Japan Nuclear Plant State of Emergency: interview with Jim Welsh

CBC Interview with Jim Welsh, researcher at MIT. Evacuation zone extended from 3 to 10 kilometres. Now 2 Nuclear Plants are under State of Emergency. Some radiation has escaped, with 8 times normal readings occurring outside the plant. It was believed that USA was sending coolant to assist, with Hilary Clinton making that announcement. This info has been countered, no coolant has been shipped via Air Force, that Japan is taking care of this on it’s own. (Whether or not USA is contributing coolant may be a security issue and info might be kept secret from hereon: my speculation). The issue is "cooling". The reactor when shut down still needs to be cooled. There was no electricity to power coolant pumps for cooling. "Up against it right now". Temperature inside reactor increases ....hotter and hotter and hotter...Pressure inevitably rising. Concern is that fuel will begin to melt. If nuclear fuel melts and escaped reactor vessel, it will explode if it comes in contact with "air". Design of reactors has a "containment vessel" line of defense. This is an experiment that has not been run before: that is no experiment after a 8.9 earthquake, and no coolant. Radiation levels inside leap to to 1000 times those inside one such plant normally. Japan is well prepared for earthquakes. Design and architecture for earthquakes. There have been accidents at Japanese nuclear plants where procedures did not pan out, and reporting was not thorough. While nuclear facilities have been built ...

Channel: YouTube Video Length: 4m 53s Date Found: Fri, Mar 11 2011 11:10 PM Category: News Date Produced: Fri, Mar 11 2011 9:00 PM View Count: 0