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In the Arena

New Blaze at Japanese Nuclear Facility; Bracing for Nuclear Catastrophe; Humanitarian Crisis in Japan

Aired March 15, 2011 - 20:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ELIOT SPITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news. Tonight there are just 50 people standing between Japan and nuclear catastrophe. That's how many workers were left at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in northern Japan, 750 others were evacuated.

The 50 people who remain, experts tell us, have probably already been exposed to dangerous levels of radiation. And now it's hard to believe the situation could get any worse, but tonight it has.

There's another fire. Reactor four is burning, and some reports say the flames are in the worst possible area, the outer layer of the vessel's containment wall. It's still unconfirmed, but if it's true, that's where the spent fuel stored.

Now stay with me because I need to explain. Reactor four could be a time bomb. Last night I asked our nuclear expert, Jim Walsh of MIT, his greatest fear. Walsh said it was the spent fuel, the atomic waste which lies relatively unprotected in cooling pools inside the reactor buildings.

Fifty workers, folks. They are standing alone against catastrophe.

Jim Walsh of MIT is back with us tonight.

Jim, is your worst fear being realized right now?

JIM WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, the worst fear would be if that material melts down or catches fire -- that material itself catches fire and rises up into the atmosphere.

We're not there yet, but we are one step away from that. And I think even more troubling, the International Atomic Energy Agency says it's not just reactor four but reactor five and six, which we haven't talked about at all during the last four days, is having problems with their spent fuel.

And you just don't know what's going to here. You think, well, last night's fire, that was a one-off, you know, freakish things happen. Stuff happens. But to have it twice in 24 hours, you know, it probably points to some underlying problem. And unless that's addressed, then it could repeat.

SPITZER: OK, Jim, just so it's clear to folks who have been paying attention to this and trying to figure out, wait a minute, we've only been hearing for the first couple of days about reactors one, two, and three, suddenly where are four, five, and six coming from?

The realty is there are actually six reactors at this facility, but four, five, and six were offline which means they weren't generating power, only one, two, and three were. So those -- they were the ones that were the initial point of disaster and concern.

So how are four, five, and six getting to this picture now?

WALSH: Well, here's the rub, Eliot. They were -- they had been shut down prior to the earthquake and the tsunami, but in being shut down, they removed the fuel rods from those reactors and put them in this temporary storage area. So these are relatively hot waste rods that are generating a lot of radiation. And they need to be cooled.

And what's happened apparently is either a failure in the water pumps or some other problem such that the water level may be declining, or the water may be boiling off, which would put them at risk for disaster.

And it may be, and we do not know -- we simply do not know, the company hasn't told us -- that it may be this increasing level of heat in that facility that is helping to contribute to these fires being ignited. So --

SPITZER: And -- and let me come back, Jim, to the point we were discussing last night. The reason these spent fuel storage chambers or pools are so much more dangerous is because if they lose water and you get this -- then the rods come together and begin to catch on fire, the radiation goes straight up arguably into the atmosphere. There is no containment vessel around the spent fuel pools.

Is that correct?

WALSH: That is 100 percent absolutely correct. I mean, the sort of thing we're hanging our hat on reactors one, two, and three is, yes, there's a partial meltdown, yes, there are problems. But thank god at least there's a containment vessel. You know, three feet of concrete and steel that might contain the radiation in case the worst thing happens. Well, that does not exist for the spent fuel rods.

SPITZER: And now correct me if I'm wrong here, the thing that made Chernobyl the sort of disaster of all disasters is that there was not any containment vessel around the reactor there, remarkable as that was. And so when that thing blew up -- the stuff, the radiation went straight into the atmosphere.

If we get that sort of fire and cataclysm in these spent fuel chambers, the same sort of thing could happen because there is no chamber that surrounds and protects them. And so that's the great fear everybody's got right now.

WALSH: In principle that's exactly right. I mean, what we would hope for -- what we were hoping for for reactors one, two, and three, what we're going for now is Three Mile Island. That there's a partial meltdown, but that it's contained. And what we're looking at here with reactors -- with reactor four, potentially, potentially, five and six, is a situation where -- which is closer to Chernobyl.

Now it's not an exact comparison because there were explosions at Chernobyl that helped thrust that radioactive debris high into the atmosphere. That there's no guarantee that that would happen in this case. But again, if there's a fire, it's going to get distributed. So the bottom line, Eliot, yes, that's right.

SPITZER: So you're telling me our upside is Three Mile Island. This is not good news.

Now let's get back to the mechanics of what's going on here. What they're really trying to do and, you know, crazy as it sounds, water is the key ingredient here. They're trying to get enough water, not only to put out this fire but to keep these rods cool. And whether these 50 people can get enough water into those containment -- those pools with the spent rods and put out the fires is a Herculean task and that's the question we simply don't have an answer to.

WALSH: That's right. You know, these 50 people have been working, you know, 24/7 since Saturday. If they're fighting a fire in which there's high radioactivity, they're probably in suits. You know so they're sweating, and they're not sitting in front of a computer, they're out there doing hard labor under high degree of stress. You know, they're doing this out of courage and commitment.

And they're taking great personal risks. But they're alone. And so something has to happen. The international community, IAEA, the U.S. -- someone has to step in and help these people out because, you know, if you have four reactors that are all having problems, different problems, you got 50 people on the ground, you know, at some point someone's going to make a mistake. And they need to -- they need more help than they're getting.

SPITZER: And right now this crisis is just getting worse and worse.

Jim, stay with us because we have questions -- that are for you that are going to be coming up. But right now we're going to bring in the man who is one of the commissioners in charge of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Agency during the Three Mile Island disaster.

He has seen a lot and he has a lot to say about what's going on. Right now let me bring in Victor Gillespie -- Victor Gilinsky, excuse me. He joins us now from California.

Victor, thank you for being here. In your assessment, is this worse than Three Mile Island based on what you've heard, and if so, why?

VICTOR GILINSKY, FORMER COMMISSIONER, NRC: Well, it's much worse than Three Mile Island. Actually, each of the individual problem -- each of the reactors is itself an accident that is worse than Three Mile Island. At 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.

And here you've got massive failure of all of the backup power, all the emergency systems that are supposed to protect the reactor, and you have fairly substantial releases, worrisome releases which we didn't have at Three Mile Island.

SPITZER: Now Victor, look, you have a world of experience, you were one of the commissioners of the NRC that oversaw the entire nuclear power sector in the United States.

What -- you know, most of us who are trying to figure this out or read about it are new this, are we right that these spent fuel chambers, these pools with all those rods which are not really protected from the environment, if the water level there goes down too far or they have a fire there, we've got a major crisis on our hands?

GILINSKY: Oh, absolutely. Because there actually -- there's more waste, radioactive material in that spent fuel pool than there is in the core of the reactor. Actually four does not have a fuel in the core at this point. But in one of the cores of the other reactors. So there's a tremendous amount of really dangerous material in there.

And normally the water is supposed to be about 20 feet above the fuel. I'm really surprised that the water somehow must have leaked out. I don't know how. But a fire there is extremely serious.

SPITZER: And I suppose, Victor, that's really the question we haven't had it answered. Maybe they don't know the answer. Maybe they know and they're just not telling us.

Are those pools now losing water because of a leak? Is the pumping capacity that would replenish and put more water in, they're gone because they lost power? And if that's the case, how are they going to get water back in and how long will it take if they're losing water for this thing to create a fire and then create the sort of radioactive, you know, emergency that we're so worried about?

GILINSKY: Well, you have to know the details of what's going on there to answer those questions. But not only number four where they seem to have really a serious problem, but it looks like in number five and six, they said the temperature of the cooling water was increasing, and that means the cooling is not working as well as it should be. And that's worrisome, too.

SPITZER: You know, and also let's go back to unit two. Remember, one, two, and three, if I'm right, were the three reactors that were actually in service until the earthquake and the tsunami. At number two, they haven't been so clear about what the water level is inside the reactor.

And that also would be worrisome because if those rods in there which were in use until just a couple of days ago are not fully covered with water, then they're going to begin to have a slow burn, it could get -- become a fast burn, sort of a meltdown situation.

Are we right about that?

GILINSKY: Well, they've actually -- well, they've said that those rods were completely uncovered for over two hours. That would melt the rods. I mean, that would certainly fail the fuel and I would say probably melt the rods. I don't think they know what is inside those plants. I don't think that they really know what the water level is.

They say that -- they think it's about halfway up in the other two, one and three. And kind of working on number two. But in Three Mile Island, in two hours more than half the fuel melted. So that gives you something of, you know, how fast these things work.

And if the water is halfway up in the other reactors, it isn't as if the spent -- the fuel rods are sticking up out of that water. Very likely they have failed and they've collapsed and fallen down to the bottom of the reactor.

We're not going to know what the condition of those reactors is for a year. I mean assuming it doesn't get any worse than it is now, which we hope it won't. But assuming it doesn't, even then we won't find out what the condition of those reactors was for years.

We didn't find out at Three Mile Island for about five years that half the fuel had melted. And that was a shock. And we didn't know that until we opened up the -- until the pressure vessel cooled down and we were able to open it up.

SPITZER: And if I heard you properly, that meltdown occurred in the course of about eight to 12 hours during which the system was actually shut down but you managed to turn it back on. Here we've had a much longer period of time, am I right?

GILINSKY: No, no, no. It happened in the course of two hours.

SPITZER: Two hours, excuse me.

GILINSKY: Two.

SPITZER: So that's even worse.

GILINSKY: Yes. Yes.

SPITZER: So what you're saying is in the course of two hours you got that 50 percent meltdown. And here if we go --

GILINSKY: Right.

SPITZER: -- any much longer than that -- so what is the worst case scenario for us here?

GILINSKY: Well, we hope we don't get there, but if they lose cooling in all those reactors, then all of the fuel could melt, and it would then -- it could then go through the bottom of the pressure vessel.

It would then fall down into the containment, the concrete containment, but none of these structures are designed to cope with this kind of an event. And so it's unclear what happens.

SPITZER: You know, Victor --

GILINSKY: In any case, it would be -- it would be an easier path from the waste which is in this molten fuel to the outside, and that's really the most worrisome thing.

SPITZER: But you talk about the path to the outside. We've been discussing these spent fuel chambers or pools, and why was this reactor designed without creating more protection between the spent fuel pools and the outside environment? That seems to be sort of an easy protective barrier to create. Why didn't they do that?

GILINSKY: Well, the assumption was that it's easy to cool that pool. And once the stuff is in that deep pool you don't have to worry about it. That's the sort of built into the design of these boiling water reactors.

SPITZER: All right. Let me ask both of you this question. And Jim, why don't you answer first. You guys aren't next to each other. So, Jim, take a shot at this one.

The source of all information these days seems to be WikiLeaks. There was a WikiLeaks document that had the U.S. government speaking rather critically, derisively almost, about the Japanese nuclear regulatory capacity. It basically said they don't know what they're doing, they're not regulating the industry properly.

You guys have both had interaction and experience with the Japanese regulatory framework. What's your view of how they have done? Are they up to the task? Should this have been something that they could have averted?

WALSH: Well, I think a lot of countries have had problems. The U.S. has had problems, France has had problems, and Japan. I mean let's just -- it's in the historical record, Japan has had problems. At Tokaimura, at other plants with utilities falsifying records, with not being forthcoming about problems and accidents.

So, you know, that's the past. Now is that true now? I don't know. But clearly, one of the consequences here, Eliot, and I won't go on too long about this, but because the plants at one point became unpopular in Japan, no one wanted one in their backyard, the way to deal with that was to build more and more reactors at the same location.

We have six reactors at one location. We don't have that in the U.S. where we normally maybe have a couple of reactors. When you have six reactors at one location, then that sets you up for multiple failures, and you're trying to deal with lots of different things all at the same time all in the same place where error and problems can be compounded. We've never seen anything like this before. And that's one of the consequences with this.

SPITZER: All right. And in fact, Jim, that's exactly what we're seeing play out before our eyes. This is a -- just a horror show getting worse every day.

All right, Victor Gilinsky, thanks for being with us.

Jim Walsh, we'll have more with you later on in the show.

GILINSKY: Thank you.

SPITZER: Coming up, we'll go to Anderson Cooper in Japan.

Is the situation as bad as the pictures tell us or is it worse? We'll ask our men on the ground when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SPITZER: We return to breaking news where another fire has broken out of the reactor -- number four reactor at the Fukushima plant. It's believed the fire may be in the storage poll where highly radioactive spent fuel is kept. Now we're hearing from the Japanese government who says that the fire may be under control. We'll find out more as we go on.

Now let's turn to Anderson Cooper. He's joining us from Akita, Japan.

Anderson, where are you today and what are you seeing?

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN'S AC 360: Well, Akita is about 250, 300 miles north, northwest of where that plant is. We came here frankly to just try to put some distance between us and the plant. But you know you now have these twin emergencies, the nuclear emergency and the -- the ongoing emergency trying to deal with the aftermath of this earthquake and the tsunami, probably most importantly the tsunami, because that's where most of the injuries, that's where most of the damage was done.

And obviously the nuclear emergency which is taking a lot of time for the government to try to get their arms around. It's taking away focus from what's going on in the ground and some of these incredibly hard-hit areas.

You have overwhelmingly numbers. You have 100,000 members of Japanese Defense Forces on the ground trying to search for the missing and recover the dead, as well as help those who are still living.

The Japanese government said -- the prime minister today saying they want to put greater emphasis on trying to help those who are still alive rather than doing search and recovery efforts in this debris because at this point there are a lot of people very much in need. More than 400,000 people living in shelters, very few of them have access to cell phones, have the ability to contact one another and find out where their loved ones are. It's a very chaotic situation, it's a really desperate situation in many of these smaller outlying villages and towns along the northeast coast where they frankly don't have the infrastructure and so much has been decimated that they frankly have not been able to really meet the needs of the people.

There's food need, that there's a lot of hungry people out there. It is very hard to come by food in a lot of areas. Even in an area like Akita, where we are now, which is far away and wasn't directly impacted by the tsunami itself, though, you know, it was impacted by the earthquake but not by the tsunami.

It's difficult to get food. You go to 7-Elevens and stores, the shelves are empty, there are long lines in the hard-hit areas, the tsunami areas, for water and often the water runs out.

So there's a lot of just logistical things here which the government here is still trying to get their arms around, Eliot. And for the folks -- you know, the other problem is the elements are not really cooperating. For the folks who are in those shelters, it gets very colds at night.

There's not a lot of electricity in some of these areas. So the situation on the grounds is very much being impacted directly by the nuclear situation and the attention to that is taking, Eliot.

SPITZER: You know, you're exactly right. But you know we are mirroring what you're just saying, we're spending so much of our attention on the nuclear disaster which, of course, could spiral into something so catastrophic, that explains why we have to focus on it. But there are hundreds of thousands of people there.

Who is in charge of getting them the food, the shelter, the clothing they need. This is an enormous logistical issue.

FEMA here in the United States obviously after Katrina blundered that and just did a horrible job.

Who in Japan is in charge of that? Are people basically applauding their job? Are they up to the task? Who's taken over that?

COOPER: I mean it's the Japanese government and it's really what it's falling on to is local officials in each of these areas. We were out of their local city hall in a town of about 6,000 yesterday. They were distributing water. They have two distribution points in that town for 60,000 people.

And basically it was two small water trucks. One of them ran out of water. A state vehicle came by from the larger state area, from the prefecture. They had some water supplies and they helped out the local city hall there. But it's -- you know, people are overwhelmed, there's no doubt about it.

You have a lot of people on the ground, a lot of Japanese officials working around the clock. But the system is frankly overwhelmed at this point. And people make donations, it goes to kind of a central office. And then it's distributed outward.

But I've talked to some relief officials in some towns who have seen, you know, people foraging for food in the debris. Trying to find -- pick through debris just to try to get something to eat because there's simply not enough supplies.

And Eliot, I mean, at this point you don't hear a lot of criticism of the Japanese government by people here. That could change depending on the next 24, 48 hours. You know there's certainly a lot of concern, and people -- but still there is -- you know, there is order.

There are long lines, but for the most part they're very orderly and people just kind of -- you know, feeling like they're all kind of struggling, they're all kind of in it together, and they're all just kind of trying to get through the day and doing the best they can.

SPITZER: Yes, we've had those reports of a real sense of community and a sense of joint purpose in all this.

One of the other facets of this is the NIKKEI, the Japanese stock market, has dropped precipitously. But on the other hand we hear that most of the Japanese economy, most of the nation is still fine. So you would think in the major cities they can summon the resources, the food, the water, and ship it into areas where they're now hosting the couple hundred thousand people who had to be evacuated.

Is that the process that's ongoing? This enormous movement of food and material to take care of folks?

COOPER: Yes, that's exactly the process. The problem is -- and what they've done is they've taken the main highways, and now civilians can't go on those highways. You need a special permit. It's mainly relief vehicles, people moving, you know, heavy equipment and moving food supplies and water supplies along those highways.

So when you actually get on those highways, you can move very quickly. But that's because so many people have been kept off the highways. And frankly, there's just not much gas available.

That's the real problem for getting these supplies moving on land. Gas for a lot of people is very difficult to find. And also some of these towns are very inaccessible. Just -- there's so much debris in the roads, it's hard to kind of get the supplies to where they need to be.

There's talk about choppering in supplies, the U.S. military obviously is involved in that. The Navy has already begun to -- choppering supplies, and helping Japanese officials on the ground. But again, it's still kind of early days and this still seems to be ramping up.

SPITZER: You know, I mentioned the NIKKEI. I think I'm right so opened about 24 minutes ago, I guess, it would be Wednesday morning over in Japan. I think it's already down 5 percent which would bring it down to about over -- about 20 percent since the earthquake and the tsunami last Friday.

Just a huge drop in value. Of course, you know the money isn't what we're worried about. The -- right now certainly the numbers of dead just seems to be growing, Anderson.

Where do people think that ends up when they finally tally the thousands of people who are at this point just missing? Any order of magnitudes, to the sense of tragedy, how big this becomes?

COOPER: You know, officials really haven't said -- there was one police official in Miyagi Prefecture who said he -- estimated the death toll would go into the tens of thousands. Or at least over 10,000. You know, again that's an estimate. No one really knows.

And you really -- you know, it's kind of frustrating at this point to not have a greater sense of this. But when you actually go into areas that have been hard hit and you walk in these debris fields -- and I mean, they're 10, they're 15 feet thick in some cases, you have no idea what is underneath you in these debris fields, what is underneath, how many people may be there.

There's simply no way of knowing until they start getting heavy equipment in. And there's no telling -- these things are so thick, there's no telling how long that's going to take.

They also -- the government here, unlike in a lot of disasters -- you know, in Haiti we saw people just being buried, picked up and dumped into mass graves. I mean literally dumped.

In the wake of the tsunami, they would photograph bodies and then bury people in mass graves. But often the people were so badly, you know, disfigured by the water, it was very difficult to identify somebody even if you had a photograph.

The Japanese officials are trying to make sure that they can identify everybody that is -- that is recovered. But at this point there's -- I mean, the mortuaries are full, there's a shortage of body bags, of coffins. So there's a growing situation where they're going to have to figure out what to do with all the people that they have recovered.

Whether or not they can go ahead and bury them before families are able to be notified. It's just one of the kind of logistical things here, one of many that they're still struggling with.

SPITZER: All right, Anderson, thank you for that report. Sad as it may be. All right, thanks so much.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SPITZER: As northern Japan digs out from the double devastation of the quake and tsunami, nearly 2,000 injured survivors had thronged the hospitals but the long-term complications could be even worse. The government has been checking people near the damaged Daiichi nuclear reactors for radiation exposure. CNN chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta was at the Shiogama (ph) Hospital, the busiest in the disaster's zone. He now joins us live from Akita.

Sanjay, welcome.

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Eliot. You know, it was quite a remarkable thing to see this busy hospital and how they take care of hundreds of patients in the aftermath of this.

A couple of things to keep in mind. Japan is -- they're well organized, well-structured in terms of being able to handle patients after earthquakes. And this is something they've seen before. The tsunami obviously added a whole different dimension to it.

I will tell you that this particular hospital, Saka Hospital, you know, hundreds of patients come in there. It's the largest trauma hospital in the area. There wasn't any air transport on the day that this happened so patients were coming in by ground. That area that you saw those images, simply getting around by ground was very difficult. And if you also look at the demographics of those communities, a lot of people in retirement communities live there. So the demographics tend to skew a little bit older. Another consideration.

And finally, if you look down at the types of injuries, there are a large percentage of people who are sort of -- what they call the walking wounded. That means people who have injuries but they're going to get to the hospital and probably be released shortly. A smaller percentage who had catastrophic injuries that need immediate care, and that was different. I just heard you talking to Anderson about this. That was different in some sense from what we saw in Haiti.

SPITZER: You know, it seems to me, Sanjay, that you have three distinct sources for these injuries. You have the earthquake, then you have the tsunami. Then, of course, you have radioactivity. It seems each one of them would generate different types of medical problems. So am I right that that's what you're seeing in terms of the folks who are able to get to the hospital?

GUPTA: Yes, very much so. Eliot, I think you're right. I mean, you know, when it came to the earthquake and the tsunami put together because -- because of the timing, it's hard to distinguish in some ways the types of injuries. You know, again, a significant percentage of people who survived were among the walking wounded. The types of injuries that they were seeing as a result of these natural disasters were near drownings, cardiac arrest as a result of that, crush injuries and head injuries. Just -- you saw the images again, Eliot, it's been described of people sort of being moved around in the high- impact area. Those are the types of injuries that you see.

With regard to, you know, the concerns about radiation, you know, I don't know that there's been any need for hospitalization for people or getting acute care for anything that we've seen from the nuclear facilities. That the type of radiation and the amount of radiation that we've heard from official statements while much, much higher than normal, still from a human health perspective, from a practical perspective as that radiation were to leave those nuclear reactors and possibly have any impact on human health, kilometers, tens of kilometers away, it would be pretty small.

One thing I just want to show you really quick, Eliot, this is a personal dosimeter. This is something that people can wear. We have one now. You wear it, it tells you two things. One, it tells you your overall radiation exposure since the time you've had it. And second of all, it will alarm if you suddenly are in an area where there's particularly high radiation.

So I've had this on for about 24 hours now. And my amount of radiation went up 0.001. Just over 24 hours. Again, 400 millisieverts was what was released around that plant. And as that disperses, the numbers are going to go much, much down, Eliot.

SPITZER: All right. Just really quickly, Sanjay, I guess that's a good number, 0.001 compared to what it could be. But if that continued every day for a year, is that something you could live with? Or is this still significantly above what a human being should be exposed to on a daily basis?

GUPTA: No, it's what you can live with. In fact, you know, just walking around New York, Eliot, for you, that you're going to get a certain amount of background radiation working in a television studio. You're going to get a certain amount of background radiation. And if you look at it as you say over a year, it probably would closely approximate to what I'm seeing on the decimeter just where I am now. So it's really probably not that much different. Just in terms of a certain amount of background radiation to which we're all exposed on a regular basis is what we live with.

SPITZER: All right. Sanjay, thank you.

Still ahead, we'll hear from a GE whistleblower, the man who resigned over the design of the nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SPITZER: Welcome back. First, let me correct something I said a few moments ago. I said the Nikkei was down five percent at the open this morning. I misheard. My fault. It's actually up five percent, which is good news, of course, for the economy of Japan. Still, since Friday, since these traumas of the tsunami and the earthquake and the nuclear disasters, it is down a total of 12 percent since then. But as of this morning, about up five percent this morning, being Wednesday morning in Japan.

All right. I just want to make sure to clarify that. My error.

Thirty-five years ago, Dale Bridenbaugh resigned from his job at General Electric. It was in protest for what he saw as critical design flaw in the Mark 1 nuclear reactor design. That's the same design used at Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan. Dale Bridenbaugh joins us now from San Jose, California. Dale, welcome and thanks for joining us.

DALE BRIDENBAUGH, FORMER GE ENGINEER: Well, thank you.

SPITZER: So first, what was it about that design that bothered you, that led you to resign?

BRIDENBAUGH: Well, it bothered me and it bothered a lot of other people. In 1975, it became aware that the design of the Mark 1 containments had not taken into account all of the loads that they could experience during a design basis accident, a loss of coolant accident. So it was necessary to mount a crash program to reanalyze those loads and to see what modifications needed to be made and whether the plants were continued safe to run. I was at the time -- there were 16 Mark 1 plants in operation in the United States and another eight under construction. I was asked to be the project manager of that reassessment.

SPITZER: OK, now put this into English for us. We're not all nuclear design engineers the way you are. And so what was it that you really were worried about? What was the sort of event that was going to create a crisis that you were worried about, and have those events happened? And tell us -- carry this through over the years. Has G.E. addressed this issue adequately from your perspective?

BRIDENBAUGH: OK. Well, the event that was under consideration would be a large loss of coolant accident. What that means is a break of one of the large pipes in the reactor primary system, and the release, subsequent release of steam and fission products into the containment structure itself. It was -- it had not been considered that this event would cause dynamic loads, say heavy vibrations in the reactor suppression pool that could cause the containment system to fail.

SPITZER: OK. We'll keep bringing you back though to plain English. What you're worried about is this thing was going to lose its coolant. It's kind of like if your car engine loses its coolant, you know that engine block is just going to seize up and you're out of luck. So you're worried -- the reactors are just going to overheat. And when a nuclear reactor overheats, bad, bad, bad things happen. Am I getting this right?

BRIDENBAUGH: You're absolutely right. Now, it was perhaps even worse than that. The steam that would be released from a large break was supposed to be condensed and -- by the water in the suppression pool, in the large Taurus structure. And the concern was that if the structure failed as a result of these unconsidered loads, you would lose containment, which they may have done at one of the Fukushima plants now. And you would also lose the source of cooling water for the reactor core. So the thing that was of potential trouble is you could have a core meltdown, an uncontrolled release of radioactive material.

SPITZER: It sounds to me kind of like what you're describing is what's happening there in terms of the loss of coolant and the overheating the results. Am I being oversimplistic or is your fear kind of what's been happening here?

BRIDENBAUGH: Well, it's kind of what's been happening. But the cause of the overheating is different at Fukushima than the one that we were considering at GE. At Fukushima, the cause of the accident they are fighting right now is the combined earthquake and the tsunami which wiped out all of the backup power systems on site. And so they have not been able to cool the reactor core the way the system was designed.

SPITZER: Let me ask you one other question, which may be something, it may not be something you looked at. We're seeing this potential fire, the fire which potentially is in the spent fuel rod pool, which is in essentially a less protected part of the reactor. Why was it designed that you didn't give these spent fuel rods as much protection as the reactor and they could sort of release stuff into the atmosphere if something went wrong? That seems like an odd design decision to make.

BRIDENBAUGH: Well, on all five of the Mark 1 plants at Fukushima, the spent fuel pool is in the same place with respect to the reactor. It's up on the reactor refueling floor. It's there because it makes it very handy when they go into refueling. They don't have to move the fuel very far to get it out of the reactor or get it into the reactor. And, of course, ultimately it is -- after it cools off in that pool for a while, it is moved out of the reactor building, and into another storage pool which is common to the five or six units at the plant. The spent fuel pool itself is actually in the reactor building, and under normal circumstances it has cooling, and there should not be any problem with it.

SPITZER: But, of course, dealing with contingencies, if you lose that cooling and you still have the spent rods that have a fair bit of radioactivity and heat with them, that's when you can get the sort of reaction that you're worried about. So I guess I'm wondering -- you know, I'm not an engineer obviously, but why you wouldn't put some greater protection over that pool to protect it from the outside environment and vice-versa, protect the outside environment from that pool.

BRIDENBAUGH: Well, the structure is supposed to be designed to withstand the maximum credible earthquake. And the spent fuel is cooled by the water that's in this large pool. It's like a big swimming pool. You would -- again, under normal circumstances, you would have a number of hours or days before you'd have to take any action. It's not clear to me why this fire has occurred on unit number four. It should not have. Unit four wasn't even in operation when the earthquake hit. But it was under maintenance, under a maintenance program, and so it's my understanding that all of the fuel had been offloaded from the reactor into the spent fuel pool. So it's basically holding pretty hot fuel that would not normally be the case.

SPITZER: All right. Dale Bridenbaugh, thank you for joining us tonight, and thank you for all your hard work over the years.

All right. We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SPITZER: And now, what did they know and when did they know it? Questions that a lot of people are asking tonight -- were Japan's nuclear safety regulations really doing any regulating? "Arena" regular Will Cain is with me and joining us from Washington from a view -- for a view from the inside is Jeffrey Merrifeld. He was a commissioner with the NRC, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. He's currently with the Shaw Power Group, which builds and maintains power plant.

Jeff, thanks for joining us.

JEFFREY MERRIFELD, FMR. COMMISSIONER, NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION: Thank you for having me.

SPITZER: So I guess my first question is, what is going on now. We see a fire in unit four. What do you make of this? You are on the NRC. What's your best grasp of what is happening at these facilities?

MERRIFELD: Well, while we've been on the show, I've been getting some reports. Apparently, it appears that the fire has gone out on its own. At least that's some of the information that I've been receiving from the folks in Japan. It would -- some of your guests had indicated a concern about whether there was a fire in the spent fuel pool. If that were the case, it would be unlikely that that would extinguish itself. So, you know, this information sometimes in these times can be uncertain or not quite clear as to how to characterize it. And I think in this case, you know, we need to get some more information to find out really what happened and what's going on.

CAIN: Mr. Merrifeld, this is Will Cain. I want to capitalize on your experience with the NRC and your experience with regulation. Is there any indication that there has been a regulatory failure in Japan that might have contributed to this incident?

MERRIFELD: No. Well, first off, you know, any conclusions to that depth, and those are certainly valid questions to ask any regulator after an incident such as this. But I think we're too early into what's going on at the site. There's not been an opportunity to go in to find out actually what's happening, what were the regulatory requirements. So I think it's a little too early to try to come to that conclusion quite yet.

CAIN: You know, I guess -- and that's essentially what I'm wondering about. We're focusing in on the regulations that might have been in place. We've had some questions tonight. Eliot has had an interview with someone about the design flaws that might or might not have been a part of the Mark 1 design. And I'm curious in your perspective on this. We've wondered about regulation. We've wondered about design. But I have to wonder is there any nuclear plant in the world that could have survived the one-two punch of the worst natural disaster in Japan in the last century thought that many of the 9.0 earthquake and the tsunami that followed and has killed tens and thousands of people?

MERRIFELD: Right.

CAIN: Is there any nuclear plant that could have survived that?

MERRIFELD: Well, you get a couple of different questions here. Let me see if I can walk through them.

You know, you had a previous guest who is an engineer for GE and who had identified some concerns that he raised with the designs back in the late 1970s. Looking back at what the NRC's response was, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, they took a look at those concerns and they did impose requirements on changing that design to address the concerns that were raised in the previous segment. Reinforcing the bottom area of what's called the Taurus or the suppression pool, putting some internal reinforcement in, and putting in some devices that would spread out the injection of steam that would be going into that pool of water. So the NRC did make those changes, and those were -- were implemented by GE and the utilities that own those reactors. My understanding is that the Japanese at the Fukushima site also implemented those same changes.

Now you're quite right, the reactor has undertaken both a monumental earthquake as well as a monumental tsunami. Reactors around the world but certainly here in the United States which I think is part of our focus do impose specific requirements for seismically, threat against an earthquake, against tsunamis, against tornadoes, against a variety of different natural phenomena. And certainly, I think in light of the incident, you know, they're going to have to be a look at this afterwards of do we have the right set of standards for these plants. But I think, again, looking at what the U.S. has, very robust requirements for earthquakes. Very robust requirements for seismicity. And I think this was just the circumstances at this plant were in many ways very, very unique and not something we're likely to see again.

Now, one of the things I think we need to remember in this one, the reactor, at least as it appears from the information we have available to us, may have done very well as a result of the earthquake. In fact, the safety equipment, the emergency diesel backup generators were operating, were powering safety systems in the initial hour after the earthquake occurred. It was the tsunami that came through that was really the challenge for the plant and ultimately caused those diesel generators to shut down. So I think those are the kind of things we need to take a look at and then appropriately target what changes may be necessary going forward.

SPITZER: All right, Jeff. I'm going to ask you to do the impossible. Answer in 10 seconds, because we have a real time constraint. Does it worry you? Do we need to rethink entirely the notion of putting nuclear power plants on top of fault lines? Is that something that we should just say, look, just don't do it with 100 miles of a fault line? What's the answer to that.

MERRIFELD: No, the answer is making sure that the facility is designed in such a way to meet an earthquake that they are likely to potentially receive and then add some additional margin, which is what we do in the United States. SPITZER: All right. Jeffrey Merrifeld, thank you so much for joining us.

Coming up, a warning about how prepared we are or are not for an earthquake here at home. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SPITZER: Now to the nuclear power in this country. We have 104 nuclear power plants. And believe it or not, some were built along seismic fault lines. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has now identified 27 plants that might need to upgrade earthquake safeguards. My next guest says that if the U.S. were to see a catastrophe on the magnitudes of what we're witnessing in Japan, there is no clear plan in place to deal with it. No plan, folks.

Congressman Ed Markey of Massachusetts is calling for a moratorium on the building of new nuclear power plants along fault lines. Sounds like a no brainer, doesn't it? But nothing in Washington is ever a no brainer. He joins us tonight from our Washington bureau.

Welcome, Congressman Markey.

REP. ED MARKEY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Good evening, Eliot. Thank you for having me on.

SPITZER: Well, it is a pleasure. So first, I've just got to ask you a question. What do you think the NRC has to do to ensure the safety of the public here in the United States?

MARKEY: I think number one the Nuclear Regulatory Commission should ensure that potassium iodine is distributed within a 20-mile radius, not a 10-mile radius around nuclear power plants to protect against thyroid cancer, especially in children. I had a law that I'm the author of that passed in 2002. The Bush administration has only authorized out to 10 miles. I think 20 miles clearly is a safer distance, and that is what my law called for.

Number two, I would have a complete review of all nuclear power plants that are in earthquake zones to make sure that they have the proper safety protections, especially for cooling the plant in the event of an adverse event.

Number three, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission right now is in the process of approving a Westinghouse AP1000 reactor that one of the highest ranking Nuclear Regulatory Commission scientists has said is, in fact, so vulnerable that it could crack like a -- shatter like a glass cup under stress. They should review that process as well.

SPITZER: How about how nuclear plants in non-seismic areas with older proven technology, do you feel that in that area we can still use nukes as parts of our energy portfolio going forward?

MARKEY: I think that is going to be determined by Wall Street and by the nuclear utility industry. There has not been a new nuclear power plant successfully ordered in the United States in 36 years. And the reason is that after Three Mile Island and after Chernobyl, Wall Street just walked away.

What is happening right now is that Wall Street and the nuclear utility industry is saying that we will not build any new nuclear power plants unless there is a loan guarantee program from the American taxpayer. That is that the American taxpayer becomes liable in the event that something goes wrong. As a result, natural gas, wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, other renewable energy resources will be looked upon much more favorably in the future than they have been in the past because of this incident in Japan.

SPITZER: Look, Congressman, you and I are seeing the same page. I've always been saying Wall Street wants us to take the downside risk and they'll keep the upside. That is exactly what they're trying to do on nuclear power. So you're saying over the next 13 years other substitutes are going to come on line that make this nuclear power unnecessary. Is that basically what you're arguing?

MARKEY: That is correct. There has not been a new 1,000 megawatt plant that has come on for an energy generation. Wind and solar is being now deployed in massive numbers. And even if it moves at a relatively slow pace, there will be 100 times more renewables that come on line in 10 to 13 years than any nuclear power which is added to the grid and used for electrical supply within our country. So it's basically a question of economics.

Nuclear power may have met its maker in the marketplace over this past weekend. And even with the federally guaranteed loans, I think it's going to be difficult to anticipate anything more than a handful of nuclear power plants being built in our country in the future. And that does not mean, however, that we cannot meet our long-term electrical generating capacity from natural gas, from wind, from solar, from all the other sources that are out there and have been the sources that have been building power plants over the last 10 years anyway in our country.

SPITZER: All right, Congressman. Thank you so much. You have been one of the leading voices for coherent energy policy and alternate energy sources in particular. Thanks so much for joining us.

MARKEY: Thank you, Eliot.

SPITZER: And Will Cain, thank you for being here tonight. And thank you for watching. Good night from New York.

"PIERS MORGAN TONIGHT" starts right now.