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Fuel has been exposed for several days. that could cause degradation of the core in ways that are not well understood when you pump water and cover the fuel, it could cause damage that is not predictable and make it harder to cool >> i know this is not over and it's not time to step back from this, but we are having a review, a 90-day immediate review of nuclear facilities and a larger comprehensive review so some stepping back is already happening. do you feel like it uncovered a fundamental flaw, under state. risk in reactor design and in disaster planning? >> yes, i would say that. in that ...

What will happen if the vessels are flooded with water again. the fuel has been exposed partially several days. that could cause degradation to the core in ways that aren't understood. if you pump water again, it could cause damage and make it harder to ultimately cool. >> i know this is not over, it is not time to step back from this, but we are having a review, 90 day review of u.s. nuclear facilities, then a larger comprehensive view. then a step back to look at what's happening. do you feel this uncovered a fundamental flaw, fundamental understatement of risk in reactor design and in disas...

Harder to ultimately cool. >> i know this is not over, it is not time to step back from this, but we are having a review, 90 day review of u.s. nuclear facilities, then a larger comprehensive view. then a step back to look at what's happening. do you feel this uncovered a fundamental flaw, fundamental understatement of risk in reactor design and in disaster planning? >> yes. i would say that is our sense. i think in that era of complacency after three mile island, chernobyl, regulators in the industry may have become too comfortable with the idea we're never going to see that type of accident ...

Geist. we have a number of nuclear plants here in the united states along fault lines in california. how confident are you this morning that if a catastrophe like this would strike the united states we would be prepared or at least better prepared to manage the situation? >> well, what i can tell you about our confidence, willie, is that we are very, very confident that we have an independent regulatory authority going back to 197, the nuclear regulatory commission which has got the responsibility and expertise to ensure that all 104 plants are operated safely wherever they may be in the unite...

By some want nuclear and cl coal and natural gas. to meet this goal, we will need them all. >> to meet the clean energy goal outlined in the mideast recent address, he proposed $36 billion in department of energy loan guarantees to build new nuclear power plants and hundreds of millions more towards nuclear energy research and reactor design. the united states operates 104 nuclear power reactors in 31 states. 23 of those reactors use general electric technology, similar to that used in the fukushima site.