that steam that s coming out has radioactive material in it. does that carry health risks for locals in the area? my estimate would be without measurements directly in front of me is that it would not, okay. i spent ten years at chernobyl, at the reactor in 19 6 that blew up 1986 that blew up and spit as much radioactivity as hiroshima and nagasaki into the atmosphere and we re not going to see that here. the radiation levels released into the atmosphere if they release them more than they have will not be dangerous, that s my estimate at this time. however, you cannot overestimate the fear factor that would be released here. any time radioactivity is released people are very afraid. that s why the japanese have increasing they ve increased their evacuation zones steadily through the day. and it s it s largely due to fear, radioactivity is a
containment center? yes, that is what they would do. of course, i m not there and watching their control panels. but that would be the procedure they would use. walnu once it built up inside the dome, they ve got to let it out somewhere. the realty is is that the levels that they have let out now even though it sounds like a lot, 1,000 times is one report, i m not sure if that s accurate, but even if it was 1,000 times background, it still wouldn t reach health-related levels. however, they ve got do something. they really haven t got another choice. professor, we want to avoid oversimplistic comparisons. but you were involved in the investigation at chernobyl. the ones that stick, nuclear incident that s stick in our mind are chernobyl and three mile island. does this have the potential to reach those kind of disasters? i would say this will not reach the level of chernobyl. chernobyl, there was a lot of radioactivity. 100 times hiroshima and nagasaki
terrible fear relating factor. but i believe that it s not likely that they re going to see health hazard creating levels of radioactivity, not with what we know right now. let me see if i understand completely what you ve described as going on. when the earthquake happened, the nuclear reactor shut down, and the nuclear rods dropped into a core and fission stopped. heat continued to be radiated inside the containment area is, that right? yes. that s a good description. the problem is that electricity is running the coolant system and reducing that heat inside the containment area. am i correct? that s correct. there s a lot of heat in there. you can t shut this down heatwise very quickly. they did prevent a meltdown by dropping the rods down into the reactor. that s what went wrong at chernobyl, the rods didn t go in. now that there s heat, we ve heard terms like the pressure is soaring. is this why we begin to see this radiated steam let out of the