The Worst Problems In The World

About This Interview

Alex Smith, of Radio Ecoshock, interviews nuclear industry expert Arnie Gundersen, of Fairewinds Associates. Smith notes that the nuclear accident at Fukushima Japan is far from over as three reactors continue to meltdown. Smith adds that now there is a storm of international worry about nuclear fuel pools tottering in blown up buildings putting the whole Northern Hemisphere at risk. According to Smith, “Arnie Gundersen, a year ago, warned us here on Radio Ecoshock, and to anybody who would listen, that a world-scale catastrophe was lurking in the nuclear fuel storage pools of both reactors Three and Four, at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan. Why is this story finally getting wider attention, a year later?”

Newly Released TEPCO Data Proves Fairewinds Assertions of Significant Fuel Pool Failures at Fukushima Daiichi

About This Video

New TEPCO data measured on August 19 & 20 shows severe damage to the spent fuel in Fukushima Daiichi Units 1, 2, and 3. The adjacent TEPCO table posted on the front page shows incredibly high levels of Cesium 137 and Cesium 134 in all three spent fuel pools of Units 1, 2, & 3. This TEPCO data clearly contradicts and refutes the July assertion by the NRC the Fukushima Daiichi spent fuel pools were not damaged in this tragic accident. Crytome (cry to me) has a new high resolution photo, also uploaded, that shows the extensive damage of the Unit 3 spent fuel pool and the reactor building. Check it out.

Video Transcript

[tabgroup][tab title="English"]

Arnie Gundersen: Hi, I'm Arnie Gundersen from Fairewinds.

Today, I wanted to spend a brief amount of time updating you about the condition of the fuel pools at Fukushima. You recall that in our last video, I discussed the fact that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was told by the NRC staff that there was no damage to the spent fuel pools at Fukushima. Well, I disagreed then, and I disagree now. Just 2 days ago, TEPCO released a report that has a water analysis of the condition of the spent fuel pools at Fukushima. This data was taken in August, August 19th and 20th, so it is very current and I wanted to share it with you today. The table is a water analysis and it says “analysis of spent fuel pool water.” Let's go to Unit 2 and then cross over to Cesium 137. If you look at that column, it says 1.1 E8. Now what does that mean? That is 1.1 with 8 zeros behind it, or 110 million disintegrations per second in every liter of water. If you look at the next column over, that is Cesium 134. It is also 1.1 E8. So the combination of both Cesiums in the fuel pool on Unit 2, is 220 million disintegrations per second in a liter of water.

So think of a liter Coke bottle and inside it the water is disintegrating at 220 million disintegrations every second, and that is just for Unit 2. The table also shows similar very high concentrations of Cesium in Unit 1 and in Unit 3. It clearly shows that there is damage to the fuel in those 3 units. The interesting thing about the table is that it shows much lower concentrations of Cesium in Unit 4. Now, it still could be that there is damage, but less damage in Unit 4. Or it could mean that contamination from the other 3 units fell into the water in Unit 4 and contaminated that water. So Unit 4 is a bit of a mystery, but Units 1, 2, & 3 clearly have significant spent fuel damage.

Next thing I would like to talk to you about briefly is that when we posted our video last week, several people wrote in saying, “Where did you get the information about spent fuel being thrown a mile away?” The information comes from the New York Times in an April 5th story. The April 5th story is based on a Nuclear Regulatory Commission report that was confidential, but old time visitors to the Fairewinds site will remember that we posted it in early April as well. The report clearly indicates that material was thrown over a mile away. Here is what the Times had to say. The NRC "document also suggests that fragments or particles of nuclear fuel from the spent fuel pools were blown up to a mile away from the units .... and that pieces of highly radioactive material fell between the units and had to be bulldozed over, presumably to protect the workers on site.”

So in April, actually late March, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission report says the fuel pools were so damaged that they threw material a mile away. Yet in July, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was told by the staff that that never happened and in fact, the fuel pools are in great condition. Again I disagree. I think the fuel pools are not in great condition.

Now to add to that, there is a new picture up on the web by Crytome, and it was just taken 2 days ago. It shows Unit 3. It is incredibly high resolution. It shows damage, extensive damage, fuel pool is on the right. Now I invite our readers to go over it in detail and take a look and see what you can see. To me, it shows serious fuel pool damage and I cannot understand how the NRC would think otherwise.

Finally, I need to correct something I said in the last video. In the last video, I talked about how salt water was introduced at Fukushima, came in contact with neutrons, and created sulfur. That part is right. In the last video though, I said that the sodium in the salt water is what came in contact with the neutrons and created sulfur. What really happened was it is the chlorine. Salt water is sodium chloride and I misspoke and I said the sodium, not the chlorine came in contact with the neutrons. I would like to thank the watchers of this column who identified that. I do not use a teleprompter and sometimes my mouth goes a bit faster than my brain.

Well, that is about it for today. We will keep in touch after the hurricane.

Thanks.

[/tab][tab title="日本人"]

フェアウィンズが指摘した燃料プール破損が東電の最新データで裏付けられる

８月１９日と２０日の２日にかけて取られた東電のデータによると、福島第一原発１号機、２号機３号機の使用済み核燃料プールに激しい損傷があることが分かった。 データに付随する表によると、１，２，３号機の使用済み核燃料プールにかなり高いレベルのセシウム１３７と１３４が検出された。 このデータは７月に使用済み核燃料プールへの損傷を否定したNRCの公表と明らかに矛盾する。 Crytomeが新たな高画質の写真を公開しました。その写真から３号機の使用済み核燃料プールと建屋の損傷がさらによく見えます。検証してみましょう。

2011年8月26日

東電の新データはフェアウインズが主張していた燃料保管プールの著しい損傷を証明

要約：東京電力が8月19日と20日に公表した新たな計測データにより、福島第一原発の原子炉1号機、2号機、そして3号機の使用済み核燃料プールが深刻な損傷を受けていることがわかりました。表紙に掲載された表は1号機、2号機、3号機すべての使用済み核燃料プールにおいて、極めて高いセシウム137とセシウム134の数値を示しています。

この東電のデータは原子力規制委員会（NRC）が7月に福島第一原発の使用済み燃料プールは、この悲惨な事故下においても損傷していないとの主張を明らかに否定、矛盾するものとなっています。Crytome (Cry to me)は新たな高画質写真をアップロードしており、その中には3号機の使用済み燃料プールと原子炉の大規模な損傷を写したものが含まれています。是非ご覧になってみてください。

こんにちは、フェアウインズのアーニー・ガンダーセンです。

今日は福島第一原発の核燃料保管プールの状況について、少しのお時間をいただき皆さんにアップデートをご報告させていただきたいと思っております。

前回のビデオで覚えていらっしゃるかと思いますが、原子力規制委員会（NRC）がNRCのスタッフから、福島第一原発の使用済み核燃料プールにダメージが無いとの報告を受けていた事について、私は議論いたしました。私はその報告に納得しておらず、そして今も納得していません。ちょうど2日前、東電は福島第一原発の使用済み燃料プールの水分析レポートが含まれる報告書を公表しました。そのデータは8月19日と20日に取ったもので、非常に最近のものであります。本日はそのデータの内容を皆さんと共有してみたいと思っております。この表は水分析データで「使用済み核燃料プールの水分析」と書かれています。まず2号機のセシウム１３７を見てみることにいたしましょう。表のこの列を見ていただきますと、1.1E+08と記録されています。さてこれは何を意味しているのでしょうか？これは1.1の後にゼロが８個続くという意味で、また水1リットルに対し毎秒1.1億の放射能性元素の崩壊を表します。隣の列をみてください、こちらセシウム134です。ここも同じく1.1E+08とあります。したがって2号機の燃料プールの両方のセシウムを合計すると、1リットルの水に対し毎秒2.2億の放射能性元素の崩壊となります。

ですから1リットルのコーラのボトルの中に水が入っているとしたら、その水に毎秒2.2億の放射能性元素の崩壊が起こるということです。それがまさに2号機で起こっているのです。その表からは1号機でも3号機でも、同じように非常に高いセシウム濃度が示されています。そのデータは、それらの3機における核燃料保管プールに損傷があるという事を明確に示しています。興味深い事に、この表では4号機のセシウム濃度が比較的低く示されています。まだ損傷している可能性は残されていますが、4号機の損傷は他と比べると少ないと考えられます。しかし、もしかしたらこれは他の３機からの汚染が４号機の水に落ちてきて、４号機の水を汚染したのかもしれません。そういったわけで４号機に関しては少し謎でありますが、１号機、２号機、３号機に関しては使用済み燃料が著しい損傷を受けているという事は明確であります。

次に私が皆さんに簡潔にお話させていただきたいのは、先週私共がアップロードしたビデオに対して、複数名の方から「使用済み核燃料が１マイル先まで飛散したという情報を何処から得たのですか？」というご質問を受けた件についてです。情報は４月５日付けのニューヨークタイムズの記事から得ました。この４月５日付けの記事は原子力規制委員会(NRC)の報告書の機密事項となっているものでした。フェアウインズのウェブサイトを昔からご覧いただいている方々は、我々が４月上旬にアップロードしたビデオを覚えていらっしゃるのではないかと思います。その報告書には破片が１マイル以上も飛散した事が明確に書かれています。タイムズ紙にはこのように書かれています。「NRCの報告書は核燃料の断片もしくは粒子が使用済み核燃料プールからの爆発によって、原発から１マイル以上も離れた場所にも吹き飛ばされた事を示唆・・・そしてその高レベル放射能性物質の破片は原発施設内の原子炉の間に落ち、現場で働く労働者を保護するべく、ブルドーザーで動かさなければならなかった。

そして４月、実際には３月後半の原子力規制委員会(NRC)の報告書には燃料プールがひどく損傷しており、破片が１マイル以上も吹き飛ばされたと言及していました。しかし７月に原子力規制委員会はNRCのスタッフから、そんな事は一度も起こっておらず、実際燃料プールは問題ない状態にあるとの報告を受けたのです。

重ねて申し上げますが、私はこれに同意できません。私は燃料プールが問題がない状態にあるとはとても思えません。それに加えCrytomeのウェブサイトでわずか２日前に撮影された新しい画像がアップロードされました。ご覧いただいているのは３号機の写真です。この画像は素晴らしく高画質で撮れた鮮明度の高い画像です。この画像からは燃料プールの右側に損傷、非常に大規模の損傷があることを写しだしています。私はこのビデオを見てくださっている皆様に、この画像の詳細をご自分の目でじっくりご覧いただくことをお勧めいたします。私にとって、これは燃料プールの深刻な損傷を示すものであり、なぜ原子力規制委員会(NRC)がそう思わないのか理解できません。

最後になりますが、前回のビデオで発言した事について修正させてください。私は塩水がどのようにして福島原発に使われたのかについて、中性子と触れて硫黄を生成したと話ました。その部分はあってます。しかし前回のビデオでは塩水中のナトリウムが中性子と触れ硫黄を生成したと述べました。実際には塩素です。塩水は塩化ナトリウムですが、これを誤ってナトリウムと言い間違いました。塩素が中性子と反応したのです。このご指摘をしてくださった視聴者の方々に感謝をいたします。 私はテレビ用プロンプター装置を使わないので、私の口は時々私の脳より少し速く動いてしまうのです。

では今日のところはこのくらいです。ハリケーンが去った後で、またお会いしましょう。

[/tab][/tabgroup]

Gundersen Discusses Level 4 Emergency Declared at the Ft. Calhoun Nuclear Plant in Nebraska

About This Interview

"Five O'Clock Shadow" with Robert Knight: On June 6, 2011, the Fort Calhoun pressurized water nuclear reactor 20 miles north of Omaha, Nebraska entered emergency status due to imminent flooding from the Missouri River. A day later, there was an electrical fire requiring plant evacuation. Then, on June 8th, NRC event reports confirmed the fire resulted in the loss of cooling for the reactor's spent fuel pool. The discussion includes specific details of the technical failures at Fort Calhoun, the risks of coolant loss at overcrowded "spent" fuel pools, and the national hazards of nuclear facilities along the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, and other water sites during the current period of floods and climate change.

Transcript

Robert Knight Radio Show, in early June 2011, Part 1 of 3

Announcer: Well today OPPD declares a notification of unusal events at the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Station. OPPD did not want KMTV Action 3 News to shoot this video. But because the Missouri River is a public waterway, we feel it is our job and our right to show the

public what is happening at the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Station.

Water in many places already up to the buildings, with the flood expected to rise another 5 feet or more this summer. And we are told no release of radioactive material has happened or is expected.

Robert Knight: This is 5 o’clock Shadow on the Pacifica Radio Network. I’m Robert Knight in New York. We continue today our coverage of developing events at the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant in Nebraska, just north of the major city of Omaha. During our last report, it was revealed that there had been a Level 4 emergency declared at the plant because of the imminence of flooding from the Missouri River. The Army Corps of Engineers advised that the height of the river would be reaching, or soon exceeding, 1,004 feet above median sea level. And in that interval, the plant was required to go into emergency operations to defend and protect against flooding, of which there have been problems in the past at that plant with leakage passageways at the junctions of walls and of pipes and other related items.

During our last report, yet more news came in that during the day, there was a fire, an electrical fire, in a basement of that nuclear power plant, that caused an evacuation of the plant from approximately 9:30 or 9:40 a.m. local time until after 1 p.m., approximately 1:30 p.m. local time.

During that time, part of the plant was rendered inaccessible because of poisonous gasses and gasses that were used to extinguish the electrical fire. It gets even worse. We now know that the systems that were incapacitated by that fire at this nuclear power plant called Fort Calhoun in Nebraska . . . It had been shut down for refueling, but this electrical fire incapacitated parts of the cooling system for the spent fuel pool. Listeners might recall that one of the great hazards at Fukushima is the tremendously over the fact spent fuel pool at unit #4.

This is an important story and we are honored to have with us one of the most prominent experts on these issues, Arnie Gundersen, a former nuclear power plant operator and Chief Advisor for Fairewinds Associates. Arnie Gundersen, what is the latest you know about what is going on and what has happened and been minimized in the reportage generally about the situation at Fort Calhoun?

Arnie Gundersen: Thank you for having me. Your summary was really excellent. The sandbags and nuclear power plants really do not belong in the same sentence and now we are seeing one that is literally putting sandbags up to reinforce themselves against the

flood. I think the real issue here is why are we having the flood?

There is a lot of snow in the Rockies this year, more so than a long time, and all of the dams upstream are full. So all of them are just opening up their water and letting it cascade down to the next dam, which is letting it cascade down to the next dam.

The plant was designed against a flood. It cannot get much worse than this or else it is going to breech the walls. But my concern is, what if the dam breaks? That would be the equivalent of the Fukushima tsunami. These dams are filled to the brim and there is more than one, so it doesn’t mean that the one that is immediately upstream has to break, it is any one of the series has to break, which could inundate this like Fukushima was with essentially an inland tsunami. The dams are not structurally sound or built to the same standards as the nuclear plant, but in fact, the nuke plant is now relying on the integrity of something that is basically a big earthen berm.

Robert Knight: If one of these almost like an electrical circuit in series, resistors in series, if these dams, which we might liken to resistors, any one of them broke, that would put extra stress on all the ones downstream of it, would it not?

Arnie Gundersen: That is correct. It will probably ride out the storm if the storm doesn’t get any worse. They are within a foot or two of what they were designed for and hopefully, it looks like at the flows that are coming out of the dams as the Corps of Engineers has opened the valves, they can just barely get by. But if Mother Nature throws us a knuckle ball here, all bets are off.

Robert Knight: We have seen reports that the water is already treading on the edges and the walls of this nuclear power plant.

There was a television station near the nuclear power site that, despite the admonitions of the nuclear power company because the Missouri River is a public waterway, went boating up to the edge of the plant and saw it at the jeapardy of the encroaching water, 1,004 feet above sea level going up and the Weather Service and the Army Corps of Engineers says that it is expected to do nothing but rise until well into the summer of this year 2011.

Generically speaking, Arnie Gundersen, plant operator and advisor on nuclear issues for Fairewinds Associates, what is wrong with water in a nuclear power plant? What are the hazards in the basement?

Arnie Gundersen: There is safety related equipment that when the nuclear chain reaction stops and this plant is shut down, it was shut down in April for a routine refueling, and then they said, oh my god we got this flood coming, we better NOT start it back up. It was scheduled to be running by now. But even though it is shut down, there still is an enormous amount of heat left over from the particles that are left behind called radioactive “daughter” products. And we have seen that at Fukushima. The plant is still steaming because of all of that residual heat, called decay heat.

You have got to get rid of that, even after you have shut down the plant and so there are pumps, like the ones that failed last night, that are required to run for months, even years, after the plant is shut down, to keep the nuclear core cool. And of course the concern last night was that two pumps failed in the fire, not the nuclear core, it remained cooled through a different set of pumps, but the pumps that failed last night didn’t cool the fuel pool, so the fuel pool began to get hot. They recovered the pumps and the fuel pool cooled back down again. We all have Fukushima in our minds. Units 4 and Unit’s 3 fuel pool are sitting there smoldering, right on the edge of boiling, and normally these things should be at roughly 60 or 70 degrees. So they are not designed to boil in a nuclear fuel pool.

Robert Knight: In the process of refueling this Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant, does the main assembly, the nuclear pile, does it stay inside the reactor, or is the whole assembly moved to a spent fuel pool? Where is the fuel, I understand that about one third of it, one third of the columns of uranium and perhaps other oxides, were to have been taken out and replaced. Where is that stuff? Is it in the reactor or in the spent fuel pool and what would you estimate to be the capacity of radioactive materials in the pool? And as a follow up to that, Arnie Gundersen, does heating tempt the process of zircaloy hydrogenization?

Arnie Gundersen: There was one third of the nuclear core that has been removed and is in the fuel pool, along with many other nuclear cores. There is 20 years or more worth of nuclear cores in the fuel pool. That is on the pumps that failed last night. So that that generates an enormous amount of heat. The closest example that I could tell you is Fukushima 4, which you recall the pictures of steam just pouring out of that fuel pool. Without water, that fuel pool would boil dry in several days.

Well, the NRC’s position is that you don’t need to call that an emergency pump, because you have several days and you can always spray water in and things like that. The problem with that argument is, that as it is boiling, or approaching boiling, it releases an enormous amount of humidity and that wipes out all of the electrical wiring in the containment. So you don’t want to get anywhere near boiling, and I don’t know that the NRC really understands that issue yet.

The other issue of what is in the nuclear reactor, there is fresh fuel plus two thirds of the nuclear core and the pumps that cool the nuclear reactor, the NRC considers safety related. The pumps that cool the fuel pool, the NRC says are not. And those are in separate cooling systems. They were not involved in the fire last night. But the flood is encroaching on all of that wire. Unlike Fukushima, the diesels are high enough, so that as the flood comes up they will probably be able to retain diesel power. Unless there is a bigger wave from a dam collapse. I think that is the lesson here, that Mother Nature can throw things at us that we did not anticipate.

Let’s hope that a flood like the one we are seeing is as bad as it is going to get.

Robert Knight: This is 5 o’clock Shadow on the Pacifica Radio Network. I’m Robert Knight in New York and that’s Arnie Gunderson in Vermont.

Arnie, one of the beauties of this kind of listener sponsored broadcasting is that we can look in more depth than the superfficial ways in which much nuclear news is being covered if at all. In the past day and a half or so, most conventional press reports simply said well, there was no danger of the release of radiation and did NOT sufficiently, in our opinion, address the issue of the potential heating up of the spent fuel well, the loss of monitoring, or the loss of cooling sytems and such.

Because we have this opportunity, I’d like you, as a nuclear expert, to help us walk through the nuclear event reports from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. As of the 7th of June 2011, there was not a report on that day of the electrical fire, after the flooding emergency was declared on the 6th of June.

However, today we now have some items from the NRC’s event reports, which, if anybody needs a frightening bedtime story, just read these each and every day. Arnie, I’d like to actually take some time to be very specific with you so you can translate this for our audience. OK?

Arnie Gundersen: OK, go ahead.

Robert Knight: This is the nuclear event report for the 8th of June, 2011 in regard to the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant. I’m going to read four segments seriatum. Beginning at about 9:30 Central Daylight Time, the licensee noted fire in the west switchgear room. The fire brigade responded and found a room filled with smoke but no active fire. Halon did discharge in the room. At 09:56 CDT, offsite assistance was called and Blair Fire Department responded to the site. Blair Fire Department confirmed no active fire in the switchgear room. All offsite power remained available as well as the emergency diesel generators if needed. The licensee is currently attempting to ventilate the room, a thorough inspection of the affected area, and determine the cause of the electrical thought will be facilitated once the room has been fully ventilated.

What is a switch gear room and what level of disorder was taking place at that time?