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A Chinese nuclear power station is leaking radioactive gas and could become a major disaster, according to secret US intelligence reports.
Taishan Nuclear Power Plant, located in southern Guangdong province, is thought to have been leaking for at least two weeks after a French firm that co-owns the facility flagged the issue to Washington.
American agents have spent the last week monitoring the situation and have concluded it has the potential turn into a major disaster but that facility is not currently at 'crisis level'.
That is in stark contrast to the message being put out by the power plant's Chinese state owners, who insisted in a report published Sunday that everything is 'normal'.
Taishan Nuclear Power Plant, in southern China, has been leaking radioactive gas for two weeks and is at risk of becoming a disaster, US intelligence agencies have privately warned
Problems at the power plant first came to light in late May when French firm Framatome reached out to US intelligence agencies to alert them of it, according to documents sent to the Department of Energy and seen by CNN.
A follow-up memo sent on June 3 identified the issue as a 'fission gas leak' and asked for the DoE to share intelligence that might help solve the issue.
Fission gas is a radioactive biproduct of nuclear fission, where heavy atoms are split into lighter ones - a process which releases energy but also creates the waste gas.
Framatome apparently got no response and so sent another memo on June 8 asking for their message to be urgently reviewed.
In that note, they described the problem as 'an imminent radiological threat to the site' and warned that Chinese regulators had increased the 'safe' levels of radioactivity allowed around the plant.
Increasing the 'safe' limit means China has been able to keep the plant running instead of shutting it down to resolve the issue.
Framatome claimed China more-than doubled the limit, and that the new limit exceeds the current safety standards in France.
The French firm which co-owns the plant (file image) warned US officials of the threat two weeks ago while asking for help to fix it
The June 8 memo was picked up by the US State Department, setting off a flurry of activity over the last week that included meetings of senior figures on the National Security Council to assess the threat.
They concluded that while the plant could turn into a major disaster, they believe it is not in immediate danger of becoming one and it is more likely the issue will be resolved without seriously endangering the public.
It is not clear from CNN's report whether the intelligence agencies shared the information that Framatome were seeking.
The French firm openly acknowledged the problem on Monday, saying they are working to fix a 'performance issue' at the site.
Meanwhile French energy giant EDF also put out a statement on Monday, saying there has been an increase in noble gases detected in the plant's cooling system.
Noble gases are one of the biproducts of nuclear fission, and their presence in the cooling system may indicate a leak in the reactor.
EDF insisted the presence of noble gases in the cooling system 'is a known phenomenon, studied and provided for in the reactor operating procedures.'
The operator of the power station, state-owned China General Nuclear Power Group, said in a statement on Sunday evening that 'the environmental indicators of Taishan Nuclear Power Plant and its surroundings are normal'.
The Chinese state-run firm which owns the nuclear facility insisted in a report published on Sunday that everything is 'normal'
Powered up in 2018, the Taishan plant was the first worldwide to operate a next-generation EPR nuclear reactor, a pressurised water design that has been subject to years of delays in similar European projects in Britain, France and Finland.
EPR reactors have been touted as promising advances in safety and efficiency over conventional reactors while producing less waste.
The plant's state owners said one of the two reactors on site then completed an 'overhaul' and 'successfully connected to the grid on June 10, 2021.'
It did not say why the reactor was overhauled or what exactly had been done to it.
Nuclear plants supplied less than five percent of China's annual electricity needs in 2019, according to the National Energy Administration, but this share is expected to grow as Beijing attempts to become carbon neutral by 2060.
China has 47 nuclear plants with a total generation capacity of 48.75 million kilowatts -- the world's third highest after the United States and France -- and has invested billions of dollars to develop its nuclear energy sector.
Last month Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping hailed close ties between their countries as they launched work on Russian-built nuclear power plants in China.
The Chinese Embassy in Japan have issued a radiation warning over Fukushima radiation last Sunday, February 2017 causing some panic in China. But in Japan, everything went on normally, tourists and residents remain largely unaffected by the radiation matter.
In recent years, as the popularity of Japan as a tourist destination increases, Chinese people have
developed a love-hate relationship with their neighbor. Any political rift or societal change between the two countries can cause large-scale effects
Fukushima China Syndrome
An update of an old issue in Japan has sent ripples across the East China Sea to shake China. After Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) announced it's latest analysis of the inside of its crippled nuclear plant in Fukushima that showed the radiation level there has seemingly now risen from 73 sieverts per hour to 530 sieverts.
A lethal radiation dose is considered to be around 10 sieverts exposure for only a few minutes!With a slow death to follow from radiation sickness..
However the news of Fukushimas deadly 530 sievert radiation record that might I add puts the 1986 Chernobyl disaster to shame have been traveling fast on the Chinese Internet.
Last Sunday, the Chinese Embassy in Japan issued a safety warning in reaction to this announcement, telling Chinese citizens to manage their travel plans to avoid potential radiation risks that may come if nuclear material leaks out into the surrounding environment. The warning caused even more discussion and when rumors started spreading, many Chinese became worried, some even canceling their trips to Japan.
Business as usual
A couple of weeks after the news came out, people in Japan seemed as calm and reserved as ever. There are still many Chinese tourists on the streets and in shops. According to Chinese tourism agencies, their business has been basically unaffected.
The director of a large Chinese travel agency told the Global Times last Sunday that Fukushima wasn't a regular travel destination for Chinese tourists anyway, and the company doesn't offer any travel packages there.
Li Dan, manager of a branch of the Beijing-based Tianping International Travel Agency, said that there haven't been any tour groups traveling to Fukushima since the 2011 earthquake and resulting tsunami. She also said that even tourists who travel independently do not usually go to Fukushima.
Last week, Will Davis, a member of the American Nuclear Society, refuted claims that radiation levels are soaring at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant as "demonstrably false." In a post on the society's blog, Davis wrote that the readings have not changed and that TEPCO's reported 530 sieverts per hour estimate was not "unimaginable" or particularly worrying.
His argument is that rather than a real increase from 73 to 530 sieverts, the 530 reading is simply a more accurate estimate of the radiation level at a particularly affected area that has remained relatively unchanged over the past few years.
Compared with China, news of the radiation levels in Fukushima has not generated much discussion in Japan. The responses from the media or public to the Chinese safety alert are also few.
For people living in Tokyo, three hours' drive from Fukushima, life has continued as usual. While they feel a little concerned whenever such reports come out, they are not actively worried in their daily lives, several Japanese white-collar workers said.
For people trying to get their lives back to normal in the affected area, their biggest headache and frustration is the bad reputation and rumors that dog their agricultural products.
In supermarkets, consumers who are concerned about radiation contamination choose more expensive products from different areas over cheaper product from Fukushima. Local residents, NGOs and governments are still working to scrub the stain off the reputation of food produced in Fukushima.
"I am concerned about the long-term effects on our bodies," said Zhang Chen, a sociology student at Sophia University of Tokyo. "Even if they were to call off the alert, I would still be worried." Despite these concerns, she said she would continue to stay in Tokyo for the time being and try finding a job in Japan.
Meanwhile, several Chinese residents in Japan the Global Times interviewed expressed their faith that the Japanese government and media would keep people accurately updated on the Fukushima situation and any potential dangers.
Zhao Xue, a Chinese woman who works for a Japanese company in Tokyo told the Global Times she hasn't seen much focus in the newspaper headlines concerning this matter, the big stories recently are Trump and Toshiba's financial problems.
"Why would we panic over something like this? It's an updated version of old news," she said.
Others said as long as one stays out of the evacuation areas the Japanese government designated around the nuclear power plant, one has nothing to worry about. Besides, Tokyo is more than 300 kilometers from Fukushima and as so little radiation can reach there, there's nothing much to do besides go on with one's daily life.
There is a heavy steam event taking place at Fukshima reactor building 4 at this very moment!
The livecam closest to the reactor building 4 is the only one that display the steam event taking place. The JNN livecam is currently offline showing a "green screen" and the Futaba traffic cam is not picking up anything. And the other livecam showing reactor buildings 1 and 2 does not pick up anything but a little bit of the ongoing radioactive releases.
The forecast for the next few days and weeks for people living in the Northern Hemisphere will be radioactive rain with a tad of sunshine and airborne radiation.
And remember scientists say one medium banana packs about 422 milligrams of potassium, about 11 percent of the 4,700 milligrams adults should aim to get daily. So don't go eating any bananas this week, the added potassium could kill you! That will be all for today's radioactive news.
Fukushima Steam Events Aug 3, 2014 Radioactive Releases
This is a follow-up on the previous post on the extreme levels of radiation detected during an domestic flight on a 737 going from Townsville to Brisbane on 8 Aug, 2013 over Australia.
After the findings of high levels of Fukushima radiation that David recorded and showed us during his flight with radiation readings as high as 945 CPM in the cabin (5 times the normal levels of atmospheric radiation levels for flights). David sent in a complaint to the Civil Aviation Safety Authority of Australia. Well they now responded and David was kind enough to send it in so I could post it up here also.
Below is the full email from the Civil Aviation Safety Authority of Australia shown here with permission from David that he recieved. It is saved here as an image. And I'm also going to write down some of the text.
4 September 2013
Dear Mr Searle Thank you for your email dated 2 September 2013. Your observations regarding man made radiation in an aircraft cabin have been noted and will be referred to appropriate CASA Dangerous Goods Inspector to investigate. The Current minister for Infrastructure and Transport in the Hon. Anthony Albanese MP. Thank you for contacting the Civil Aviation Safety Authority in relation to this matter Yours faithfully
Fiona Littlewood Team Leader - Communications and Reporting
So there you go, an CASA Dangerous Goods Inspector is now going to investigate and it will be really interesting to see how this turns out. Big props to David who took action!
The ground under Fukushima could turn liquid if another M7.0 earthquake hit the region due to the already massive amounts of water being pumped into the site. If that happens, all those buildings with their spent fuel pools would come tumbling down, the spent nuclear fuel would go critical and it would be all over when more than 300 tons of nuclear fuel go up in smoke all at once.
The corium molten nuclear fuel that have breached the containment long ago now have no problem moving in the soft earth and is going even further down into earth giving humanity no chance at stopping the contamination of the Pacific Ocean.
Thanks to David who took Radiation measurements during an domestic flight on a 737 going from Townsville to Brisbane on 8 Aug, 2013 we now have evidence that show that people flying are not only getting the normal dose of atmospheric background radiation when flying.
The extreme levels of radiation detected during the flight show us that the Fukushima disaster have reached way down to Australia now. And anyone flying is getting high doses of airborne radiation in various forms along with hot particles that are constantly released from the nuclear plant.
With the radiation detector showing spikes of up to 945 CPM that are almost 5 times the normal exposure in the cabin during the flight it shows just how much fallout this nuclear disaster really have and still is producing.
Cabin air is normally filtered very well, however even so the high levels of radiation entering the cabin during high altitude flight still poses a grave danger to the health of passengers. There have been numerous reports of flight attendants having radiation sickness like symptoms these past years after Fukushima, but the delusion is so strong that the "regulators" and airlines have dismissed that there could be any connection to Fukushima at all.
Quoted from David
"Published on 8 Aug 2013
same flight town to bris 08.08.2013
inspector EXP highest read out was 945 CPM during mid flight this is a
hazmat situation and all airlines are aware of this and are for all
intent purposes criminal negligent on not informing the public and air
crew of the dangers and at the very lest providing masks to mitigate in
some small way the exposure! YES I'M MAD AS HELL that our government
statutory agencies and departments are doing nothing ! time to get a
lawyer and start the legal process !"
Quoted from David
"Published on 8 Aug 2013
how about this i wonder if all those
frequent flyer politicians are breathing nice and heavy every time
they get a flight at tax payers expense! this reading should be closer
to 200 CPM not 929 CPM and max mid flight CPM was 945 thank god i had a
activated disposable mask!"
Shimatsu concluded, “That’s what we are facing folks. I don’t know what to say, you know? We’re facing the total END OF IT.”
Ecumenical Buddhist Prophecy Fulfilled?
Citing his own work and saying that the Mahayan Buddhists, an ecumenical Japanese form of Buddhism, have an eerily similar end-of-the-world prophecy that mirrors the very apocalyptic scenario echoed by Shimatsu, he added, “The earth will end at a time of ultimate corruption of man, when the earth is covered by molten iron, molten metal. So, this is strange that there is an actual possibility of an ancient prophecy being fulfilled. The end of the world could actually be fulfilled.
That is very deeply disturbing theological and philosophical perspective. This might be a self-fulfilling prophecy by ‘these mad men’ in the nuclear establishment.”
Prophecy Fulfilled!
The following is a short but informative video about Plutonium. It explains the alchemy behind it and the process in nuclear plants.
And also gives us an understanding about how toxic this element Plutonium PU-242 with it's atomic number 94 is to humans and all living creatures on this planet.
The following is a letter found at https://www.ccnr.org/max_plute_aecb.html (CCNR is a not-for-profit
organization, federally incorporated in 1978. It is dedicated to
education and research on all issues related to nuclear energy, whether
civilian or military -- including non-nuclear alternatives -- especially
those pertaining to Canada.)
How much plutonium does it take to overdose a person? Letter from the Atomic Energy Control Board (followed by comments from CCNR)
re: Maximum Permissible Intake of Plutonium by Inhalation
September 30 1999
Ms. Kristen Ostling
National Coordinator
Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout
1200-1 Nicholas Street
Ottawa Ontario
K1N 7B7
Subject:
Quantity of Plutonium that an Atomic Radiation Worker and the Public may Inhale to Reach their Respective Limits
Dear Ms. Ostling:
The Atomic Energy Control Board (AECB) does not set maximum permissible
quantities of radionuclides for workers or the public. Regulatory
protection criteria are expressed in terms of effective dose limits.
In this context, we understand your question to mean: "What is the
quantity of plutonium oxide, if inhaled, would give rise to an effective
dose of 50 mSv [ millisieverts ] to a worker or 5 mSv to a member of
the public?"
As the result of an intake, these doses will be received over 50 years
by a worker and over a period ending at age 70 by a member of the
public. These calculations have been made for insoluble (in lung fluid)
plutonium oxide of 1 micrometer size. These assumptions are very
conservative (restrictive); in other words the worst case scenario has
been assumed.
workers:
1.4 micrograms for 50 mSv committed effective dose (over 50 years after intake)
public:
0.1 microgram for 5 mSv committed effective dose (up to age 70)
If you have any other questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at (613) 996-5637.
Yours truly,
M. P. Measures, Ph.D.
Director
Radiation and Environmental Protection Division
Comments from CCNR
Foreword
Plutonium is a highly toxic material. Attempts to deny or to obscure this fact are, we feel, irresponsible.
Some spokespersons for AECL and for the Government of Canada have
suggested that there is no danger involved in MOX transport worthy of
anyone's serious consideration.
We feel compelled to point out that, although the probability of a
severe accident that would release plutonium to the atmosphere is
admittedly small, the potential health and environmental consequences of
such an accident can be serious due to the extraordinary toxicity of
plutonium when inhaled.
It is for this reason alone that the United States of America has made
it illegal to transport plutonium by air in US territory. Such a
prohibition does not exist for any other radioactive material.
Atomic Energy of Canada Limited has admitted, in documents submitted to
Transport Canada, that in four out of eight categories of serious road
transportation accidents, the MOX containers would be completely
destroyed and a plume of plutonium dust would be spread downwind to a
distance of about 80 kilometers.
Transport Canada has stated -- not once, but several times, in its
response to public commentaries about AECL's plans for MOX transport by
road -- that transporting MOX by air is much more dangerous than doing
it by road because of the health dangers of inhaling plutonium dust
following an accident.
Industry and government spokespersons have insisted that120 grams of
plutonium is too small an amount to raise legitimate health and
environmental concerns. They have made the irrelevant observation that
120 grams of plutonium is about the size of two A-A batteries.
Such remarks are manipulative in nature; they do not help people to
weigh the risk. The important quantity is not the VOLUME or MASS of
plutonium, but its TOXICITY. Based on data supplied by AECB (see letter
above) we can address the toxicity question as follows:
In principle, using AECB's regulatory limits, how many ''civilians'' can be overdosed by 100 grams of plutonium?
0.1 micrograms
can overdose
one civilian
multiply by one million
0.1 grams
can overdose
one million civilians
multiply by ten
1 gram
can overdose
ten million civilians
multiply by one hundred
100 grams
can overdose
one billion civilians
600 grams
can overdose
six billion civilians
If there is a serious accident involving 120 grams of plutonium (in the form of MOX), how many civilian overdoses could, in principle, result?
if NONE of the plute is safely contained
there is a potential for
one billion two hundred million civilian overdoses
if 90 percent of it is safely contained
there is a potential for
one hundred and twenty million civilian overdoses
if 99.9 percent of it is safely contained
there is a potential for
one hundred and twenty thousand civilian overdoses
if 99.999 percent of it is safely contained
there is a potential for
one thousand two hundred civilian overdoses
In principle, using AECB's regulatory limits, how many ''atomic radiation workers'' can be overdosed by 140 grams of plutonium?
1.4 micrograms
can overdose
one atomic worker
1.4 grams
can overdose
one million workers
14 grams
can overdose
ten million workers
140 grams
can overdose
one hundred million workers
560 grams
can overdose
four hundred million workers
If there is a serious accident involving 600 grams of plutonium (in the form of MOX), how many worker overdoses could, in principle, result?
if NONE of the plute is safely contained
there is a potential for
four hundred twenty-five million worker overdoses
if 90 percent of it is safely contained
there is a potential for
forty-two and a half million worker overdoses
if 99.9 percent of it is safely contained
there is a potential for
forty-two and a half thousand worker overdoses
if 99.999 percent of it is safely contained
there is a potential for
four hundred and twenty-five worker overdoses
If there is a serious accident involving 600 grams of plutonium (in the form of MOX), how many civilian overdoses could, in principle, result?
if NONE of the plute is safely contained
there is a potential for
six billion civilian overdoses
if 90 percent of it is safely contained
there is a potential for
six hundred million civilian overdoses
if 99.9 percent of it is safely contained
there is a potential for
six hundred thousand civilian overdoses
if 99.999 percent of it is safely contained
there is a potential for
six thousand civilian overdoses
Afterword
The
probability of a serious accident involving MOX transport is small, but
the consequences can be severe. They can also be very long-lived: since
plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24,000 years, plutonium contamination
can be permanent. It is a betrayal of public trust to pretend that
these risks do not exist. Unlike most shipments of radioactive materials, plutonium shipments are
attractive targets for criminals or terrorists, because plutonium is the
primary nuclear explosive material from which atomic bombs can be made. Any attempted hijacking can only increase the risks of unintended releases of plutonium to the atmosphere.
In 1959 a little known Nuclear Disaster only 30 Miles from Downtown Los Angeles began to unfold at an important Cold War facility located in Simi Valley. Simi Valley is an incorporated city located in a valley of the same name in the southeast corner of Ventura County, California, bordering the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles in the Greater Los Angeles Area.
A 2.800 acres large Nuclear Site was built in the hills of Simi Valley a town of 8000 (back in the 50's. Current population 124,237 in 2010) The complex built there Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL) is also an complex of industrial research and development facilities.
Watch 8 min Video about the Simi Valley Nuclear Disaster
Several Experimental Nuclear Reactors have been tested at this facility that the Atomic Energy Commission hoped could become commercially viable. One of the reactors at Simi Valley used Sodium instead of Water as a coolant of the Nuclear Reactor Fuel. It was known as the Sodium Reactor Experiment (SRE). But the experiment went horrible wrong, triggering an technological nightmare putting Nuclear Disasters like 3-Mile Island to shame. What happened at Simi Valley turned out to become the worst nuclear disaster in U.S. history. With amounts of
radiation leaked to the environment and atomosphere more than 240
times that of the accident at 3-Mile Island. But none was told about this.
5 weeks after the Nuclear Disaster the Atomic Energy Commission released an press release claiming that only 1 Nuclear Fuel Rod had been slightly damaged and NO Radiation had been released into the environment. However that is far, far from the truth.. The Atomic Energy Commission was trying to cover up the fact that 13 Fuel Rods had been damaged and High Levels of Radiation had already been released from the failed experimental nuclear reactor. 1/3 of the Nuclear Fuel had experienced melting, it was one of the worst Nuclear Accidents in the history of the U.S and the Atomic Energy Commission lied about it.
All this would have never been disclosed at all if it was not for Daniel Hirsch's
student Michael Rose. The SSFL facility has had some 24 nuclear accidents
over the years. These accidents go by the name "excursions" to hide the seriousness of the situations from the common public. There have
been several non-nuclear accidents at the site as well. A most recent one
(that are known to the public) occurred in 1994 when one scientist was killed an
another was seriously injured while trying to (illegally)dispose of
chemicals by burning them..
The first one was a horrible movie but snakes do travel on planes from time to time. The more disturbing thing here is that last one however is also true. Did you know that if you're flying in Norway on a commercial flight you could be sitting a few feet away from plutonium?
Not many people know this but people need to know the truth, the following story was given to the Norwegian newspaper Klassekamp.
Story can also be read here:
www.thelocal.no/page/view/plutonium-shipped-out-of-norway-on-commercial-flights
Published: 01 Aug 2012 08:21 GMT+1
Updated: 01 Aug 2012 08:21 GMT+1
The radioactive material plutonium is transported out of Norway via Gardermoen Airport on commercial flights with unsuspecting passengers onboard, according to a media report.
Plutonium is considered the most harmful known element, and is highly carcinogenic. The plutonium is used for research in the Halden reactor in Norway, according to the Klassekamp newspaper.
The head of the Institute for Energy Technology at the plant has confirmed the report that the plutonium is shipped out by air through Oslo's main airport.
"It doesn't happen often, the last transit was in 2011, and before it has happened about once every two years. All shipments are made in accordance with the regulations, which allows the use of passenger aircraft. So yes, we carry the passenger aircraft, as long as the airline considers it appropriate," Helge Valdseth told the newspaper.
Citing security concerns, Valdseth was however unwilling to indicate which airlines they use to transport the plutonium, confirming only that the regulations stipulated that a maximum of 15 grammes of fissile material can be carried per air shipment.
The practice is furthermore no problem for the Norwegian Radiation Protection Agency (Statens strålevern - NRPA).
"Transporting plutonium by air is within the rules and is problem-free," said Sverre Hornkjøl, a senior advisor at the agency, to Klassekampen.
Sverre Hornkjøl argued that it is no more dangerous to transport plutonium by air than by road.
"Not if you look at the accident statistics. There are more accidents on the roads than in the air," he observed. NTB/The Local
Some of you who have been keeping an eye on Fukushima and the Live Cam they have, might have noticed that yesterday Tepco changed the angle of the camera. It's now located at the opposite side from where it was before with reactor unit 4 closest in view to the camera instead of unit 1.
I've been busy with other things lately so I didn't notice the work that was going on top of reactor unit 4. FC pointed out in the chat that there was flashes going on in the bottom right corner of the screen, and sure enough when I looked at the live cam there was even workers moving around there.
Here you can see an ILLUSTRATION showing the location where the welding work is being done on top of reactor unit 4. The actual flashes where much smaller than this illustration shows but the scale of the workers to the right is about the same.
I figure the flashes was caused by the workers welding some beams, that's what it looks like to me. I tell you they better weld in some support because that 60 Ton "cover" they put in place a month ago on top of the fuel pool to an already damaged structure is not going to help the building situation.
I'm sure you already have read about what happens when that fuel pool hits the ground in the event of an bigger earthquake. The contamination released would equate to some 800-1000 nuclear weapons going off all at once.
And I hope those workers where wearing gas masks because that steel is
contaminated with all kinds of radioactive particles, welding always
cause smoke and people doing it for a living need regular health
checkups to check their lungs.. Add radiation to that smoke and it is not going to turn out good for the workers later on.
Now the camera angle like I told you earlier is different now from what it was when the livecam first was put into place 2011. But we can still see all the reactor units and cranes working on the site. To explain the map, Unit 4 is in the right corner of the screen and we can see part of Unit 1 way back with Unit 2 blocking most of the view (Unit 1 is the white reactor unit because of the tent they put up).
I hope this Fukushima update have shed some light on the recent developments on site.
Arnie Gundersen came out with a new video talking about the danger of Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 and it's Spent Fuel Pool. I am sure that the most of you have already heard that if / when Unit 4 collapses it will bring on the evacuation of Tokyo and probably all of Japan as we know it. The reason why this is so, is that in the Fuel Pool at Unit 4 the combined amount of old and new Fuel Rods stored there are so great that if the rods hit the ground and they will catch fire, they will spew out more Cesium 137 than all the Atomic Bomb test's that have been done in the entire history of mankind. Try and imagine this, only if we were detonate 800 Nuclear Bombs at Fukushima we would achieve the same level of contamination.
Arnie say something very important in the beginning of this video, he talks about that once the rods catch fire they can't be put out anymore. And no amount of water will extinguish the flame, in fact water would make it worse!! And they will continue to burn. This would become an even bigger ongoing contamination of the entire world, but to make matters even worse it would be impossible to stop.
When I see these things happening to Japan and think about their past I can't shake the feeling how all this have changed their culture. After WW2 with the destruction caused by nuclear weapons on the Japanese people, this was the first use of Atomic Bombs and no one had ever seen anything like it. The destruction, the defeat was so great their culture changed. Their way of thinking and looking at the world changed.
Have you ever seen young boys and girls that are from war zones paint? They don't draw happy images, their imagination most of the time goes to something much more darker than other kids.
This can be clearly seen if you watch some Japanese Movies. Godzilla comes to mind, the big creature that comes up from the sea and destroys everything in it's path. It's very different from Hollywood if you start to think about it. But it all works out in the end.. Somehow.. But this time, I'm not so sure..
OK back to the video. For you that can't watch the video below is the transcription for you to read, I included pictures from the video also. And you can also watch this video on the Fairewinds site along with the transcript.
Transcribed - The Truth and the Future -
Maggie Gundersen: Hello Mr. Hirose and hello people of Kansai. I am Maggie Gundersen. I am the President and the founder of Fairewinds Associates and the founding director of Fairewinds Energy Education non-profit.
I am here today with Arnie Gundersen, my husband, and Chief Engineer for Fairewinds Associates. We are here today to talk to you about the triple meltdown at Fukushima-Daiichi. We hope to answer all your questions. I wish we could have joined you in person, but I thank you for watching this video and please send us any follow-up questions. We will be happy to answer them. Now let's bring Arnie into this conversation. Arnie, how dangerous is the situation now at Fukushima-Daiichi Unit 4, particularly in Japan with its continuous danger of earthquakes and seismic activity and chance for an additional tsunami.
Arnie Gundersen: Unit 4 has always been my biggest concern. If you watched our website on the very first week of the accident I was saying that if Unit 4 were to catch fire, you would have to evacuate Tokyo. As a matter of fact the book that we wrote talks about that a lot. It is really important and it remains the biggest concern that I have about the Fukushima site. Unit 4 has more fuel in it than any of the other units in the complex, but more importantly it has the most recently used nuclear fuel. And all of that fuel is outside of the containment. So that would make it dangerous enough. Except that also, of course, Unit 4 has had a series of explosions and is weakened structurally. Before it might have withstood a 7.5 earthquake. I believe that the structural damage to Unit 4 is so great that if there is a 7.5 earthquake, it will not withstand it.
Here is what would happen if Unit 4 were to crack and the water were to drain out of the nuclear fuel pool. The fuel is hot enough that it needs to be water-cooled.If air is all there is cooling the fuel, it will burn. It will burn the zircaloy cladding on the fuel, (and) will react with the oxygen to create a fire. And it is a fire that once it starts, cannot be put out by water. Water would make it worse. So the nuclear fuel would have to burn completely before the fire would ever go out.
In the process, all that radiation would go up into the atmosphere and blow all over Japan and all over the world.
There is as much cesium in the fuel pool at Unit 4 as there was in 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. All of the above ground testing has less cesium in it than is in the reactor pool at Fukushima 4 right now. So it is a grave situation. I don't believe that the Japanese Government is moving fast enough. If there is no earthquake, the plan to remove the fuel slowly is going to be adequate. But we cannot wait on Mother Nature. We have to quickly move that fuel out of that pool and onto the ground. The key here is quickly. The Japanese Government finally just this month came up with a plan to build a building around the fuel pool building and begin removing the fuel in 2013 or 2014.
I said that that is what they needed to do on the Fairewinds site in an interview with Chris Martenson a year ago. These things have been evident, but TEPCO is not moving fast enough and the Japanese Government is not pushing TEPCO to move fast enough either. I think the top priority of TEPCO and the top priority of the Japanese Government should be to move the fuel out of that pool just as quickly as possible. And in the meantime, they need to strengthen that pool to make sure that it can withstand an earthquake. Remember, that pool is not in a containment. You can look down in a satellite and see the nuclear fuel. The roof is blown off. And that is what makes it dangerous.
In America, we had the Brookhaven National Laboratory do a study to examine what would happen in a fuel pool fire. Brookhaven National Labs determined that there would be 187,000 people who would develop cancer from a fuel pool fire. It is a serious concern and I do not believe that Tokyo Electric and I do not believe that the Japanese Government is taking it seriously enough. For the last year I have been working with Akio Matsumora and finally it appears that the world community is listening to Akio Matsumora's concerns about the pool. We need to tackle this as a concerned world community and encourage the Japanese Government and encourage Tokyo Electric to solve it quickly.
Maggie Gundersen: Arnie you mentioned cesium in your earlier discussion. Why is it important? What is the health effect of cesium and are there any other radioactive isotopes that would have been released during the triple meltdown?
Arnie Gundersen:Cesium is one of many radioactive isotopes that are created in a nuclear reactor. It has got a 30 year half life which means that it hangs around for 300 years and biologically it mimics potassium. You might remember that if you have a muscle cramp, you eat a banana and it goes to your muscles and relieves the cramp. Well, cesium also goes to your muscles. It is called a muscle seeker. When it goes to your muscles, it can cause cancer, but it can also cause a variety of other illnesses.
The Brookhaven study only looks at cancer. It does not look at all the other things that radioactive cesium can do. In young children with rapidly developing muscles, especially their heart muscle, it can create something called Chernobyl Heart which is damage to the heart muscle, which once it is damaged, never ever recovers for the life of the child. So cesium is just one of many isotopes, but it is relatively easy to measure and also biologically causes almost the most damage of any of the other isotopes that are in that reactor.
Maggie Gundersen: Arnie, you have said that you believe the explosion at Unit 3 was a prompt criticality. What is a prompt criticality and why do you believe that?
Arnie Gundersen: I developed my concern about a prompt criticality because of the nature of the explosion in Unit 3. Unit 1, when it exploded, blew sideways and with relatively low energy. You can measure the rate at which it moves and it moves less than the speed of sound. And that is called a deflagration. It does not do anywhere near as much damage. When I looked at the explosion on Unit 3, however, it was entirely different. You can see it, it is not hard to see. It is called a detonation. The speed at which Unit 3 exploded was faster than the speed of sound. And the important thing is not how Unit 3 exploded. What is the most important thing is that it exploded with a detonation, not a deflagration. The nuclear industry is not paying attention to this now, but it should be, because a nuclear containment can handle the slow moving deflagration, but it cannot handle the fast moving detonation. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the international community are absolutely ignoring the fact that a detonation occurred in Unit 3.
Well how did a detonation occur? That was the question I asked myself. I checked with chemists and atmospheric pressure and hydrogen will not create a detonation. Like on Unit 1 it will only create a deflagration. So I needed to figure out how a detonation could occur. But there are a couple of other clues here. One clue is that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission way back in March of last year, wrote a report that is on our website, that talks about nuclear fuel being deposited on the site and nuclear fuel being discovered as far away as two kilometers.
How can nuclear fuel get blown out of a nuclear reactor? The fuel that is inside the reactor is also inside the containment and there is no indication of a massive containment failure and a massive reactor failure that could have thrown the nuclear fuel out. So I had to come up with a reason that the nuclear fuel could have been released in pieces, not little fine atoms, but in pieces which is what the Nuclear Regulatory Commission says was discovered.
The only way that could happen is if the explosion occurred in the fuel pool at Unit 3. Now if you look at the video of Unit 3, the very first frames show the explosion occurring on the side of the building and that is the side of the building that has the nuclear fuel pool. It started on the nuclear fuel pool side and then worked it's way up into the massive cloud that you see. So what could have caused that? That is the question. Hydrogen would have been above the nuclear fuel, it would have been a gas above the nuclear fuel and if it had exploded, it would have pushed the nuclear fuel down.
That is not what happened. Remember, we have fuel fragments found off-site. Something had to lift the nuclear fuel up. The only thing I could determine is that it was a criticality in the fuel pool that caused the fuel to lift up. The division I ran built nuclear fuel racks for boiling water reactors exactly like Fukushima. The dense fuel racks that are now in every reactor everywhere are very close to becoming critical anyway. And in the accident situation where there was seismic event and explosions occurring, it is likely that they were very near to becoming critical. And what that means is that they were very near to becoming a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.
Way back in college 40 years ago, we watched a movie called the Borax Experiment. You can find it on the web today. The explosion at Borax was a prompt moderated criticality. It looks almost exactly like the explosion in Fukushima unit 3. So an image I had from 40 years ago led me to conclude that the same thing happened in Unit 3. That a criticality occurred in the fuel pool and it pushed some of the nuclear fuel up into pellets and the pellets wound up scattered around the site.
Now, the criticality is called prompt moderated criticality. It is not a bomb. A bomb is a prompt fast criticality. This reaction occurs slower than a bomb, but faster than what occurs inside a nuclear reactor. The Borax experiments were designed to test just how violent that reaction could be. I think if you look at Borax and compare it to Fukushima Unit 3, you will see that there are an awful lot of similarities.
Again this is a theory, but it is the only theory that accounts for the explosion occurring on the side where the fuel pool is, and it is the only theory that creates the uplift force that caused the fuel particles to be thrown about the site and discovered as far as 2 kilometers away.
Well there is one more piece of evidence and that is that the roof over the fuel pool has been totally destroyed whereas the roof over the nuclear reactor and the containment, collapsed downward. We talk about that in a video on the site as well and I think that is another important indication that whatever it was that caused the fuel to lift occurred on the fuel pool side of the building, and not in the middle where the nuclear reactor was.
The videos after the accident and after the explosion show containment leaks as well. You will see in the weeks afterward, steam coming from the center of the building. And I believe that the containment lid lifted on Unit 3 and never went back down straight, so it has lifted and twisted sideways and radioactive gasses are lifting from that containment lid. But there is not enough evidence to say that that is what caused the explosion that we saw during the accident. The jury is still out and will be for 10 years until we get inside the Fukushima reactor to see what the damage is. But right now, I think my theory accounts for the damage, the speed of the shock wave, and also the fact that the contamination has been found as far away as 2 kilometers.
Maggie Gundersen: Arnie, let's talk about the Unit 4 spent fuel pool. There have been a lot of questions about that and a lot of concerns right now. Was there a hydrogen explosion at the Unit 4 spent fuel pool and if there was, what is a hydrogen explosion and why would it have occurred there?
Arnie Gundersen: One of the biggest mysteries at Fukushima is how did Fukushima Unit 4 explode? There are a couple of very, very grainy videos that clearly show it did explode. It was a different type of explosion and perhaps a fire and an explosion that went on for a period of days. So exactly how it did explode is one of the big questions about the Fukushima accident.
There are 3 competing theories. Tokyo Electric says that the radioactive gasses over in Unit 3 went through a pipe that connected Unit 4 and entered Unit 4 causing Unit 4 to explode. So Tokyo Electric's position is that the radioactive hydrogen that was created in Unit 3 went through a pipe, entered Unit 4, and there it exploded. There is one piece of evidence that supports that. There is some contamination in some filters in Unit 4 that would indicate that gasses did come from Unit 3.
So that is a possibility, but I do not think it is accurate because I believe that the containment was so damaged on Unit 3, that there was no pressure to push those gasses into Unit 4. I can't understand how the gasses, what the mode of force was to push those gasses into Unit 4. I think the hydrogen explosion came from something in side Unit 4 itself. There are two possibilities there.
One is by Dr. Gen Saji and it is an excellent analysis. He believes that the hydrogen in the water in the pool that was dissolved because of the radiation in the pool over months and months and months, was enough to cause the building to explode. As the water got hot in the fuel pool, it liberated the hydrogen that was in the water and that hydrogen was enough to cause the explosion.
The second possibility, and this is my theory, early on in the accident, there is some video that is up on our site, that shows that the top of the fuel racks were exposed to air. I am not suggesting that the entire fuel pool ran dry. But the top of the nuclear fuel I believe was exposed to air and I think the photos show that. So 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 that would have created enough hydrogen to blow the building up.
Dr. Saji and I agree that the hydrogen came from the Unit 4 fuel pool. He believes it was dissolved in the water. I believe it came from the fuel. Only time will tell when we get in to analyze the reaction. But there is an important lesson here that the nuclear industry is not taking into account. And that is the fuel pool temperature. The fuel pool is a large pool and it can boil locally. And that is something the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the international community is not looking at. You can get local boiling in a pool even though the bulk temperature of the pool may be at 80 degrees Celsius. In portions of the pool, it can be boiling. That supports Dr. Saji's comment that as it boiled it would liberate hydrogen, even though the bulk temperature never ever exceeded boiling.
My theory is that I do believe that the entire pool had drained to the point where there was boiling occurring. But the real issue here is that the nuclear industry is not looking at the fact that localized boiling can occur even though the bulk temperature might be less than 100 degrees centigrade.
That is an important distinction moving forward. We have about 23 of these Mark I reactors in the United States and there are another 10 or so around the world. I think that we need to design these pools so that the hydrogen generated by dissociation can be accommodated without exploding the building. No one ever designed for that because no one ever anticipated it happening. But it did happen at Unit 4 and we need to prevent that in the future. Not just on these Mark I reactors but on the 400 reactors that all have fuel pools that are all susceptible to that identical type of failure.
Maggie Gundersen: Arnie, I want to follow up with a few more questions. In your discussion of Unit 4, you have talked about its hydrogen explosion. Is there any chance of a prompt criticality or a hydrogen explosion now at Unit 4? Would anything cause it to release more fuel or more radioactivity?
Arnie Gundersen: The fuel in the fuel pool at Unit 4 has now been cooled for about a year after the accident and it had been removed a couple of months before that. So the fuel is becoming cooler. It still needs to be water-cooled for another 2 years, but it is much cooler than it was at the beginning of the accident. So the chances of hydrogen generation are much, much lower now than when the accident occurred. So I do not believe that we are going to see an explosion in the pool now, no matter what happens.
My biggest concern is that if the pool loses water, then it is an entirely different story. So if there is a large seismic event that causes the building to topple, or the pool to crack and the water to drain out, there is not enough cooling in the air of that fuel, and it will start to burn. Now the consequences of that are depending on which way the wind is blowing, it could mean the evacuation of Tokyo as a worst case. It could also mean cutting Japan in half so that the northern part is separated from the southern part by a band of contamination. So this is a very serious accident waiting to happen and we just all have to pray that an earthquake does not happen before that fuel is removed.
Maggie Gundersen: Arnie, compared to the accident at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, how dangerous are the radioactive releases from the four reactors at Fukushima-Daiichi?
Arnie Gundersen:Three Mile Island was a level 5 accident and Chernobyl and Fukushima are level 7 accidents. That means roughly that Three Mile Island was a 100 times less than the accident at Chernobyl and the accident at Fukushima. People did die as a result of the accident at Three Mile Island. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says no, no one died, on their web page. But the evidence is clear that there was an increase in cancer. I refer you to Dr. Steve Wing's report that is also on our site that talks about it. And in addition some reports coming out of the University of Pittsburgh indicate just now that we are beginning to see leukemia as a result.
So while Three Mile Island was much less than either Chernobyl or Fukushima, people did die as a result of the radiation released. At Fukushima-Daiichi the evidence tells us that at least three times more radiation in the form of noble gasses were released from Units 1, 2 and 3 than from Chernobyl. We have seen radioactive gas clouds, noble gas clouds to the northwest, that are much worse than we ever anticipated to have been released. So we know that the noble gasses were larger than Chernobyl. Now iodine, which is another gas that is released, and also cesium and other gasses, seem to be roughly on the same level as the releases from Chernobyl.
There are 2 issues here. As terrible as it is, it would have been much worse but for 2 things. The first is that most of the time the wind was blowing out to sea. And of course Chernobyl was surrounded by land, so whatever way the plume meandered after Chernobyl, it contaminated the land. So when we compare Fukushima to Chernobyl, the total releases from Fukushima are likely higher than they were at Chernobyl, but because most of it blew out to sea, that is a good thing for the Japanese people.
The second important thing that happened that was lucky, if we can call it luck in such a severe accident, was that it happened on a Friday and not on a weekend. There were a thousand people at the Daini site and at the Daiichi site, because it was a weekday, who could respond to the accident. If it had happened on a weekend, there would have been a small crew of people there and the accidents at both sites would have been much much worse. Now that has an implication worldwide, because on weekends and in the evenings, we have very small crews at these nuclear reactors. And should there be a major accident, there is no way to respond quickly enough with the small crew of people that are working on the shifts, other than the main shift in the middle of the day.
The international community needs to look at that and it is not a matter of well, we can get people there in a half a day. That is too late. The staff on site has to be larger at the beginning of the accident to mitigate the potential for a serious accident. But yet it all boils down to money. The utilities that run these power plants really do not want a large staff because they have to pay for it. But in fact, it was the large staff at Daiichi and the large staff at Daini that likely saved the world. So the important take-away here is that the releases from Fukushima are as serious if not more so than Chernobyl. And that they would have been much worse if the accident had happened on a weekend.
Maggie Gundersen: Arnie, thank you. How significant is the danger of hot particles and why?
Arnie Gundersen: I am really concerned about the hot particles that were released after the Fukushima accident. Now a hot particle is more than just a single atom. An atom of cesium decays once and it is over, it is no longer radioactive. A hot particle though, contains thousands or hundreds of thousands of atoms of cesium or other radioactive material and they, of course, decay for many, many years and decades.
So if a hot particle is lodged inside you, either in your lung or in your liver or in your gastrointestinal tract, it can cause a constant bombardment of radiation over a long period of time to a very small localized part of your tissue. And that is exactly the conditions that can cause a cancer.
So we have seen in Mr Kaltofen's analysis to the American Public Health Association: he shows what an air filter looked like in a car in Fukushima and what an air filter looked like in a car in Tokyo. Those air filters are no different than our lung, our lung acts as an air filter, and that causes that radiation to get trapped in our lungs or in our livers or elsewhere in our bodies, and will constantly, over decades, cause cellular damage. It is particularly a concern in young children because they have a longer life, and because their cells are rapidly developing. So it is important that we monitor the children at Fukushima and throughout Japan over the next 3 or 4 decades to make sure that they do not develop cancers as a result of the hot particles that were released from Fukushima-Daiichi.
Maggie Gundersen: So Arnie, in closing, what do you want people to remember from your review of the accident at Fukushima-Daiichi?
Arnie Gundersen: About a month before the accident, we were walking and we were talking about an accident and where it might occur. And I said I did not know where it would occur, but I thought it would occur in a boiling water reactor of the Fukushima design, I said a Mark I reactor. And it turned out to be true.
But I think the bigger lesson from Fukushima is that this is a technology that can destroy a nation. After Fukushima I was reading Mikolai Gorbachov's memoirs and he says it was the Chernobyl accident, not Perestroika, that destroyed the Soviet Union. So we had that information for 30 years but yet we really did not realize that it could happen elsewhere. So we know that the accident at Chernobyl was a cause in the factor of the collapse of the Soviet Union. And we know that the cost alone from the Fukushima-Daiichi accident will easily go to a half a trillion US dollars over the next 20 years. That is enough to bring Japan to its knees.
Japan is at a tipping point. You have an opportunity here to change the way we use energy. Or Japan can go back and turn on all its nuclear reactors again and continue business as usual and of course risk another accident. So you have a choice, you have the opportunity to change the way you use energy and to change the way you distribute energy. You can create smart grids that share power from the north to the south and from the east to the west, where the frequencies are different. We can distribute our generation, instead of having massive power plants in locations like Fukushima-Daiichi and Fukushima-Danai. We can distribute those power plants throughout Japan, throughout the world, with windmills, with solar power, with conservation and with distributed small sources of generation.
Those are all one way of doing it compared to the other which we are presently using, which is central station power. We needed central station power in the 20th century. Now with computers, we do not need central station power anymore. We can do it another way. And Japan can lead the way if it chooses to. If it leads the way, it will have an export commodity that the rest of the world will want desperately. You have an opportunity here to change your country. And you also have a business opportunity here to sell to the rest of the world a product that we all desperately need.
So the Fukushima-Daiichi accident is the worst industrial accident in history: it is a half a trillion dollars. But it also can be an opportunity for Japan to change the way it does business and to create the economy for the 21st century and beyond with distributed generation and smart grids. I hope you choose that choice. Japan is at a tipping point and it is your choice to make.
When it comes to radiation detection meters you really have a wide field of gadgets to choose from, however radiation detectors are the most common to use.
First of all if you need to know what type of radiation you are looking for. There are Alpha, Beta and Gamma radiation detectors. And also there is neutron emission of nuclear radiation. And all these different types of emissions have radiation detectors for a specific type of radiation that you can buy radiation detector for. Some also measure both Alpha and Beta. Others detect Alpha, Beta and Gamma. While others let you measure Beta and Gamma radiation.
What most people have use for though are Dosimeters you can buy a handheld radiation detector pretty cheap that are good addition to a survival kit. There are different kinds that you can use that will detect radiation. There are radiation badges that will tell you when radiation become high. Workers at nuclear power plants use these to inform them of how much radiation they have been exposed to. Now also children in the Fukushima prefecture have each been given a radiation badge so they know if they are exposed to radiation. Some come in the shape of a pen that you can carry in your pocket while other are made more compact so that you can attach them to your keychain. And then you have what is called a personal radiation monitor. These are also called Dosimeters and also normally called Geiger counters. Although not all use the Geiger-Muller Tube for the radiation detection some use a semiconductor instead. These and mostly the older geiger counters seen are pretty big to carry around, so they might not be best suited for a survival situation where you only need to carry the most important things. However if you have land and want to check radiation around the property and drinking water then these are the geiger counters to get because they are very well built units.
These are the once that you normally see people use. They have different units of radiation detection, because when it comes to radiation there are many standards used. some give the measurements in Rads, while other use Sieverts. Some have the maximum radiation value for the measured radioactivity quite low but they will still give you an idea of the amount of radiation in the area. With the units ranging from between background radiation 0.001 mSv/hr all the way up to 10 Sv/h. Normally a dosimeter will measure radiation in micro siverts per hour. If you were to walk into one of the reactor units at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant you probably would get an error reading from your dosimeter because the radiation levels are so high there.
Note that some places outside the exclusion zone in Fukushima that are too radioactive for people to live in have areas where the radiation levels are above 30 Sv/h. So if you are in a area that have high radiation the radiation detectors would also there go off the scale. However Geiger counters or radiation detectors are still favored as general purpose alpha/beta/gamma portable radiation detectors and radiation detection equipment, due to their low cost and robustness. Most come with an LCD Display that show you the radioactivity in the area. Nowdays you will even get alarm sound and the possibility to connect the device to a computer. Either with a Infrared, Bluetooth or USB connection.
So if you look at the radiation detectors for sale that have this, then these radiation detection meters will allow you to make maps of contaminated areas that show where the radiation is high and low. This also will help you to see which areas are becoming more contaminated over time. With several nuclear reactors in the US and around the world located near fault zones that makes it a danger if a big earthquake would hit the area there is always a good choice to have a radiation dosimeter avaliable. I'm sure many in Fukushima would have been grateful to have dosimeters avaliable at the time of the disaster and I am sure you to would be grateful to have a geiger counter handy when you need one.
radmon.org - Global Radiation Monitoring Live Map
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Taishan Nuclear Power Plant, in southern China, has been leaking radioactive gas for two weeks and is at risk of becoming a disaster, US intelligence agencies have privately warned
The French firm which co-owns the plant (file image) warned US officials of the threat two weeks ago while asking for help to fix it
The Chinese state-run firm which owns the nuclear facility insisted in a report published on Sunday that everything is 'normal' 
