Busby - Cold Shutdown Extremely Unlikely at Fukushima

Professor Christopher Busby, scientific secretary to the European Committee on Radiation Risks talks to Russia Today Dec 27, 2011 about the situation at the Fukushima Nuclear Plant. Cold Shutdown Extremely Unlikely. This is an Criminal Affair with the Japanese government and IAEA publishing understated figures on the spread of the radiation.

Transcribed Video:

RT: Fukushima crisis says that it was down to the plants operators being ill prepared and not responding properly to the quake and tsunami disaster. A major government inquire said some engineers abandoned the plant as the trouble started and other staff delayed reporting significant radiation leaks. To discuss more on this I am joined by Professor Christopher Busby, scientific secretary to the European Committee on Radiation Risks.

RT: Thanks for joining us, so the report claims that the operators failed to respond properly and you said before that the authorities had been lax and slow in handling the situation. To what extent do you feel the assessment has been confirmed by these findings?

Busby: Well I think my assessment has been confirmed 100% but I do have to say that I don't think that this enquiry has goon far enough. Because there are lots of questions that they haven't asked and lots of questions that still haven't been answered.

RT: What are some of those?

Busby: Well the main, the most important one has to do with the health effects off the contamination. Now it's kind of assumed that everybody knows that these health effects are not going to be serious, but just like I said before that this was a much more serious incident than anyone were suggesting at the time. I'm now saying or have been saying all along that the health effects will be very much more serious than anyone is saying now. And I can tell you now there will probably be in some years time another enquiry that will show also that I am right there. And this is really sad because actually if they did concede that there was a big problem then people could be moved out and other activities could take place which would ensure that fewer people got sick than are going to.

RT: Why do you think it has taken Japan so long to admit that it's response was inadequate.

Busby: I think that there is an enormous pressure from the nuclear industry and from the people who stand to loose a lot of money with regard to the general nuclear expansion scenario that we have been seeing in the last year or two. I mean for the nuclear industry, this was an absolute disaster and it does seem to me from not only the way in which the Japanese has been constrained to handle this event but also the way in which people all over the world are handling this event through the media. I have to say not Russia Today, and I am very pleased about that. There does seem to be an enormous iron grip on the media with regard to the effects of this terrifying accident, this catastrophe.

RT: The report also said the government published understated figures on the spread of the radiation, can that be justified when millions of life's are at risk.

Busby: Well of course that really is an criminal event as I said before. This is criminal irresponsibility because if people had known the extent of the radioactivity, had the government and I also have to say the international atomic energy agency come clean with the extent of the contamination people would have left. People would have got out and these people who didn't get out would have been seriously contaminated and this will effect their health. So really this is quite an criminal affair and I would hope that eventually that someone would be brought to justice, or at least there should be some court case about it.

RT: Japanese officials claim the plant is now under control but there have been reports that many Fukushima evacuees remain reluctant to return to their homes, do you think those concerns are valid?

Busby: I think that those people should not return to their homes and I think it's extremely unlikely that these reactors are in what they call cold shutdown, I mean I think this is discourse manipulation. Very recently Xenon Isotopes have been released from those plants, and these Xenon Isotopes have sufficiently short half life's for us to know that fissioning is still taking place in those reactors.

RT: Alright and briefly, what do you think should be done with the Japanese nuclear network now?

Busby: Well you know the Japanese nuclear network was always dangerous, it was always built on the coasts in areas where there was tsunamis, it was always build in areas where there possibly were going to be earthquakes so really if I were the Japanese people I would demand that the government closed down the entire nuclear operation in Japan and revert to some other form of generating energy.

RT: What would that be you think?

Busby: Well there have been studies made that show that Japanese, that Japan is very rich in wind power and there is lots of ways in which you can get alternative generation of electricity. But the main problem of course is that there is to much electricity being used, we are burning up the planet in order to continue with a lifestyle which really is not sustainable and I think that is the real answer to all of these questions about nuclear and fossil fuel and the rest of it, we are just burning to much fuel.

RT: Alright we have to leave it there Professor Christopher Busby, scientific secretary to the European Committee on Radiation Risks thanks for your time.