Arnie Gunderson used to work in the nuclear industry as a high level exec but I guess we have to dismiss his experience and training because he is no longer in the ‘pro nuke fold’ and therefore anything he says must be for some client? Ok...yeah I expected the pro nukers would say that.
Arnie isn’t the only one who suggests that pool 3 explosion sent spent fuel across the land. Japan’s Dr. Saji who is a former member of Japan’s Atomic Nuclear Safety commission. Dr. Saji’s email includes the following comments about the explosion in fuel pool 3:
“We were just lucky due to the favorable meteorological conditions during the entire development of the accident.”
SNIP
“We were very lucky even with a large release from 1F3 due to the most severe hydrogen explosion that could have induced a heavy land contamination. This resulted from the wind direction towards the sea at the time of the releases, although this must have resulted in wider ocean contamination far from Fukushima Daiichi”
People haven’t been able to explain the source of the radioactive material, including plutonium, uranium and by products, surrounding the area and dispersed as far as 80km north. There were explosions and video of #3 explosion shows big debris load. If not spent pool 3, how did radioactive material get so far from the plant? What’s your theory?
I was actually leaning toward the explosion in #4 as the source, but both could be the source. The issue isn’t whether there was damage to reactor rods that allowed the release of radioactive particulates — it seems certain that there was.
The issue was the claim that the picture showed the fuel rods were all gone from reactor 3 pool; in fact, it shows a heavy debris field fell into the pool.
The speculation is that the debris damaged rods, allowing increased reactions and leading to particulate release. It’s just the difference between pieces of a fuel rod getting out and entire sets of fuel rods supposedly blown around the site.
if in fact all the fuel rods had been blown to pieces and scattered throughout the site, readings would be much higher throughout the site, and dumping water into the #3 pool wouldn’t do anything because the fuel wouldn’t be there to be cooled off.
As for Arnie — I wouldn’t know enough to question whether he has the ABILITY to understand what he is talking about. I simply note that he is biased, and has a reason to mislead about what he is seeing. The first few times he made major claims, I actually listened to what he said, and watched his videos, and realised that he was misinterpreting what I was seeing, and trying to convince me that I was seeing something different than what I knew I was seeing. So I stopped trusting him.
I do find it somewhat ironic that people who argue that we can’t trust high-level nuclear industry executives because they are all lying to us to protect their industry are also arguing that we should trust a former high-level exec from that same industry whose NEW job depends on him trashing the nuclear industry.
But that is part of the generic “bad guys become good guys if they join our side” meme.
I can’t address details of translated e-mails on the internet supposedly from known sources. Can’t prove it is a fake, can’t prove it is real. But, I do try — the guy is sold as an expert, and well-respected. If he actually claimed that an antire fuel pool blew up and was scattered around the surrounding area, SOME real news media would pick it up. He certainly would have the ability to pick up the phone and call CNN and get an interview.
So the fact that I see these claims only on blogs and conspiracy sites and underground “news” sources suggests to me that I should take the information with a large amount of skepticism.
Because while I do believe Tepco could well lie, although less so when they know their lies would be immediately exposed, I don’t believe the major news organizations are in the tank for the nuclear industry.