for tris conversations of great minds i'm joined by robert alvarez senior scholar at the institute for policy studies for five years mr alvarez served as one of the sun its primary staff experts on nuclear weapons and helped establish the environmental cleanup program for the department of energy he also led teams to north korea to establish control of nuclear weapons materials in that country in light of the largest radiation detection at the daiichi plant japan is dealing with what may well turn out to be one of the worst nuclear crises on record to share his expertise on that and that whole spectrum of situations mr alvarez joins me here in the studio robert alvarez welcome the program thank you for having me on your show thanks for joining us you know people who have done things as consequential as you have in your life we're really just pop out of nowhere i'm curious how did you get on this career path what brought you through to this point. well i mean the world bacteria stacked toward prac words. before i. joined the institute for policy studies about eight years ago i was in se

robert alvarez who's with the institute for policy studies. >> nature has a way of greatly exceedingentific assumptions and statistics and engineering judgment of the nuclear industry. there is no nuclear renaissance. i think that we are looking at a more roe bund industry that's going to stay that way in this country. >> reporter: the nuclear industry in the u.s. may be awakening from a long slumber just in time to grable with a dreaded light mare. >> ifill: the evening the nuclear regulatory commission voted to conduct new safety reviews in response to the japan disaster. >> lehrer: next, the north african nation of morocco tries to get ahead of the protests sweeping the arab world. ray suarez has the story. >> reporter: the sound has become familiar-- voices, clamoring for change. the demands are similar, too-- for work; for more power to the people; for a clean-up of widespread corruption. >> ( translated ): today, we are here to say that we are all moroccans. we love our country; we love our king, but we are against corruption and economic and political monopoly. >> ( translated

robert alvarez is with the institute for policy studies. good morning to you. >> good morning. >> any time we hear the words "explosion" and "nuclear power plant" in the same sentence people fear the worst. we have seen two explosions at this plant. one in reactor number 1 and one in reactor number 3's building. put them in perspective for me. >> well, i think these events are unprecedented. i think that the evidence that's been made public as to what's happening there indicates that the reactor operators, the government probably with the help of the united states military are still wrestling to gain control over the situation. >> you know, one of the problems here is we seem to be getting conflicting information. let me read different pieces of information. officials say they have lost the ability to cool three of the reactors at daiichi and three others at a nearby plant. one said he thought unit 3 had partly melted telling a news conference, i don't think the fuel rods have been spared damage. a chief cabinet secretary said reports of a