Quote:
Originally Posted by Zabo
Depends on who spins it. Some call it a 5, some call it a 4, others a 3 (Fox gets funding from B&W who had a hand in designing the reactors at TMI and by extension Fukushima via General Electric).
A 7 is the be all end all incident. Simply can't get worse than Chernobyl (where actual chunks of fissile material from the reactor became airborne in the blast). There's only been one class 6 and that was a Soviet nuclear waste disposal site back in '67.
The IAEA OFFICIALLY has not given it a class since it is ongoing. But with the current problem at the 4th reactor and the damage to Reactor #2 it could possibly set it in Class 4/5 territory due to the release of radiation into the atmosphere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interna...ar_Event_Scale |
Just thinking logically here ... I suppose it could be worse than Cherynobyl if there is significantly more (by say an order of magnitute) radioactive material released. Or if the reactor manages to somehow go into an uncontrolled chain reaction and the fissile material detonates like an A-bomb (practically impossible I know, but I'd still put it on the scale as the definitive 'worst case scenario')