the plant. this was not anticipated. it is something you dont want to do. you dont want to put seawater into the facility. but it was planned as an ultimate back-up if you needed it and it is working. >> sean: we he...

Circulation had failed, then later on they announced that there was an explosion. and the explosion seems to have been inside the reactor. so this reactor was behaving differently. they thought they had it under control with the water. the water wasnt working. fuel analogs became exposed, so they had to try to pump in sea water. when they tried to pump in sea water is when things went badly awry. whether they can still pump in sea water or what happens next they havent said, and i think they pro...

Theres huge defense and depth on these plans. they were designed to operate through an 8.2 quake. they survived this earthquake the tsunami took out some of the back-up systems. the ultimate back of up has been the reactor containment which are working. seawater option was built into the plant. this was not anticipated. it is something you dont want to do. you dont want to put seawater into the facility. but it was planned as an ultimate back-up if you needed it and it is working. >> sean: we he...

Damage to the fuel rods is a partial nuclear meltdown. one of the things that is released into the air at the water level drops and the fuel rods get exposed to the air and the big metal straws start to oxidize, one of the gases is hydrogen, and it is explosive. they believe hydrogen explosion caused this to happen at one of the reactors friday night, daytime saturday japan time. monday morning, japan time, second reactor tame facility suffered the same type of hydrogen explosion. when we were t...

But they are talking about the nuclear material inside melting, and it is so hot that it could potentially melt the metal. thats potentially. we dont know whats happened. every physicist is pointing out we are now in unchartered territories. we are in a situation that never happened with a nuclear reactor, except for three mile island which was contained with release of radiation we already had here. so we need to get more details. the press conference was not -- they were skirting a lot of issu...

Understand themselves what is happening, which makes these more frightening than they already are. >> you said the reactor core continues to be very, very hot, which is why they have been adding sea water to it. with the type of explosion they had and the type of damage they think they have had, can they continue their efforts to keep those fuel rods submerged in sea water? can they keep doing in effect mitigation work to prevent further damage to the fuel rods, further meltdown, or does this me...

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 containment around the core itself, around the reactor itself? >...

Again, an explosion is not the same as a meltdown. an explosion at a nuclear reactor is not the same as a nuclear explosion. what happens happened is that the inability to keep enough water circulating over the giant fuel rods, enough water to keep them cool, that has resulted in damaged nuclear fuel rods and that caused three explosions so far. and that provided us with the only conceivable thing that could make the whole world look at devastation this horrible and think we are as yet worried a...

And the explosion seems to have been inside the reactor. so this reactor was behaving differently. they thought they had it under control with the water. the water wasnt working. fuel analogs became exposed, so they had to try to pump in sea water. when they tried to pump in sea water is when things went badly awry. whether they can still pump in sea water or what happens next they havent said, and i think they probably just dont know now and are trying to figure it out. >> are you expecting, bo...