Fukushima Daiichi: The Truth and the Future
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0:07 - 0:11[Maggie Gundersen] Hello Mr. Hirose and hello people of Kansai.
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0:11 - 0:16I am Maggie Gundersen. I am the President and the founder of Fairewinds Associates
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0:16 - 0:22and the founding director of Fairewinds Energy Education non-profit.
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0:22 - 0:29I am here today with Arnie Gundersen, my husband, and Chief Engineer for Fairewinds Associates.
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0:29 - 0:36We are here today to talk to you about the triple meltdown at Fukushima-Daiichi.
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0:36 - 0:39We hope to answer all your questions.
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0:39 - 0:44I wish we could have joined you in person, but I thank you for watching this video
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0:44 - 0:50and please send us any follow-up questions. We will be happy to answer them.
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0:50 - 0:55Now let's bring Arnie into this conversation.
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0:55 - 1:01Arnie, how dangerous is the situation now at Fukushima-Daiichi Unit 4,
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1:01 - 1:06particularly in Japan with its continuous danger of earthquakes,
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1:06 - 1:12and seismic activity and chance for an additional tsunami.
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1:12 - 1:18[Arnie Gundersen] Unit 4 has always been my biggest concern.
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1:18 - 1:24If you watched our website on the very first week of the accident I was saying
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1:24 - 1:29that if Unit 4 were to catch fire, you would have to evacuate Tokyo.
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1:29 - 1:35As a matter of fact the book that we wrote talks about that a lot.
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1:35 - 1:44It is really important and it remains the biggest concern that I have about the Fukushima site.
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1:44 - 1:52Unit 4 has more fuel in it than any of the other units in the complex,
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1:52 - 1:58but more importantly it has the most recently used nuclear fuel.
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1:58 - 2:05And all of that fuel is outside of the containment.
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2:05 - 2:08So that would make it dangerous enough.
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2:08 - 2:17Except that also, of course, Unit 4 has had a series of explosions and is weakened structurally.
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2:17 - 2:22Before it might have withstood a 7.5 earthquake.
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2:22 - 2:32I believe that the structural damage to Unit 4 is so great that if there is a 7.5 earthquake, it will not withstand it.
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2:32 - 2:41Here is what would happen if Unit 4 were to crack and the water were to drain out of the nuclear fuel pool.
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2:41 - 2:52The fuel is hot enough that it needs to be water-cooled. If air is all there is cooling the fuel, it will burn.
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2:52 - 3:01It will burn the zircaloy cladding on the fuel, (and) will react with the oxygen to create a fire.
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3:01 - 3:09And it is a fire that once it starts, cannot be put out by water. Water would make it worse.
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3:09 - 3:16So the nuclear fuel would have to burn completely before the fire would ever go out.
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3:16 - 3:27In the process, all that radiation would go up into the atmosphere and blow all over Japan and all over the world.
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3:27 - 3:32There is as much cesium in the fuel pool at Unit 4 as there was
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3:32 - 3:42in all of the atomic bombs dropped in all of the tests in the 1940's, the 1950's, the 1960's, and into the 1970's.
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3:42 - 3:53All of the above ground testing has less cesium in it than is in the reactor pool at Fukushima 4 right now.
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3:53 - 4:02So it is a grave situation. I don't believe that the Japanese Government is moving fast enough.
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4:02 - 4:10If there is no earthquake, the plan to remove the fuel slowly is going to be adequate.
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4:10 - 4:13But we cannot wait on Mother Nature.
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4:13 - 4:20We have to quickly move that fuel out of that pool and onto the ground.
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4:20 - 4:24The key here is quickly.
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4:24 - 4:28The Japanese Government finally just this month came up with a plan
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4:28 - 4:39to build a building around the fuel pool building and begin removing the fuel in 2013 or 2014.
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4:39 - 4:48I said that that is what they needed to do on the Fairewinds site in an interview with Chris Martenson a year ago.
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4:48 - 4:54These things have been evident, but TEPCO is not moving fast enough,
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4:54 - 5:00and the Japanese Government is not pushing TEPCO to move fast enough either.
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5:00 - 5:06I think the top priority of TEPCO and the top priority of the Japanese Government should be
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5:06 - 5:13to move the fuel out of that pool just as quickly as possible.
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5:13 - 5:20And in the meantime, they need to strengthen that pool to make sure that it can withstand an earthquake.
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5:20 - 5:27Remember, that pool is not in a containment. You can look down in a satellite and see the nuclear fuel.
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5:27 - 5:33The roof is blown off. And that is what makes it dangerous.
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5:33 - 5:41In America, we had the Brookhaven National Laboratory do a study to examine what would happen in a fuel pool fire.
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5:41 - 5:48Brookhaven National Labs determined that there would be 187,000 people
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5:48 - 5:54who would develop cancer from a fuel pool fire.
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5:54 - 5:58It is a serious concern and I do not believe that Tokyo Electric,
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5:58 - 6:03and I do not believe that the Japanese Government is taking it seriously enough.
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6:03 - 6:09For the last year I have been working with Akio Matsumora and finally it appears
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6:09 - 6:15that the world community is listening to Akio Matsumora's concerns about the pool.
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6:15 - 6:20We need to tackle this as a concerned world community,
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6:20 - 6:27and encourage the Japanese Government and encourage Tokyo Electric to solve it quickly.
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6:27 - 6:33[Maggie Gundersen] Arnie you mentioned cesium in your earlier discussion. Why is it important?
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6:33 - 6:38What is the health effect of cesium and are there any other radioactive isotopes
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6:38 - 6:42that would have been released during the triple meltdown?
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6:42 - 6:49[Arnie Gundersen] Cesium is one of many radioactive isotopes that are created in a nuclear reactor.
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6:49 - 6:59It has got a 30 year half life which means that it hangs around for 300 years and biologically it mimics potassium.
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6:59 - 7:03You might remember that if you have a muscle cramp, you eat a banana,
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7:03 - 7:06and it goes to your muscles and relieves the cramp.
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7:06 - 7:11Well, cesium also goes to your muscles. It is called a muscle seeker.
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7:11 - 7:19When it goes to your muscles, it can cause cancer, but it can also cause a variety of other illnesses.
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7:19 - 7:27The Brookhaven study only looks at cancer. It does not look at all the other things that radioactive cesium can do.
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7:27 - 7:31In young children with rapidly developing muscles, especially their heart muscle,
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7:31 - 7:37it can create something called Chernobyl Heart which is damage to the heart muscle,
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7:37 - 7:42which once it is damaged, never ever recovers for the life of the child.
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7:42 - 7:53So cesium is just one of many isotopes, but it is relatively easy to measure and also biologically causes
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7:53 - 7:59almost the most damage of any of the other isotopes that are in that reactor.
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7:59 - 8:06[Maggie Gundersen] Arnie, you have said that you believe the explosion at Unit 3 was a prompt criticality.
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8:06 - 8:11What is a prompt criticality and why do you believe that?
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8:11 - 8:21[Arnie Gundersen] I developed my concern about a prompt criticality because of the nature of the explosion in Unit 3.
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8:21 - 8:30Unit 1, when it exploded, blew sideways and with relatively low energy.
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8:30 - 8:36You can measure the rate at which it moves and it moves less than the speed of sound.
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8:36 - 8:43And that is called a deflagration. It does not do anywhere near as much damage.
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8:43 - 8:51When I looked at the explosion on Unit 3, however, it was entirely different. You can see it, it is not hard to see.
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8:51 - 9:00It is called a detonation. The speed at which Unit 3 exploded was faster than the speed of sound.
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9:00 - 9:04And the important thing is not how Unit 3 exploded.
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9:04 - 9:12What is the most important thing is that it exploded with a detonation, not a deflagration.
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9:12 - 9:16The nuclear industry is not paying attention to this now, but it should be,
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9:16 - 9:22because a nuclear containment can handle the slow moving deflagration,
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9:22 - 9:28but it cannot handle the fast moving detonation.
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9:28 - 9:34The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the international community are absolutely ignoring the fact,
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9:34 - 9:39that a detonation occurred in Unit 3.
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9:39 - 9:44Well how did a detonation occur? That was the question I asked myself.
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9:44 - 9:53I checked with chemists and atmospheric pressure and hydrogen will not create a detonation.
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9:53 - 10:04Like on Unit 1 it will only create a deflagration. So I needed to figure out how a detonation could occur.
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10:04 - 10:06But there are a couple of other clues here.
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10:06 - 10:11One clue is that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission way back in March of last year,
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10:11 - 10:19wrote a report that is on our website, that talks about nuclear fuel being deposited on the site
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10:19 - 10:25and nuclear fuel being discovered as far away as two kilometers.
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10:25 - 10:31How can nuclear fuel get blown out of a nuclear reactor?
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10:31 - 10:36The fuel that is inside the reactor is also inside the containment,
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10:36 - 10:40and there is no indication of a massive containment failure
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10:40 - 10:45and a massive reactor failure that could have thrown the nuclear fuel out.
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10:45 - 10:55So I had to come up with a reason that the nuclear fuel could have been released in pieces, not little fine atoms,
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10:55 - 11:01but in pieces which is what the Nuclear Regulatory Commission says was discovered.
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11:01 - 11:10The only way that could happen is if the explosion occurred in the nuclear fuel pool at Unit 3.
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11:10 - 11:18Now if you look at the video of Unit 3, the very first frames show the explosion occurring on the side of the building
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11:18 - 11:22and that is the side of the building that has the nuclear fuel pool.
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11:22 - 11:30It started on the nuclear fuel pool side and then worked it's way up into the massive cloud that you see.
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11:30 - 11:39So what could have caused that? That is the question. Hydrogen would have been above the nuclear fuel,
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11:39 - 11:46it would have been a gas above the nuclear fuel and if it had exploded, it would have pushed the nuclear fuel down.
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11:46 - 11:51That is not what happened. Remember, we have fuel fragments found off-site.
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11:51 - 11:55Something had to lift the nuclear fuel up.
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11:55 - 12:05The only thing I could determine is that it was a criticality in the fuel pool that caused the fuel to lift up.
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12:05 - 12:14The division I ran built nuclear fuel racks for boiling water reactors exactly like Fukushima.
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12:14 - 12:24The dense fuel racks that are now in every reactor everywhere are very close to becoming critical anyway.
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12:24 - 12:30And in the accident situation where there was seismic event and explosions occurring,
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12:30 - 12:35it is likely that they were very near to becoming critical.
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12:35 - 12:42And what that means is that they were very near to becoming a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.
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12:42 - 12:49Way back in college 40 years ago, we watched a movie called the Borax Experiment.
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12:49 - 12:52You can find it on the web today.
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12:52 - 12:58The explosion at Borax was a prompt moderated criticality.
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12:58 - 13:04It looks almost exactly like the explosion in Fukushima unit 3.
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13:04 - 13:13So an image I had from 40 years ago led me to conclude that the same thing happened in Unit 3.
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13:13 - 13:20That a criticality occurred in the fuel pool and it pushed some of the nuclear fuel up into pellets,
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13:20 - 13:24and the pellets wound up scattered around the site.
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13:24 - 13:37Now, the criticality is called prompt moderated criticality. It is not a bomb. A bomb is a prompt fast criticality.
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13:37 - 13:46This reaction occurs slower than a bomb, but faster than what occurs inside a nuclear reactor.
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13:46 - 13:53The Borax experiments were designed to test just how violent that reaction could be.
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13:53 - 13:59I think if you look at Borax and compare it to Fukushima Unit 3,
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13:59 - 14:02you will see that there are an awful lot of similarities.
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14:02 - 14:06Again this is a theory, but it is the only theory,
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14:06 - 14:11that accounts for the explosion occurring on the side where the fuel pool is,
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14:11 - 14:20and it is the only theory that creates the uplift force that caused the fuel particles to be thrown about the site
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14:20 - 14:24and discovered as far as 2 kilometers away.
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14:24 - 14:34Well there is one more piece of evidence and that is that the roof over the fuel pool has been totally destroyed
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14:34 - 14:41whereas the roof over the nuclear reactor and the containment, collapsed downward.
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14:41 - 14:47We talk about that in a video on the site as well and I think that is another important indication
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14:47 - 14:54that whatever it was that caused the fuel to lift occurred on the fuel pool side of the building,
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14:54 - 14:59and not in the middle where the nuclear reactor was.
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14:59 - 15:08The videos after the accident and after the explosion show containment leaks as well.
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15:08 - 15:14You will see in the weeks afterward, steam coming from the center of the building.
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15:14 - 15:19And I believe that the containment lid lifted on Unit 3,
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15:19 - 15:25and never went back down straight, so it has lifted and twisted sideways
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15:25 - 15:30and radioactive gasses are lifting from that containment lid.
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15:30 - 15:38But there is not enough evidence to say that that is what caused the explosion that we saw during the accident.
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15:38 - 15:46The jury is still out and will be for 10 years until we get inside the Fukushima reactor to see what the damage is.
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15:46 - 15:53But right now, I think my theory accounts for the damage, the speed of the shock wave,
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15:53 - 16:02and also the fact that the contamination has been found as far away as 2 kilometers.
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16:02 - 16:05[Maggie Gundersen] Arnie, let's talk about the Unit 4 spent fuel pool.
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16:05 - 16:10There have been a lot of questions about that and a lot of concerns right now.
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16:10 - 16:16Was there a hydrogen explosion at the Unit 4 spent fuel pool and if there was,
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16:16 - 16:20what is a hydrogen explosion and why would it have occurred there?
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16:20 - 16:28[Arnie Gundersen] One of the biggest mysteries at Fukushima is how did Fukushima Unit 4 explode?
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16:28 - 16:34There are a couple of very, very grainy videos that clearly show it did explode.
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16:34 - 16:43It was a different type of explosion and perhaps a fire and an explosion that went on for a period of days.
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16:43 - 16:52So exactly how it did explode is one of the big questions about the Fukushima accident.
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16:52 - 16:55There are 3 competing theories.
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16:55 - 17:03Tokyo Electric says that the radioactive gasses over in Unit 3 went through a pipe
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17:03 - 17:11that connected Unit 4 and entered Unit 4 causing Unit 4 to explode.
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17:11 - 17:19So Tokyo Electric's position is that the radioactive hydrogen that was created in Unit 3
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17:19 - 17:25went through a pipe, entered Unit 4, and there it exploded.
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17:25 - 17:29There is one piece of evidence that supports that.
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17:29 - 17:37There is some contamination in some filters in Unit 4 that would indicate that gasses did come from Unit 3.
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17:37 - 17:43So that is a possibility, but I do not think it is accurate because I believe
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17:43 - 17:54that the containment was so damaged on Unit 3, that there was no pressure to push those gasses into Unit 4.
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17:54 - 18:02I can't understand how the gasses, what the mode of force was to push those gasses into Unit 4.
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18:02 - 18:08I think the hydrogen explosion came from something in side Unit 4 itself.
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18:08 - 18:11There are two possibilities there.
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18:11 - 18:18One is by Dr. Gen Saji and it is an excellent analysis.
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18:18 - 18:22He believes that the hydrogen in the water in the pool,
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18:22 - 18:28that was dissolved because of the radiation in the pool over months and months and months,
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18:28 - 18:33was enough to cause the building to explode.
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18:33 - 18:39As the water got hot in the fuel pool, it liberated the hydrogen that was in the water
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18:39 - 18:45and that hydrogen was enough to cause the explosion.
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18:45 - 18:51The second possibility, and this is my theory, early on in the accident,
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18:51 - 19:00there is some video that is up on our site, that shows that the top of the fuel racks were exposed to air.
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19:00 - 19:06I am not suggesting that the entire fuel pool ran dry.
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19:06 - 19:12But the top of the nuclear fuel I believe was exposed to air and I think the photos show that.
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19:12 - 19:21So if the top of the fuel was exposed to air, it is possible that a reaction could have occurred at the top of the fuel
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19:21 - 19:26that would have created enough hydrogen to blow the building up.
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19:26 - 19:34Dr. Saji and I agree that the hydrogen came from the Unit 4 fuel pool. He believes it was dissolved in the water.
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19:34 - 19:42I believe it came from the fuel. Only time will tell when we get in to analyze the reaction.
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19:42 - 19:49But there is an important lesson here that the nuclear industry is not taking into account.
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19:49 - 19:53And that is the fuel pool temperature.
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19:53 - 19:59The fuel pool is a large pool and it can boil locally.
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19:59 - 20:05And that is something the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the international community is not looking at.
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20:05 - 20:13You can get local boiling in a pool even though the bulk temperature of the pool may be at 80 degrees Celsius.
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20:13 - 20:17In portions of the pool, it can be boiling.
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20:17 - 20:24That supports Dr. Saji's comment that as it boiled it would liberate hydrogen,
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20:24 - 20:28even though the bulk temperature never ever exceeded boiling.
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20:28 - 20:35My theory is that I do believe that the entire pool had drained to the point where there was boiling occurring.
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20:35 - 20:44But the real issue here is that the nuclear industry is not looking at the fact that localized boiling can occur
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20:44 - 20:49even though the bulk temperature might be less than 100 degrees centigrade.
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20:49 - 20:52That is an important distinction moving forward.
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20:52 - 20:59We have about 23 of these Mark I reactors in the United States and there are another 10 or so around the world.
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20:59 - 21:08I think that we need to design these pools so that the hydrogen generated by dissociation
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21:08 - 21:14can be accommodated without exploding the building.
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21:14 - 21:18No one ever designed for that because no one ever anticipated it happening.
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21:18 - 21:23But it did happen at Unit 4 and we need to prevent that in the future.
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21:23 - 21:28Not just on these Mark I reactors but on the 400 reactors that all have fuel pools
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21:28 - 21:33that are all susceptible to that identical type of failure.
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21:33 - 21:37[Maggie Gundersen] Arnie, I want to follow up with a few more questions.
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21:37 - 21:43In your discussion of Unit 4, you have talked about its hydrogen explosion.
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21:43 - 21:49Is there any chance of a prompt criticality or a hydrogen explosion now at Unit 4?
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21:49 - 21:56Would anything cause it to release more fuel or more radioactivity?
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21:56 - 22:03[Arnie Gundersen] The fuel in the fuel pool at Unit 4 has now been cooled for about a year after the accident
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22:03 - 22:11and it had been removed a couple of months before that. So the fuel is becoming cooler.
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22:11 - 22:20It still needs to be water-cooled for another 2 years, but it is much cooler than it was at the beginning of the accident.
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22:20 - 22:30So the chances of hydrogen generation are much, much lower now than when the accident occurred.
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22:30 - 22:40So I do not believe that we are going to see an explosion in the pool now, no matter what happens.
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22:40 - 22:48My biggest concern is that if the pool loses water, then it is an entirely different story.
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22:48 - 22:56So if there is a large seismic event that causes the building to topple, or the pool to crack and the water to drain out,
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22:56 - 23:03there is not enough cooling in the air of that fuel, and it will start to burn.
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23:03 - 23:07Now the consequences of that are depending on which way the wind is blowing,
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23:07 - 23:15it could mean the evacuation of Tokyo as a worst case. It could also mean cutting Japan in half
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23:15 - 23:21so that the northern part is separated from the southern part by a band of contamination.
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23:21 - 23:29So this is a very serious accident waiting to happen and we just all have to pray
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23:29 - 23:33that an earthquake does not happen before that fuel is removed.
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23:33 - 23:39[Maggie Gundersen] Arnie, compared to the accident at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl,
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23:39 - 23:48how dangerous are the radioactive releases from the four reactors at Fukushima-Daiichi?
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23:48 - 23:57[Arnie Gundersen] Three Mile Island was a level 5 accident and Chernobyl and Fukushima are level 7 accidents.
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23:57 - 24:02That means roughly that Three Mile Island was a 100 times less
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24:02 - 24:08than the accident at Chernobyl and the accident at Fukushima.
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24:08 - 24:14People did die as a result of the accident at Three Mile Island.
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24:14 - 24:18The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says no, no one died, on their web page.
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24:18 - 24:22But the evidence is clear that there was an increase in cancer.
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24:22 - 24:28I refer you to Dr. Steve Wing's report that is also on our site that talks about it.
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24:28 - 24:32And in addition some reports coming out of the University of Pittsburgh indicate just now,
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24:32 - 24:37that we are beginning to see leukemia as a result.
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24:37 - 24:42So while Three Mile Island was much less than either Chernobyl or Fukushima,
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24:42 - 24:47people did die as a result of the radiation released.
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24:47 - 24:55At Fukushima-Daiichi the evidence tells us that at least three times more radiation
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24:55 - 25:03in the form of noble gasses were released from Units 1, 2 and 3 than from Chernobyl.
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25:03 - 25:09We have seen radioactive gas clouds, noble gas clouds to the northwest,
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25:09 - 25:15that are much worse than we ever anticipated to have been released.
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25:15 - 25:21So we know that the noble gasses were larger than Chernobyl.
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25:21 - 25:25Now iodine, which is another gas that is released,
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25:25 - 25:33and also cesium and other gasses, seem to be roughly on the same level as the releases from Chernobyl.
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25:33 - 25:41There are 2 issues here. As terrible as it is, it would have been much worse but for 2 things.
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25:41 - 25:45The first is that most of the time the wind was blowing out to sea.
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25:45 - 25:48And of course Chernobyl was surrounded by land,
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25:48 - 25:54so whatever way the plume meandered after Chernobyl, it contaminated the land.
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25:54 - 26:00So when we compare Fukushima to Chernobyl, the total releases from Fukushima
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26:00 - 26:04are likely higher than they were at Chernobyl,
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26:04 - 26:10but because most of it blew out to sea, that is a good thing for the Japanese people.
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26:10 - 26:13The second important thing that happened that was lucky,
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26:13 - 26:21if we can call it luck in such a severe accident, was that it happened on a Friday and not on a weekend.
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26:21 - 26:26There were a thousand people at the Daini site and at the Daiichi site,
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26:26 - 26:31because it was a weekday, who could respond to the accident.
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26:31 - 26:37If it had happened on a weekend, there would have been a small crew of people there,
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26:37 - 26:42and the accidents at both sites would have been much much worse.
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26:42 - 26:48Now that has an implication worldwide, because on weekends and in the evenings,
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26:48 - 26:52we have very small crews at these nuclear reactors.
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26:52 - 26:57And should there be a major accident, there is no way to respond quickly enough
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26:57 - 27:01with the small crew of people that are working on the shifts,
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27:01 - 27:05other than the main shift in the middle of the day.
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27:05 - 27:08The international community needs to look at that,
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27:08 - 27:13and it is not a matter of "well, we can get people there in a half a day."
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27:13 - 27:20That is too late. The staff on site has to be larger at the beginning of the accident,
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27:20 - 27:27to mitigate the potential for a serious accident. But yet it all boils down to money.
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27:27 - 27:34The utilities that run these power plants really do not want a large staff because they have to pay for it.
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27:34 - 27:44But in fact, it was the large staff at Daiichi and the large staff at Daini that likely saved the world.
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27:44 - 27:55So the important take-away here is that the releases from Fukushima are as serious if not more so than Chernobyl.
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27:55 - 28:00And that they would have been much worse if the accident had happened on a weekend.
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28:00 - 28:07[Maggie Gundersen] Arnie, thank you. How significant is the danger of hot particles and why?
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28:07 - 28:14[Arnie Gundersen] I am really concerned about the hot particles that were released after the Fukushima accident.
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28:14 - 28:18Now a hot particle is more than just a single atom.
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28:18 - 28:25An atom of cesium decays once and it is over, it is no longer radioactive.
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28:25 - 28:34A hot particle though, contains thousands or hundreds of thousands of atoms of cesium or other radioactive material
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28:34 - 28:40and they, of course, decay for many, many years and decades.
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28:40 - 28:51So if a hot particle is lodged inside you, either in your lung or in your liver or in your gastrointestinal tract,
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28:51 - 28:57it can cause a constant bombardment of radiation over a long period of time
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28:57 - 29:02to a very small localized part of your tissue.
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29:02 - 29:07And that is exactly the conditions that can cause a cancer.
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29:07 - 29:15So we have seen in Mr Kaltofen's analysis to the American Public Health Association:
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29:15 - 29:22he shows what an air filter looked like in a car in Fukushima and what an air filter looked like in a car in Tokyo.
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29:22 - 29:29Those air filters are no different than our lung, our lung acts as an air filter,
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29:29 - 29:37and that causes that radiation to get trapped in our lungs or in our livers or elsewhere in our bodies,
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29:37 - 29:44and will constantly, over decades, cause cellular damage.
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29:44 - 29:47It is particularly a concern in young children because they have a longer life,
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29:47 - 29:51and because their cells are rapidly developing.
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29:51 - 30:03So it is important that we monitor the children at Fukushima and throughout Japan over the next 3 or 4 decades
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30:03 - 30:12to make sure that they do not develop cancers as a result of the hot particles that were released from Fukushima-Daiichi.
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30:12 - 30:17[Maggie Gundersen] So Arnie, in closing, what do you want people to remember
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30:17 - 30:23from your review of the accident at Fukushima-Daiichi?
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30:23 - 30:27[Arnie Gundersen] About a month before the accident, we were walking and we were talking about an accident,
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30:27 - 30:31and where it might occur. And I said I did not know where it would occur,
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30:31 - 30:37but I thought it would occur in a boiling water reactor of the Fukushima design,
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30:37 - 30:42I said a Mark I reactor. In fact, that turned out to be true.
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30:42 - 30:52But I think the bigger lesson from Fukushima is that this is a technology that can destroy a nation.
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30:52 - 30:57After Fukushima I was reading Mikolai Gorbachov's memoirs,
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30:57 - 31:06and he says it was the Chernobyl accident, not Perestroika, that destroyed the Soviet Union.
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31:06 - 31:16So we had that information for 30 years but yet we really did not realize that it could happen elsewhere.
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31:16 - 31:23So we know that the accident at Chernobyl was a cause in the factor of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
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31:23 - 31:28And we know that the cost alone from the Fukushima-Daiichi accident
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31:28 - 31:36will easily go to a half a trillion US dollars over the next 20 years.
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31:36 - 31:39That is enough to bring Japan to its knees.
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31:39 - 31:42Japan is at a tipping point.
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31:42 - 31:48You have an opportunity here to change the way we use energy.
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31:48 - 31:54Or Japan can go back and turn on all its nuclear reactors again,
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31:54 - 31:59and continue business as usual and of course risk another accident.
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31:59 - 32:05So you have a choice, you have the opportunity to change the way you use energy,
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32:05 - 32:08and to change the way you distribute energy.
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32:08 - 32:14You can create smart grids that share power from the north to the south,
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32:14 - 32:18and from the east to the west, where the frequencies are different.
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32:18 - 32:24We can distribute our generation, instead of having massive power plants,
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32:24 - 32:30in locations like Fukushima-Daiichi and Fukushima-Danai.
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32:30 - 32:37We can distribute those power plants throughout Japan, throughout the world, with windmills, with solar power,
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32:37 - 32:44with conservation and with distributed small sources of generation.
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32:44 - 32:52Those are all one way of doing it compared to the other which we are presently using, which is central station power.
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32:52 - 32:55We needed central station power in the 20th century.
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32:55 - 33:00Now with computers, we do not need central station power anymore.
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33:00 - 33:06We can do it another way. And Japan can lead the way if it chooses to.
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33:06 - 33:12If it leads the way, it will have an export commodity that the rest of the world will want desperately.
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33:12 - 33:16You have an opportunity here to change your country.
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33:16 - 33:24And you also have a business opportunity here to sell to the rest of the world a product that we all desperately need.
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33:24 - 33:35So the Fukushima-Daiichi accident is the worst industrial accident in history: it is a half a trillion dollars.
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33:35 - 33:41But it also can be an opportunity for Japan to change the way it does business
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33:41 - 33:50and to create the economy for the 21st century and beyond, with distributed generation and smart grids.
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33:50 - 33:53I hope you choose that choice.
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33:53 - 33:58Japan is at a tipping point and it is your choice to make.
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33:58 - 34:03Thank you.
- Title:
- Fukushima Daiichi: The Truth and the Future
- Description:
-
As part of a presentation in Kansai, Japan on May 12th 2012, Maggie and Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Energy Education answered specific questions asked by symposium organizers regarding the condition of the spent fuel pool at Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4. Fairewinds analyzes the explosion at Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3. Also, Arnie discusses what the future may hold for Japan if it chooses a path without nuclear power.
- Video Language:
- English
Lorand Kedves edited English subtitles for Fukushima Daiichi: The Truth and the Future | ||
Lorand Kedves edited English subtitles for Fukushima Daiichi: The Truth and the Future | ||
Lorand Kedves edited English subtitles for Fukushima Daiichi: The Truth and the Future | ||
Lorand Kedves edited English subtitles for Fukushima Daiichi: The Truth and the Future | ||
Lorand Kedves added a translation |