well, i think, first of all, your right, one of the keys here is, the power plant itself might be have a dome around it, might have a protective vessel to protect it from missiles or whatever, but if you lose the electricity, then you not only put the reactor in danger, i think more the greater vulnerability is, you put the fuel pods, this is where you put hot radioactive waste temporarily in order for it to cool down. if you do not maintain cooling for the spent fuel pods, they can catch fire. and so what are we looking at here, frederica? i think we re really looking at incompetence. this is not the grizzly stuff russia is doing elsewhere, using cluster bombs and killing innocent civilians and shooting during evacuation periods. no, this is just dumb and they ve had months to plan it. why do i say that? from the perspective of the attacker, of the invader, from russia s interest, it is a huge
sent off with due ceremony. their work will be dangerous, but so little is known about what s happening in fukushima that no one knows how dangerous. water is being sprayed from high pressure hoses towards the damaged reactors. but with little way of knowing if this is effective in cooling them. the japanese are categorizing it as level five on a scale of seven, up from level four. the head of the world s top nuclear agency tells me that doesn t necessarily mean that things are still deteriorating. everything that s happening now at the fukushima daiichi plant, everything being attempted to cool down the spent fuel pods, all that is only happening because of those men who volunteered for what might be the most hazardous assignment of their careers. these are firefighters, guys that are trained to run into burning buildings. no one knows how dangerous the situation at fukushima is right
excuse me, in the fuel pond, they did not say how much water nor did they say whether or not the pods were exposed. what do you make of that, jim? well, i think actions speak louder than words. so if we re at the point now where we have helicopters who are throwing water at both at reactor four s spent fuel pod and also number three, which the iaea has highlighted as being a second separate problem with respect to the nuclear waste being stored outside of the reactor, then if they re doing that, that means they re worried. if you re forced to the point where you have to do this, that indicates that you have a significant problem. the likelihood that you re going to make this work with helicopters seems very low to me. there s an accuracy problem. there s a water volume problem. can you get enough water, can you sustain this overtime.
more on the breaking news situation. helicopter crews earlier today attempting to pour water on some of these spent fuel rods, fuel pods, unsuccessfully. it seems like only one helicopter was able to drop water. those helicopters manned by military personnel, japanese military personnel are also enroute with 11 water cannons to try to douse these rods with water from the ground. they feel that would be more effective. they ve only had a few water cannons, they had two given by the military previous to this. it s not clear how many they ve had other than that, or why they re just now sending in 11 water cannons. it is a very fluid situation on the ground. from america today, from america s top nuclear regulator, we heard that the situation could be a lot more dire than japanese authorities are saying. given that assessment, the workers on the premises at that plant, some 180 workers now being rotated through, those workers could be in even more