Saturday, August 6, 2011

Arnie Gundersen: Lethal Levels of Radiation at Fukushima: What Are the Implications?

In the latest video on Fukushima (8/4/2011), Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Associates thinks 10-plus sieverts/hour radiation at the base of the exhaust duct is from cesium that has been released from the Containment Vessel of Reactor 1, condensed and accumulated at the bottom over time.

I don't necessarily agree with his hypothesis, but that's not what I was surprised when I saw the video. He says that the highly radioactive debris have been "bulldozed under", and when the debris are unearthed in the future we will see more high radiation spots.

I don't remember reading the news that the radioactive debris at the plant were ever actually buried. I remember one person who did say "Dig a hole, bury the debris so that the workers can work", Michio Ishikawa of the Japan Nuclear Technology Institute, a strong proponent of nuclear power who expressed a very pessimistic view of the TEPCO/government response to the Fukushima nuclear accident in late April.

Ishikawa also said the core had melted down and probably out of the RPV. That was officially admitted 2 weeks later. He also said a bridgehead must be built do the reactor, and forget about the turbine building. That also happened. Workers entered the reactor buildings, and they installed the heat exchangers for the Spent Fuel Pools (Reactors 2, 3, 4, and Reactor 1's heat exchanger has just been installed).

Is it possible that Ishikawa's suggestion on radioactive debris was also carried out? Or Is Gundersen simply mistaken? Or does he have some insider source?

Anyway, here's Mr. Gundersen's video:

Lethal Levels of Radiation at Fukushima: What Are the Implications? from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't necessarily agree with his hypothesis, "
you are right Gundersen falling behind the curve, need G.U.T.S to stick this 1 out.

Fall Out Man! said...

A Japanese news report recently on Enenews (I think) stated that Tepco was trucking debris off site and burying it. They had a photo of a large swimming pool like hole lined with what looked like plastic and a truck dumping debris into it. A local Japanese man had complained since when they dumped the stuff their his personal radiation meter went off scale.
Seeing that report in the past couple of days made me think the talk of earlier dumping in the sea (based on seeing cranes come in and move stuff around) and burial on site was likely true.

Fall Out Man! said...

Correction to my earlier post. I have found the story and its actually about Fukushima city dumping highly contaminated sludge and debris. In the process of dumping it they are causing new problems for residents they dump it next to of course. Here is the story...
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201108055290
( Apologies if ex-skf was the site I originally got this story from, I see enenews are only just showing it now as their latest posting )

arevamirpal::laprimavera said...

Thanks, Fall Out Man, I don't think I've ever seen that news anywhere in Japanese, not even at Asahi. I have to tell my Japanese readers..

Anonymous said...

.

As said earlier, Arnie the Deaf is an jesuMSM stooge... just to make you feel good. Close your ears, mute volume, like he did and agree = no xplosions.

OR. Turn up volume and listen how the plutonium reactor bleww and ditributed plutonium miles around: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_83clarF6AY

Btw. I am sorry (not) if your world crashed after the video.

.

elricky said...

This NY Times article from April 7 quotes "a western nuclear executive" on the bulldozing over of pieces of fuel rods:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/08/world/asia/08japan.html
"Broken pieces of fuel rods have been found outside of Reactor No. 2, and are now being covered with bulldozers, he said. The pieces may be from rods in the spent-fuel pools that were flung out by hydrogen explosions."

I assume that it's not Gundersen speaking there, because the article says he "spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect business connections in Japan."

Anonymous said...

Via TEPCO release
http://fukushimafaq.wikispaces.com/file/view/rst+assessment+26march11.pdf

"very high dose rate material that had to be bulldozed over between Units 3 and 4."

-Enenews

Anonymous said...

Correction: Not a TEPCO release, but the NRC Reactor Safety Team's assessment.

Anonymous said...

Robbie001 sez:

All of the bulldozing reports are based on a leaked NRC report (see below). It sounds plausible, I remember in the early days of the disaster the military brought in a shielded APC bulldozer to clear areas near the buildings so they could get the snorkels close enough to be effective. If the areas wasn't especially hot they could have used normal bulldozers I would bet a good portion of the smaller debris was plowed under.

"According to a confidential assessment prepared by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The document, which was obtained by The New York Times, provides a more detailed technical assessment than Japanese officials have provided of the conundrum facing the Japanese as they struggle to prevent more fuel from melting at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. he document also suggests that fragments or particles of nuclear fuel from spent fuel pools above the reactors were blown “up to one mile from the units,” and that pieces of highly radioactive material fell between two units and had to be “bulldozed over,” presumably to protect workers at the site. "

http://nuclearhistory.wordpress.com/2011/04/28/new-york-times-cites-confidential-nrc-fukushima-report/

"Fragments of incredibly dangerous nuclear fuel were blown out of the reactors "up to one mile from the units," and then simply bulldozed over to protect workers on site, according to the NRC report."

http://abcnews.go.com/International/karlinsky-tepco-nitrogen-radiation/story?id=13307084

Copy of NRC Document get it while you can (see pg 10):

http://www.scribd.com/doc/52467769/NRC-Rst-Assessment-26march11

"The report also suggests that a fourth explosion at the site in the early days after the quake may have occurred in the spent fuel pool at reactor No. 4 (I think they neglected #3) and may have scattered some pieces of uranium pellets around the site between the buildings. Workers may have bulldozed dirt over the radioactive pieces in an attempt to contain the radiation, the report said."

http://www.ufppc.org/us-a-world-news-mainmenu-35/10298-news-fukushima-leak-stopped-but-nrc-assessment-leaked-to-nyt-foresees-fresh-threats.html

Anonymous said...

I do agree with Mr. Gundersen, but its also somwhat "irrelevant", because its the general rad.level at the plant that is slowly mounting.
And we dont know anything and we are still feed lies and the downplaying is getting even wurse.

Thats the real fear, when hotspts trun up everywhere on the plant.
Remeber this high level of rad.readings is something expected and it will continoue to accumulate and rise.
What we all fear is the day multitute of hotspotts make is more and more difficoult to operate in the site and even electronics fry.
We get a steady streem of higher and higher reading, that worries me, more that anything else.

It seem that the people dont know about rad.fallout and mixes it with chemical spills.
The fact that burrying it will make the hole site even more radioactiv.
Out of sight and out of mind.
Thats a fals asumtion and a dangerous one.

Incompetence and stupidity, and mixed with knowledgness about fallout, thats what this is.
And the people will suffer from the consequences.

Anonymous said...

April 5 New Yorl Times... Bulldozed ... Fairewinds was correct ... The document also suggests that fragments or particles of nuclear fuel from spent fuel pools above the reactors were blown “up to one mile from the units,” and that pieces of highly radioactive material fell between two units and had to be “bulldozed over,” presumably to protect workers at the site. The ejection of nuclear material, which may have occurred during one of the earlier hydrogen explosions, may indicate more extensive damage to the extremely radioactive pools than previously disclosed.

Anonymous said...

debate over bulldozing misses the larger point in Gunderson's latest - if condensation from escaping radioactive gases has gradually accumulated into such lethal levels around the pipe (which would neatly explain why they didn't find the hot spot when they first monitored for same), then how much more radiation has escaped from the pipe over time from gases that remained gas?

Anonymous said...

Very bad news today.
Some people simply liars here.
Much worse. I can read faces.
I read Gunderson plainly in cheating bullshit.
I fear very bad info to come.

Anonymous said...

I like Arny, he has been giving key info so far. He is the first to have revealed that reactor 3 explosion was a nuclear explosion and not a hydrogen explosion. He is very well networked and tipped off.
From an engineering perspective, what he says makes plenty of sense and I am usually right regarding engineering.

We can see the nuclear activists trying to give him a bad reputation. It means that he is right.

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