and melting down. the plant stayed unplugged for about an hour and a half while workers inspected the backup diesel pumps and then the regular pumps came back on. this thing with nuclear power plants staying on the grid matters a lot. in japan this year they first had an earthquake that caused a tsunami, but it was when the tsunami knocked out electricity at fukushima nuclear power plant that the world knew fukushima was really in trouble. without electricity fukushima could not keep its spent nuclear excuse me could not keep its reactors or its spent nuclear fuel cool. the japanese government now says that three of the reactors may have suffered not just meltdowns, but melt-throughs. melt through the internal super strong containment vessel. that is a real nuclear nightmare. wucht things we are learning as this scary situation drag on in nebraska is that fort calhoun, ç which was built in 1973, fort calhoun was built partly on the basis of a mistake. somebody miscalculated the pu
somebody miscalculated the pumping capacity the plant would need for a cat strafk flood. the nuclear regulatory commission discovered the error in an inspection two years ago, and the plant has been upgraded since under the not so old old protection. the system calculated that the pumping plant had a 97.5% chance of react protecting the reacting core from a catastrophic flood, which is almost good enough. the fort calhoun nuclear power plant is now two feet below the level of the missouri river where the plant is required to shut down. the river is at about 1,006 feet above sea level. the water got above 1,014 feet. they say it would knock out the backup genlateors andç at some point it would come over the specific berm that protects the casks of spent nuclear fuel. again, don t worry. the plant operators tell the omaha paper that these 88 ton casks, these radioactive bohemaths are anchored.
a small fire in an electrical closet knocked out power to the cooling system that prevents the spent fuel rods from overheating and melting down. they stayed unplugged for an hour and a half. the regular pumps then came back on. this thing with nuclear power plants staying on the grid matters a lot. in japan this year they first had an earthquake that caused a tsunami, but it was when the tsunami knocked out electricity at the fukushima daiichi nuclear power plant that the world knew fukushima was really in trouble. without electricity, fukushima could not keep its spent nuclear could not keep it s reactors or its spent nuclear fuel cool. the japanese government says three reactors may have suffered not just meltdowns but melt throughs. melt through the internal superstrong containment vessel, and that is a real nuclear nightmare. what we are learning in nebraska
and melting down. the plant stayed unplugged for about an hour and a half while workers inspected the backup diesel pumps and then the regular pumps came back on. this thing with nuclear power plants staying on the grid matters a lot. in japan this year they first had an earthquake that caused a tsunami, but it was when the tsunami knocked out electricity at fukushima nuclear power plant that the world knew fukushima was really in trouble. without electricity fukushima could not keep its spent nuclear excuse me could not keep its reactors or its spent nuclear fuel cool. the japanese government now says that three of the reactors may have suffered not just meltdowns, but melt-throughs. melt through the internal super strong containment vessel. that is a real nuclear nightm e nightmare. wucht things we are learning as this scary situation drag on in nebraska is that fort calhoun, which was built in 1973, fort calhoun was built partly on the basis of a mistake.