chairman -- ironically, just a few days before the event in japan, the nrc decided to extend the vermont yankee plant, which, by the way, same design and same age, 40 years old, having a number problems in recent years. the vermont state legislature voted by a 24-6 and the senate voted 26-4, bipartisan, not to renew the license of vermont yankee. just a few days before the disaster in japan, the nrc said, yes, we will extend its for another 20 years. so my question is, will the nrc reevaluate the extension of vermont yankee's license for another 20 years to review the safety of vermont yankee in light of the failures of the plant in japan. -- japan? the idea that we would have a plan of the same design, which, in 20 years, will be 60 years old, i think it is a frightening thought to many people in vermont. >> senator, as i indicated previously, the agency intends to go forward with a systematic and methodical look at all of the plants to see -- primarily based on the incident in japan -- to see if there are any modifications or changes we need to make to our regulations. that would apply to ver

or vermont yankee for example and daiichi and that. for example the vermont yankee plant which has an elevated pool has roughly five times the amount of spent fuel in all of the individual reactors. so so if they hit the waste for the nuclear waste pool is spent fuel pool. there would be not necessarily a tonic or i don't even think it is not at all but there would be an explosion that would it would be old and bob well what what we what we really i wrote this paper in january two thousand and two and inspired several my colleagues and i to do a much more in-depth look at this time we published a paper in january two thousand and three and what we pointed out was that if something an earthquake or somebody or some people could cause the water to drain in these pools that the the zirconium cladding the metal of the surrounds the irradiated uranium which contains a great deal of radioactivity could result in a catastrophic fire releasing very large amounts of long live radiation and that we calculated that the radiation release would cre

guest: going back to the 50 mile zone and something that might apply to folks here, there is the vermont yankee nuclear power plant within 50 miles of a major reservoir that feeds boston. there have been thoughts about something happening at the plant. it is an open air reservoir. it is a huge reservoir for boston. people are going back and thinking about how you would supply water to boston. massachusetts emerges responders have said they have backup systems. there are ways to treat the water. from the story i read, the emergency management officials for massachusetts talked about ways to treat the water if radiation were to happen. it would not be immediately available to the folks of boston. they would be supplied in other ways. host: and from connecticut is on the line for independents -- andy from connecticut is on the line for independents. hcaller: these large cargo ships come across the ocean. they take the containers and drive it all around. is this safe? -- is this off base? host: is there anything the epa is doing to prevent this or let us know that this radioactive material is being

followut up, theo commission'srw staff has in frot of it right now issuing a license renewal for the vermont yankee plant which is a mere twin of talk about fukushima i. do you anticipate any pressure from outside to take a more careful look at oyster creek and the other reactors that resemble the fukushima design? >> guest: with regard to the licensing, that decision as already been made, and so we'lls move forward to process it. essentially, we're in the process of going through some of the last paperwork with that. but i would just remind everyone that that license renewal period wouldn't start for about anoth r year altogether, and i anticipate that we'll have our longer-term review done earlierr than that.e wi so if there are lessons, we don't intend to wait for a renewed license period. we'll take those lessons and implement them right away if we need to, and that would apply ty all the plants in the country, not just those that are similar to the plants in japan. as i said, i really want to i emphasize it's important for us to view this in a methodical wap because we want to get this right.c