Source: NBC

Two weeks after an earthquake and tsunami struck Japan, causing devastation and triggering a crisis at Japan’s Daiichi and Daini nuclear reactors in Fukushima, Japan is still struggling to cool its damaged nuclear reactors. Highly radioactive water was discovered in a turbine building, a building adjacent to the one containing the reactor. Such highly radioactive water suggests there is some risk of a breached reactor core, although there are other possible explanations that could account for the highly radioactive water.

In an interview on NBC’s Today Show, Carnegie’s James Acton puts the latest development in the Fukushima crisis in context of past nuclear crises. Acton expressed doubt that the radioactive releases would approach the scale of Chernobyl, explaining that an explosion occurred in the fuel itself during the Chernobyl disaster. Such an explosion has not happened in this case. During the Three Mile Island crisis, Acton continued, melted fuel sat at the bottom of the reactor vessel, but did not succeed in burning its way through. Given concerns that the fuel in Japan may be burning through the reactor vessels, Acton concluded that past experience gives scientists little ability to predict the progression of the crisis.