Page 113 - Radioactive Material News Today

More. there could be severe damage to the core of the reactor and that is concerning because that allows the radioactive material to get out and especially damage to the containment vessel and there may be great public exposure. at the same time the iaea is saying there is arbitrary setting and could come back. its just an indication, i suppose, of how fluid this situation is. interesting that you raise the three mile island comparison because that is actually been seen as almost a good sign pau...

Theyve been relocated to neighboring prefectures. local authorities say 25 of those people have died in the shelters, most of them were elderly hospital patients. welcome back, youre watching "world business today" live on cnn. the natural disasters in japan are affecting business operations right around the world. heres just one example of that. if youre heading off to a nissan dealer, besides your wallet you should take an account. its monitoring vehicles made in japan for traces of radioa...

To keep that spent fuel cool. >> reporter: every single time they think they are getting on top of this that there might be a glimmer of hope, yes, something else comes along and throws another challenge. the pool contains spent fuel rods. when we talk about the other fuel rods encased within the containment fuels in the reactor this isnt and it was exposed and a fire there that damaged the buildings. if the spent rods are exposed the radioactive material would go straight into the steer. that i...

U.s. nuclear officials two days ago saying the situation was much worse than japanese officials were letting on. now two days later you have japanese officials saying based on the data from the past couple of days, essentially the u.s. officials were right. the situation is worse. theyve raised it to a level five. equivalent to three-mile island. a lot of observers say this is worse. weve known this for a while. there has been release of radioactive material. peoples health has been affected alr...

The emergency electrical power. thats when the troubles began. viewers should know that when the reactors shut down there is still a lot of energy that needs to be taken away, a lot of radioactive materials that are still decaying, and that decay will fall off over time. so all the short-lived radioactive material that will decay over a period of days to a few weeks. we are still in a critical periodment its probably going to take another couple of weeks or so in order to get that radioactive de...

Number two, they could melt, there is talk about fires, although fires are often associated with a quick loss of water rather than this boiling off of water. but when asked about it today and i listened closely, when the head of the nuclear regulatory commision was asked about that he said it was a possibility. he didnt say it was likely but he included it among the range of things theyre planning for so i dont think -- i dont expect them to catch fire but they are generating high levels of radi...

Plus. if they dont stabilize the situation, japan is in for a very grim time. >> victor, will cain here, which one of the problems -- theres so many problems mounting on others at four different reactors, which one of these problems has the most potential to spread dangerous levels of radiation. is it the breakdown or this spent fuel pond we kept hearing about? >> well, the spent fuel pond contains the cores -- many, many core, in other words, it contains the spent fuel for many years of operati...

And have uppermost in their mind the protection of the people. incide incidentally just to mention another point, it isnt just people, even if you get the people out of the way which is not so easy but lets assume they do get out of the way. if you get a really major release youll have a lot of radioactive material, cesium, strontium in the area which case that will be uninhabitable essentially indefinitely. >> it was kind of surprising to me that he was unwilling to deny or accede to or accept ...

Brooke were on the top story of a seven-floor building in san francisco. the radiation detection unit here, this silver box, you can see what it looks like when its open. some computer equipment. theres a bit of a filtration system that analyzes the air and is able to provide real-time data to the epa. joining us to talk about how this system works is eric stevenson with the bay area air quality management district. he manages this system for the epa. is this pretty simple equipment? explain, gi...

Point, it would be well disbursed, even across parts of the islands. and even if there was anything of major consequence that would be released, theres a difference between radiation and radioactive materials. radioactive material releases that radiation. you have to be close to that material. that radiation hits things floating in the atmosphere. those things that are now radioactive have to be transported via the atmosphere thousands of miles away. thats a lot to ask. even if they were to make...