Page 5 - Containment Facility News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

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 it's not a good situation, that is for sure. but it isn't 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 hasn't been beached and that's what that is there for. all of the systems are in place to keep the nuclear power plant operating smoothly. there are layers are defense should that operation stop...

Water. this is the core. the core is in this facility. containment facility. i have to take the m&ms out. the five-minute rule. anybody eats m&ms besides me, i break your hasn't. put in here, water is put on and this is sealed. where you get the steam. the pressure cooker. this is why i'm not a nuclear scientist. no way i could close that. then they cover this all with concrete. then they build the outer shell. now, what has happened? first, because it was boiling and the pressure cooker has a steam coming out, which it's supposed. to they need to release pressure so the whole thing didn't exp...

For the people of japan? >> worst case is a core meltdown which hundreds of tons of fuel in that turning into metal and they burn right through the reactor vessel, through the containment facility and you have that in the open air spewing radioactivity, very highly radioactive material into the ground, into the water, into the air and it could form a plume and have a knock -- nuclear fire, a plume of hot gasses rising into the atmosphere headed east, toward the united states and the radioactivity would spread into the atmosphere and would hit the united states, the air around in japan for cont...

So much trepidation and troubles in the gulf. they have been waiting to do it, because of a hydraulic leak in some part of this containment facility. and let's go to david mattingly to see what exactly is happening. david, you're in new orleans, and we are waiting -- i guess it could be under way right now as far as we know. >> right. as far as we know, that test going straight ahead to determine if this static kill is going to work. you just referenced that video, the shot underneath the ocean there of the well area. nothing going on there. we hope that it stays that way. and that's one of th...

Meltdown is coming. no. no. bring the, bring my m&m nuclear power plant in here. this is what it means. remember, i showed you this last night. here is the containment facility. here is the reactor in here and there is water in here. and what this means is the nuclear rods here, they're controlled by water because you want the water to boil and make steam. so now these rods are exposed, like that. that's it. it just means the water has boiled down to expose the rods which it shouldn't have done. we knew that was going to happen. it sinks below the rods and can no longer effectively cool the ro...