Interview with a blogger whose father is qualified as an operator for the Vermont Yankee GE BWR 4 Mark I built in 1972.
Unfortunately, the free recording software that I have downloaded cuts off at 15 minutes, so the last question is cut off. My dad and I will return to that question in our next interview. If anyone can recommend a good skype recording software for me to buy that would be great. I am on a graduate student budget, so please recommend something that is not too expensive. Also, I am running Windows 7.
Again, anyone who transcribes this interview will be sent pretty rocks. If you plan to transcribe, please post a comment below so that efforts are not duplicated.
Update: Thanks to Michelle, transcript is now available after the jump.
Part I:
Q: Good morning, Dad.
A: Morning.
Q: All right, are you ready for Interview Number 4?
A: I hope so.
Q: OK, we’ve got our work cut out for us with all these interviews. So before we
begin, I just wanna let people know, who- who might not know, that this is actually
the 4th in a series of interviews that I’ve done with my dad, who’s a nuclear engineer.
I’m not gonna go into his credentials again in this interview, but if you would like to
see what his credentials are and, and listen to the previous interviews, I encourage
you to do that. They’re located – the previous interviews – both um, audio files and
actually, now transcripts, thanks to some listeners. They’re located on my geology
blog, Georneys, which is G-E-O-R-N-E-Y-S. Georneys-dot-blogspot-dot-com. You
can also find them on the Skepchick website, which is Skepchick-dot-org.
So I’m just gonna start right out because there have been quite a few
developments in the last 24 hours or so since we’ve spoken. And I was wondering if
you could just give us an update of what’s going on in Fukushima.
A: I’ll do my best. It’s, um, extremely difficult because uh, information is very hard
to come by and there’s bits and pieces available from different sources. But it’s very
difficult to put together a complete picture.
Q: OK.
A: Lemme, lemme start first with, y'know, a little bit of good news, which is that, uh,
as we explained yesterday, there’s actually two sets of power plants – Fukushima
1, which has been the one that’s really been in the news, that has the serious issues
that we’ll talk about in a few minutes. And Fukushima 2, which is a few miles away
to the south. That site had 4 reactors. They were also experiencing difficulties
with loss of power. But the latest report from the Tokyo Electric Power Company
website indicates that all 4 units there are now in cold shutdown. So that’s very
good-
Q: That’s very relieving news. Do you know how far away the two plants are? Are
they sort of close together and affected by the tsunami similarly?
A: They’re about 7 miles apart.
Q: OK.
A: Now with respect to Fukushima 1, which again, to remind everybody, has 6
nuclear power plants. It’s been uh, a, a very challenging 24 hours. As best can be
determined from the various different news reports, there was an explosion in the
Number 2 Reactor building –
Q: OK –
A: Which, according to some reports, may have caused some damage within the
primary containment of the reactor. Um, in the suppression pool, at the bottom of
the reactor. So if you look at that picture that you posted yesterday, there’s a kind-
of a doughnut-shaped tube that goes around the bottom of the reactor that holds
water.
Q: Mmhmm.
A: Purpose of that pool of water is to condense any steam that’s in the containment
building and release the pressure. And, again, reportedly, there may be some
damage to that suppression pool. The reports indicated that before the explosion,
the containment building had about 3 psi and afterwards, 1 psi.
Q: And yesterday, you said that there was a possibility that there, there actually
might be an explosion- or that, that could affect the containment itself. And you
were saying that that was because of the type of pump that they had to use? Is that
what happened? Were they not able to actually get the normal pump running or do
we not know?
A: Well, what they’re trying to do, which is what they did at the, y'know, 1 and 3
Reactors, is pump seawater into the core, to try to recover the core.
Q: Yes.
A: In order to do that, because these pumps that they would be using for pumping
seawater would be relatively low-pressure pumps, they would need to reduce the
pressure in the reactor by venting the steam.
Q: OK.
A: Uh, initially to the containment building and then obviously, they have to worry
about pressure in containment building, so eventually, whether they um, do it into
the containment building or directly to the atmosphere, it’s gonna get into the
atmosphere of the reactor building.
Q: OK.
A: And as we saw in Units 1 and 3, um, because um, based on indications that we
have of Cesium and Iodine being in the atmosphere, based on the fact that we had
an explosion, it was probably a Hydrogen explosion, which was created by the
overheating of the fuel, and H2O, or water, interacting with the Zirconium cladding
of the fuel and causing Zirconium Dioxide to be formed and Hydrogen gas.
Q: OK. So-
A: So they had an explosion in Reactor 2, but the news reports are very scattered
and it’s very difficult to get any kind of complete information as to the extent of the
damage.
Q: OK, so maybe this is something that we’ll, we’ll have to continue and update on a
bit later, when information is more available.
A: The other thing that’s happened is there was a fire in Unit 4.
Q: Yes.
A: Unit 4 was shut down for maintenance at the time of the tsunami and earthquake
and had not been experiencing any problems cooling, cooling the core because they
were already shut down and in cold shut down. So….
Q: OK.
A: But if you remember yesterday, and part of the reason I asked you to put the
picture of the Mark 1 Containment up is because of the potential that I- um, lots
of water to the spent fuel pools. And again, it’s very difficult to determine exactly
what’s happening, because the, the reports are very scattered. Um, one report
I’ve seen said that y'know, the fire was in the spent fuel pool, that potentially, it
was caused because water level had lowered and um, fuel had started to melt and
Hydrogen had formed. Um, which caused an explosion, which tore two holes in the
building. Another report I saw said that the fire was in a lube-screening oil system.
Q: OK.
A: But then I also saw a report that they’d been unable to um, get water to the spent
fuel pool. So it’s, it’s really unclear exactly what’s happening. And I think this is an
important point that, y'know, obviously these folks at these plants are under a lot of
pressure and I’m sure a lot of people are working real hard and doing the best that
they can, but the transparency, with respect to the communication to the public, is
terrible. I mean, they’re- they’re providing- they’re not providing any kind of real-
time updates and the updates are, um, not very detailed. So it’s difficult for anyone
to determine what’s actually going on at this plant. And if, in fact, they did allow the
water level of the spent fuel cooling pool- excuse me, the spent fuel, um, cooling
pool at Unit 4 to get below the top of the pool, in my opinion, that’s inexcusable.
There should have been um, an operator that toured that building once an hour at,
at, at first that they noticed that they were having troubles, they should’ve gotten
water up there and covered it, as we talked about, with a fire hose, if necessary, um,
yesterday. So they really need to work on the transparency and um, I think that the
Japanese government has got to ensure that that happens and they’re transparent
with the general public.
Q: Well, I think that’s especially important, because if you’re not transparent,
there’s going to be all sorts of false information that’s circulating around and you
don’t want that, because you don’t want people either to under- or over-react to a
situation. You want them to have the proper information so that they can make an
informed decision. Wouldn’t you agree with that, Dad?
A: I- I think if, if, if there’s someone like myself, that has y'know, a significant
understanding of how these plants work and you’re having difficulty piecing
together the different pieces of information that are available, then I don’t know
how you would expect someone in the general public to be able to know what’s
going on. So again, I think that there’s gotta be more transparency and more
communication relative to this event that’s occurring at the Fukushima Plant.
Q: OK, so this question actually, is perhaps somewhat related to this, this concept of
the media and somewhat transparency. I don’t know, I know that you’re not really
on Facebook or Twitter or anything, but maybe you have some idea of what Twitter
is, Dad. So Twitter is this- basically this sort of social media, short messaging site,
where you can-
A: I’m fully aware what Twitter is, I just-
Q: OK, I dunno, you don’t even have Facebook, so…
A: I just don’t- I just don’t have the time everyday to Twitter, so…
Q: OK, well, anyway, there was the- a Twitter user. And he actually, I believe is a
nuclear engineer, and he went on Twitter, which is, which is kind of interesting that
we can do this now on Twitter. His, his username is Arclight(sp), and he actually
went on Twitter and he was giving people these short updates about what was
happening at Fukushima and his perspective on them and trying to inform them a
little bit about nuclear power. And basically just give people information, because
a lot of people go to Twitter for information these days. And he actually was given
a Cease and Desist order from his, his uh, employer, which is presumably a nuclear
power plant. And they actually said that he cannot continue with Twitter, or they
would threaten to terminate his employment. And so he actually had to stop posting
his updates, which I think was disappointing for the public, and for people who were
relying on him, on him for some information. And I can’t comment on the accuracy
of the information, but he was trying and he was a nuclear engineer. Do you have
any comments on that? Do you think that if you were currently in nuclear power, if
you weren’t retired from nuclear power, would you be able to conduct an interview
such as this?
A: Well, obviously I can’t comment on what may have, or may not have transpired
there. I just go back and say that there needs to be, uh, more information, provided
more often about what’s happening at Fukushima. And I think that the Nuclear
Industry Organizations, such as Effogen (???) Power Operation, the Nuclear Energy
Institute, and the International Atomic Energy Agency, need to also be more
transparent and provide more updates, um, on their websites as to, as to what’s
happening.
Q: OK, thank you for commenting on that. Do you have any other comments about
the current situation today in Fukushima?
A: I- I basically told you everything that I can. Uh, I think that today has been one
of the more difficult days to pull any information together. Um, we do know that,
y'know, either due to the event at Unit 2 or the event at Unit 4, there was a fairly
significant release of radiation to the environment.
Q: OK.
A: And it caused the um, radiation levels at the plant to go, go up significantly. And
again, I can only rely on the reports that, that I saw, but the radiation levels within
the plant were to the point where they evacuated most of the workers at the plant.
Q: OK.
A: And they were also- I saw one report that the levels spiked quite high at the site
boundary and then came down. And even after- a couple of hours after the events
yesterday, they were around 240 millirems.
Q: Can you explain what that means?
A: - per hour. That’s about as much radiation as the average person would get in an
entire year, um, from just normal background sources.
Q: OK, but to get that all at once, does that pose a health risk?
A: Well, at that level, if you were there for an hour, it would not. The disconcerting
fact would be if it stayed at that level and y'know, you were there for um, a longer
period of time. The dosage is accumulative.
Q: OK.
A: So after 4 hours, you would’ve received almost a thousand millirems. And after
20 hours, or less than a day, you would exceed the limit for a radiation worker in the
US. For-
Q: For what time period? For a year?
A: For a whole year.
Q: OK, so that’s quite serious, because if those radiation levels continue to stay that
high, if they actually are that high, then the workers can’t even get in there to really
deal with the situation, is that correct?
A: Right. I believe the radiation levels have come back down. The fact that they
went up that high does indicate that there had to be a fairly significant um, event
that occurred.
Q: OK, well, again, what I’m gonna do with this interview, as I’ve done with the
previous two, is I’m gonna end it now and I’m gonna call my Dad back and I’m
actually gonna ask him some questions from some listeners. And I guess the caveat
for today is because the information is so scattered, my dad may not be able to
answer these questions and we really don’t want to answer questions, if we don’t
have the information. So we’ll just do our best for today. OK, I’ll call you right back,
Dad.
A: OK.
PART II
A: Hello again.
Q: All right, so now I’m gonna be asking you some questions and I’ve, I’ve actually-
as I said yesterday, I’ve been really surprised at how many people are, are listening
to these interviews. I hope that they’re helpful to people, if people have any feeding
back on them, please let us know. If you have questions, send them in. So I have
been receiving lots of questions and comments from different places. So if I miss
your question, I’m sorry, send it again. But we’ll, we’ll just do our best.
A: And the comment from my side is I hope, I hope the information that we provide
is helping people. Um, we’re trying to do it in a neutral way, just trying to explain
what’s happening to people. And um, I hope we’re able to answer your questions
this morning.
Q: And, and I just wanna say thank you so much, Dad, for doing this and taking the
time to do this and I feel very fortunate that I, I can call you up and I can get my
questions answered and rather than just have you answer my questions, I thought it
would be great if you can answer other peoples’ questions as well.
So with with, let’s start on- in on this. So one question that I had from a
few people, um, particularly people who are living in Tokyo, is people, especially
who are foreigners, who are wondering if it would be an overreaction to actually
consider leaving Japan for a couple of days, um, to actually get out of the country, in
case there is more of a problem with the nuclear power plant. Do you have some
advice on that?
A: So if somebody was in Tokyo, I would not be too alarmed. Um, after yesterday
evening’s events, um – US time, that is- it was morning in Japan, the radiation levels,
according to the government, did, did go up in Tokyo, but um, not, not anything
that would be of any concern whatsoever. They were just um, maybe double the
normal background levels. And um, we do know that, y'know, a few hours after
these events of the radiation levels around the plant have dropped. And um, I
would, I would not be overly concerned to be as far away as Tokyo. Now, of course,
if you were closer to the plant, that may be more of a concern, but I think the
destruction of the, of the infrastructure, due to the tsunami is probably um, more
significant than any, any threat of radiation today. Um, now the caveat there is the
um, unclarity, with respect to what’s happening to the spent fuel pool in Reactor 4.
Uh, the big concern, obviously, there is if they’re not able to keep that covered and
if that melts, then releases radiation to the environment, there’s no containment to
keep that in.
Q: So how far could that potentially spread, if that were to happen?
A: That depends.
Q: OK. But that could be a serious concern?
A: On the amount of radiation released. But this point in the game, um, there hasn’t
been radiation levels in Tokyo that would cause any alarm.
Q: And they have evacuated, as you said, or they’ve tried to evacuate-
A: They’ve asked people to either shelter or evacuate uh, at a distance of 30
kilometers from the plant.
Q: Right. And there are still a few people within that zone. I’m not sure if they’re
forcing people to evacuate, but at least yesterday when I read one news report – so
this is from the news – there were some people who were refusing to evacuate, so I
don’t know if any of those people are listening to this, but please, please do evacuate
if you are close to the plant and the Japanese government has requested it.
A: I would follow the request of the authorities to either evacuate or shelter.
Q: OK. Let’s continue. So…. Another- I think we’ve sorta addressed the radiation
level, um… another reader was wondering, y'know, sorta how long Japan is gonna
still need to be worrying about this and the nuclear, nuclear disaster. And again, I
think it depends on what’s actually happened. But as you mentioned yesterday, this
is something that’s not just gonna be today or next week, this is something that’s
gonna be weeks and perhaps years to actually deal with this. I mean, how long do
you think it’s gonna take them to actually fully clean up and decommission and
decontaminate everything?
A: Well, to fully clean up and decommission and decontaminate the site, you’re
talking years and years. I think what we’re more concerned about is how long
until the situation is stable. And again, can we be assured that y'know, no more
explosions or meltdowns- partial meltdowns, um, or radiation leaks are going to
occur. And that’s a hard question to answer because if the radiation levels at the
plant are such that they have to evacuate most of the workers, then until they can
get that under control, they can’t even do any work.
Q: So how do they do that, I mean, how do they bring radiation levels down when
they cannot bring workers close to the plant?
A: The way to do that is to make sure that the cores of these reactors are completely
covered and to make sure that the spend fuel pools stay completely covered. Water
is a- water will cool, it’s also an excellent shield of radiation.
Q: So they need to get water on these as quickly as possible?
A: And so I think the, the most critical, um, thing that they need to accomplish at
these plants, beyond making sure that all of the fuel is covered by water and that
all of the spent fuel is covered by water, is to try to restore power. So that they
can begin to restore um, cooling and um, water flow to all of the 6 spent fuel pools
at this site. Because there’s 6 reactors. And um, obviously if they get power back,
then they would be able to use more systems, which will help them control the um,
situation at these plants.
Q: And they’ll have better monitoring equipment as well, so they’ll be able to have
more warning when something’s going on, presumably. And, I mean, the good news
is that Fukushima 2, as you said, is under control. Um, are they operating? Is part of
the problem here that there’s a power shortage, I mean somehow, they must be able
to get power to this, this Fukushima 1 site from a different power plant.
A: As far as I can determine, the power that they have is from generators. I think
that’s because of the damage to the electrical grid.
Q: OK. All right, so I’m gonna move on to another question. This one’s a little bit
complicated, so hopefully my dad can help me interpret the question. So a reader
sent in something that he had read, and I’ll try to post the link up here, it’s from
something called- it’s a commenter on something called “Next Big Future”. And the
question was: Someone cited a Sandia report, um, the GE BWR MK1 containment
design has been estimated as having a potential 40% failure rate in the event of
a full core meltdown. With pooling fuel having the capability to melt through the
sides of the reactor containment walls. Can you, first of all, translate that question
into English and answer it?
A: OK. So what he’s talking about is the Mark 1 Containment Design, which you
posted the picture of on your website yesterday. And 5 of the 6 reactors at the
Fukushima 1 site have a Mark 1 containment. Um, the first 5 units – 1 through 5.
Six is a newer plant and has a little bit newer design. And what he’s saying is in the
event of a full core melt that the core would melt through the reactor vessel and
would have a 40% chance of melting through the um, containment, um, structure.
Which in, in the case of this plant, is um, a concrete and steel liner that surrounds
the reactor. Um, as long as they’re able to um, continue to get water um, into these
reactor vessels, then y'know, that’s not gonna happen. Um, it would on- This would
only happen in the event of not being able to get any water whatsoever into either
the reactor vessel or the containment building.
Q: So I guess a good point here is that, um, although the cont- we should be
reassured by the containment buildings, to a degree, y'know, they’re not magical
boxes that, that contain all radioactivity. You do have to monitor the pressure in
them, you do have to add water. There are some controls that are really important
in making sure that those, those containments, um, stay secure. Would you agree
with what I just said, Dad?
A: I agree. And- and therefore I go back to what I said a couple minutes ago that,
that the priority needs to be on getting electrical power to these units, so they
can restore some of these systems that will allow them to better control what’s
happening. Um, I’m sure it’s a very difficult task, because the seawater obviously,
from the tsunami, flooded um, where the diesel generators were, which is also
probably where a lot of electrical switch gear is. Seawater and electrical switch
gear do not mix well. Um, so there’s probably a lot of work to restore the electrical
switch gear and other things, but y'know, again, that would be, I think, a top priority,
to try to get power back. You don’t need to repower the whole plant, you need to try
to get it back to the most critical pumping systems.
Q: I see. OK, moving on to the next question. This is actually a question that has-
I’ve seen circulating around the internet, that someone did, did send this into me.
They wanted to know if you could comment on the possible danger to US residents
and if there’s any precautions that a reasonable person might take in the United
States at this point.
A: At this point in time, I don’t think there’s a concern, unless the situation gets
worse. Um, I think our biggest risk, based on what’s happened in the past 24 hours,
and again, what we commented on yesterday, was making sure that the spent fuel
pools stay covered at these sites. Um, which- so that would include both the 6 ra-
the 6 spent fuel pools at Fukushima 1 and also um, Fukushima 2. If they’re still
struggling with electrical power there, they, they would have the same issues, with
respect to cooling and water for the spent fuel pools there.
Q: Can you, can you give me an idea, Dad, because I mean, my idea of, of one of these
pools is kinda a giant swimming pool. How, y'know, how much water do you have
to add to one of these pools, say on an hourly basis, or on a daily basis, to keep that
level at a good level to make sure that things are safe?
A: So that’s a good question. And it’s- and the answer is it’s gonna depend. So, um,
these reactors are refueled- and I don’t know the specifics of the refueling schedule
at these particular plants. Anywhere from 12 months to 24 months. So depending
on when it was last refueled will depend on how much heat generation there is in
the spent fuel pool. So for instance at, at Unit 4, which was in an outage, they might
have just recently removed the spent fuel from the reactor in the spent fuel pool,
which means it’s still quite warm and still quite- generating quite a bit of heat. So
you could expect that – in that particular case – that you would have to provide
more cooling to that spent fuel pool than you might for a reactor that, y'know, last
time it was refueled was 18 months ago and the fuel has cooled way down already.
So you can’t answer the question specifically, unless you know the specifics of
when the last refueling was, how many fuel- fuel- fuel bundles were taken out of
the reactor and put in the spent fuel pool, because they don’t replace all of the fuel
all at the same time. Uh, they’ll replace approximately a third of the fuel, um, every
refueling outage. But depending on any other work that was going on, they might
have, have been doing other work, um, either inspections or repairs to the reactor
vessel. They might have taken all the fuel out, temporarily, from Unit 4, to do this
work, and planning on putting um, y'know, two-thirds of it back, along with one-
third of new fuel. So without knowing the details, it’s hard to answer the question.
Q: But, y'know, I guess in over the past few days, we’re sorta relieved that some of
these plants were, were sorta shut down for maintenance, but actually if, if there
were a number of spent fuel rods in the pools, it sounds like that could actually be a
problem and that may be what-
A: A large number of-
Q: Contributed to the fire.
A: Well, a large number of, of um, spent fuel modules that had recently been in the
reactor. Right, I mean that the spent fuel could be full, but if all the fuel is 10 years
old, it’s already pretty much cooled off. It’s really a function of how much- how
many of those fuel bundles were in the reactor most recently.
Q: OK, I think that those are all the questions for today. Um, actually Grandma had
one question, but I’m about to run out of time, so I might have to call you back, we’ll
see if we make it. Um, Grandma basically- my Grandma, uh, wanted to know if-
why do we build nuclear power plants next to the ocean? Is that necessary? Is that
because we need, we need water? Can you answer that really quickly?
A: So as the steam goes through the turbine, it then needs to be um, cooled and
turned back into water. You have three ways of doing that: either from a river or a
lake, from an ocean or from cooling towers. And in a lot of cases, uh, power plants of
all kinds - not just nuclear power plants – are all built next to large bodies of water,
because we need a lot of cooling to get the steam back into the water and pump it
back into the boiler or the reactor, depending on the type of plant that it is. So in
this case, uh, these plants were built along the coast, um, a lot of the nuclear power
plants in Japan are built along the coast - -
(INTERVIEW STOPS)