“I will read the article. If he hasn’t mentioned Fukushima, he should. The news coming out the last few days is horrific. Japan as a country is toast. What that will do to the economy of the world is immense.”
Indeed.
Have you read this yet:
http://www.chrismartenson.com/blog/exclusive-arnie-gundersen-interview-dangers-fukushima-are-worse-and-longer-lived-we-think/58689
It was mentioned in the article above.
Here’s an excerpt:
“I have said it’s worse than Chernobyl and I’ll stand by that. There was an enormous amount of radiation given out in the first two to three weeks of the event. And add the wind blowing in-land. It could very well have brought the nation of Japan to its knees. I mean, there is so much contamination that luckily wound up in the Pacific Ocean as compared to across the nation of Japan - it could have cut Japan in half. But now the winds have turned, so they are heading to the south toward Tokyo and now my concern and my advice to friends that if there is a severe aftershock and the Unit 4 building collapses, leave. We are well beyond where any science has ever gone at that point and nuclear fuel lying on the ground and getting hot is not a condition that anyone has ever analyzed.”
More:
“Arnie Gundersen: When you see hydrogen explosions, that means that the outside of the fuel has exceeded 2,200 degrees and the inside is well over 3,500 degrees. The fuel gets brittle, it burns, and then it plops to the bottom of the nuclear reactor in a molten blob like lava. It was pretty clear to a lot of people, including apparently to the NRC, but they weren’t telling people back in March, that that had occurred in reactor one. There was essentially a blob of lava on the bottom of the nuclear reactor. So I have to separate this – a nuclear reactor - and that is inside of a containment. So there is still one more barrier here. But the problem is that the reactor had boiled dry and they were using fire pumps connected to the ocean to pump saltwater into the reactor. Now, if this thing were individual tubes, the water could get around the uranium and completely cool it. But when it’s a blob at the bottom of the reactor, it can only get to the top surface and that would cause it to begin to meltdown. Now, on these boiling water reactors, there are about seventy holes in the bottom of the reactor where the control rods come in and I suspect that those holes were essentially the weak link that caused this molten mass. Now it’s 5,000 degrees at the center, even though the outside may be touching water, the inside of this molten mass is 5,000 degrees. It melts through and lies on the bottom of the containment.
That’s where we are today. We have no reactor essentially, just a big pressure cooker. The molten uranium is on the bottom of the containment. It spreads out at that point, because the floor is flat. And I don’t think it’s going to melt its way through the concrete floor. It may gradually over time; but the damage is already done because the containment has cracks in it and it’s pretty clear that it is leaking. So you put water in the top. And the plan had never been to put water in the top and let it run out the bottom. That is not the preferred way of cooling a nuclear reactor in an accident. But you are putting water in the top and it’s running out the bottom and it’s going out through cracks in the containment, after touching directly uranium and plutonium and cesium and strontium and is carrying all those radioactive isotopes out as liquids and gases into the environment.”
Doesn’t sound good....
Just sayin’....
“I have said it’s worse than Chernobyl and I’ll stand by that.”
Complete bullshit.
“There was an enormous amount of radiation given out in the first two to three weeks of the event.”
‘enormous’ amount of magnitude was 4 factors lower radiation than released at Chernobyl.
“And add the wind blowing in-land.”
Umm, prevalent winds were out to the Pacific.
“It could very well have brought the nation of Japan to its knees. I mean, there is so much contamination that luckily wound up in the Pacific Ocean”
Yeah, and that’s because the prevalent winds were that way, contradicting the previous statement.
“But now the winds have turned, so they are heading to the south toward Tokyo”
Here’s something you need to know. If all the Fukushima plants were to go, then the radiation would affect an area of 100 square kms. That’s not going to happen. We aren’t going to see any of the plants explode as in Chernobyl, and the 50 km zone won’t be breached. Remember, doubling the distance takes 4x as much radiactivity. Inverse square law.
“We are well beyond where any science has ever gone”
Bullshit. The cores have stabilized and are below boiling temperature. The fuel that has melted is contained in the containment structure.
“at that point and nuclear fuel lying on the ground and getting hot is not a condition that anyone has ever analyzed.”
Complete bullshit. The fuel is still in the containment vessel, which is still under the nuclear cap that protects the containment vessel and the core.
“When you see hydrogen explosions, that means that the outside of the fuel has exceeded 2,200 degrees and the inside is well over 3,500 degrees. The fuel gets brittle, it burns, and then it plops to the bottom of the nuclear reactor in a molten blob like lava.”
The Hydrogen comes from the water, when the water heats up it disassociates into hydrogen gas. This caused the earlier explosion. From what we know the core temperature was high enough to melt the fuel which is still in the reactor vessel. This fuel has since cooled off and solidified.
“There was essentially a blob of lava on the bottom of the nuclear reactor. So I have to separate this – a nuclear reactor - and that is inside of a containment.”
Inside the containment vessel, underneath the nuclear cap. So there are two more barriers. However, the temperature inside the vessel has cooled off and the melted core has solidified.
“That’s where we are today. We have no reactor essentially, just a big pressure cooker.”
Bullshit, the reactor is intact and the temperature has cooled.
“The molten uranium is on the bottom of the containment. It spreads out at that point, because the floor is flat. And I don’t think it’s going to melt its way through the concrete floor.”
It won’t melt because it’s cooled off. It ain’t going anywhere.