actually in every way this is way, way, way beyond three mile island. there s really very little comparison. three mile island, the problem was that the operators had turned off the emergency cooling, mistakenly fortunately turned it back on in a couple of hours and basically the damage part of the accident was over at that point. here, you ve got containments breached, none of the emergency systems are working, power is out. all of these things were working at three mile island. so and the releases are far greater here. whether he we talk about the problems in fukushima, we re really primarily in an emergency basis talking about the spent fuel. that is a critical issue, the spent fuel that s been exposed. right. what about the time frame to get more water into those pools? well, it s hard to know exactly without knowing the details.
and who would you ask them to? would it be the executives of the nuclear power companies? certain s executives in the power company, technical people i hope, who actually know what is happening. nuclear regulatory commission. they are the ones that set the rules. i think we have older reactors. they have less formidable safety systems in the way of emergency cooling. their systems may not be harden to the same degree than new ones are. i know for example on the west coast, i had some involvement with the reactors here. they were licensed to much higher seismic standards than the other plants in the country. nevertheless, they are licensed to rather older standards relying on older data. we know a great deal more about seismic events now.
three mile island disaster. he s seen a lot and has a lot to say about what s going on. right now let me bring in victor gillespie gallinski, excuse me. in your assessment is, this worse than three mile island, and if so, why? well, it s much worse than three mile island. actually, each of the individual problems, each of the reactors is itself an accident that is worse than three mile island. and three mile island, all the equipment worked basically. the mistake was that the operators turned off the emergency cooling and fortunately turned it back on in a couple of hours. everything else worked. here you ve got massive failure of the systems that are supposed to protect the reactor, and you have fairly worrisome releases which we didn t have at three mild island.