am not sure anyone knows. you ve got people who are trying to get the best information they can, but when they re not sure of the information, that s why you have governments urging their people to leave because you just can t take that risk. nbc news chief environmental affairs correspondent anne thompson reporting to us from london. thank you for joining us tonight, anne. take care. joining me now, paul gunther. your group is an anti-nuclear power advocacy group. yes. in a situation like this, what is the danger of overreacting to what has occurred? let me put it this way. we have a situation unfolding now that was an accident that was never analyzed.
pools at units 4, 5, and 6, and you can see that they are increasing. and that s a real problem because you want to keep those temperatures down because as they increase, then you run the risk of melting, and that s what they re trying to avoid. who s the honest broker here, lawrence? the truth is i don t know, and รง am not sure anyone knows. you ve got people who are trying to get the best information they can, but when they re not sure of the information, that s why you have governments urging their people to leave because you just can t take that risk. nbc news chief environmental affairs correspondent anne thompson reporting to us from london. thank you for joining us tonight, anne. take care. joining me now, paul gunter. your group is an anti-nuclear power advocacy group. yes.
technology and material, the actual physical stuff that is going so wrong right now in that japanese nuclear power plant we have all learned so much about in the last few days. one thing we found in our tape archives is affairly amazing piece of footage from anne thompson from nbc s chief environmental affairs correspondent. p a this aired right after barack obama was elected president in 2008. what anne is setting up, what she s talking about, she s setting up a discussion about the politics of nuclear power in the united states. but what i want you to focus on is what she is showing as she is setting this up. watch. reporter: this is a rare look at an assembly line of what some see as america s energy future. the components of nuclear power. tiny uranium pellets fill 12 foot long rods. bundled together, they become assemblies. inside reactors, the assemblies act as engines, creating nuclear energy for up to six years.
hard to believe six months ago today the deep water horizon rig exploded and sank. it killed 11 men and turn under to the worst environmental disaster in history. 200 million gallons of history flush under to t flushed into the gulf. the economy is still all being sorted out but thousands were left without work. bp did set aside $20 billion to help the victims. the company says it s paid out almost $1 billion to the people and the businesses in the region. nbc chief environmental affairs correspondent ann thompson joins me now. you were down in louisiana. one of the big stories today has been concern about those payouts. that is now the province of ken feinberg that is the czar that president obama has appointed and he paid out $20
be rescued. the effort includesing making sure they eat and sleep at regular times. the miners have been trapped for more than a month and may not be reached until christmas. and former jetblue flight attendant steven slater was in court today stemming from charges after that incident last month where he screamed at passengers and deployed the plane s emergency slide. the district attorney allowed slater to undergo a mental evaluation and counseling before deciding whether to seek jail time. now to the gulf, where investigators are waiting to get their hands on the largest piece of evidence yet, the 1 million pound blowout preventer. anne thompson the nbc s chief environmental affairs correspondent and she is live in new orleans. good day to you, anne. reporter: good afternoon, norah. the fbi has the blowout preventer in custody and it is slowly making its way to a nasa facility here in new orleans, where investigators will go over it, trying to find clues as to why the blowout p