Gundersen on lethal radiation levels: Even higher measurements to come - Nuclear core has leaked out

[flamingdem]

http://fairewinds.com/content/lethal-levels-radiation-fukushima-what-are-implications

http://vimeo.com/27306360#at=0

About this video

TEPCO has discovered locations on the Fukushima plant site with lethal levels of external gamma radiation. Fairewinds takes a close look at how this radiation might have been deposited and how similar radioactive material would have been released offsite.
Video transcript

Arnie Gundersen: Hi, I'm Arnie Gundersen from Fairewinds and it is Thursday, August 4th.

Two days ago, Tokyo Electric announced some really high radiation levels on the Fukushima site and I wanted to put that into perspective and let you know what I think is happening.

First, Tokyo Electric discovered very, very high radiation in a stack which is used to vent radiation out of the plant and up into the air. The quantity of that radiation was really, really high exposure. It was 10 Sieverts and to convert that over to rems, which I am used to, is a thousand rem. Now, what does that mean?

A thousand rem or more, because the instrument went off scale, a thousand rems, if you were there for less than half an hour, would mean death within a couple of days. Those kinds of exposures cause extensive neurological breakdowns that cannot be reversed medically. So basically, to be near that for any amount of time beyond a couple of minutes, would be a death sentence. What that means is really interesting. This site has been extensively mapped. There is a map that is current that shows many, many hot spots. This hot spot was not discovered until just a couple of days ago. Now that could mean a couple of things. It could mean really poor health physics in that this was missed for 100 days. MORE AT LINK

[Autumn]

1. Well how bout that. Who didn't know this was coming.

Tip of the iceberg.

[Jackpine Radical]

2. No shit.

But then nuclear energy of course is a rational alternative to conventional fossil fuels. ostly because rich people can own uranium mines just like they do coal & oil fields.

[Voice for Peace]

3. Who in the Obama admin is paying attention to all of this?

Surely he has people outside the industry keeping him informed?

[kestrel91316]

4. I don't know what the fuss is about. The radiation

isn't enough to harm a flea - people right here on DU have proclaimed it thus.

[hunter]

5. Hi, I'm Arnie Gundersen...

Actually I didn't see that. I saw this:

ACK!

This video can’t be played with your current setup.
Please switch to a browser that provides native H.264 support or install Adobe Flash Player.

Nope. Won't do it. Not for Arnie Gunderson.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

6. Try installing a codec pack

http://www.free-codecs.com/download/k_lite_codec_pack.htm

[hunter]

8. Naw, I run Linux and I'm boycotting H.264 and Adobe Flash.

I've uninstalled Flash. Most of youtube now works without it.

I'm familiar with the technical and sometimes political reasons for choosing vimeo over youtube, but I believe strongly that proprietary codecs like H.264 are an impediment to the free flow of information on the world wide web.

Sure, it's nice to be an anti-nuclear-apple-multi-media-fanboy uploading one's cinematic masterpieces to vimeo with a single click or tap, but these "walled gardens" our corporate masters are trying to impose upon us are every bit as noxious as, um, let us say nuclear waste...

[Spitfire of ATJ]

9. I hadn't heard H.264 is proprietory. I'm on Ubuntu and it autoinstalled.

[FBaggins]

7. I suppose we could wait a year and see if he's right.

Oh wait... this is already over a year old... and we already know that he was wrong.

(Except, of course, in the parts that anyone could have guessed. Like - duh - radiation levels will probably be higher inside the primary containment).

[RobertEarl]

11. This is coming out of the stack, into the atmosphere.

And we know there is no more primary containment at #1, #2, and #3.

Of course we were fed a line of total bullshit from the nukies that such a thing could never happen. But it is and will be.

[FBaggins]

12. Three statements... three errors.

At least your string is intact.

This is coming out of the stack, into the atmosphere.

Well... no actually. It wasn't. The photo was taken months after the venting occurred. This is a reading from the cesium 137 that was likely in steam that condensed on the sides of the pipe and flowed down to that elbow during and after the key events of the first few days. This of course was one of Arnie's key errors. He tried to pretend that just because it hadn't been detected weeks earlier, it must have been accumulating over time from an ongoing release. Of course that's nonsensical. He has the background to know better, so I can only assume that he was lying.

And we know there is no more primary containment at #1, #2, and #3.

We know nothing of the sort. We do know that the primary containment must at least have leaks in them (hence the escaping water flowing into basement)... but no, the primary containment structures are still there and are one of the main reasons (along with different core design that allowed it to shut down) that Fukushima with three meltdowns released only a fraction of what Chernobyl released with one.

Of course we were fed a line of total bullshit from the nukies that such a thing could never happen.

I've seen you proclaim that BS several times (and others likely dozens of times). Whenever I call you on it... I never get a straight reply. You really don't think it's starting to look pretty foolish by this time? I sure do.

Please give some examples of statements that such a thing could never happen. Don't worry... I won't hold my breath.

There were a number of statements post Chernobyl about why the same kind of thing couldn't happen in a western reactor... and a list of four key differences between the two families of reactor designs were identified as the reason why. Fukushima proved those statements to be absolutely correct.


But while we're waiting - here's a pop quiz for you. Take a look at the picture. It looks like the guy is almost literally touching the hot spot with a ten-foot pole. Let's assume that the reading is taken a couple inches from the source. We'll just accept the 10 Sv/hr dose rate. It's an oversimplification in the extreme, but at the same time it's also the limit of what that equipment could measure... so the real rate could be much higher. We have to pick something, so we'll just go with 10 Sv/hr (truly a dangerous figure).

Now assume the guy is, in fact, standing ten feet away. What is the dose rate where he is standing?

And, given that answer and the location of the reading (along with the elevated contamination all around the plant at the time)... is Arnie's assumption credible that they would have detected it much earlier if it hadn't been building up over the weeks since the event?

[RobertEarl]

13. Well, shucks. You present a quandary

Who to believe..... Arnie or FBaggins?

Arnie who on the one hand has been pretty much right all along. Whose agenda seems focused on keeping humans safe from the nukies, and is a veteran of the industry.

Or FBaggins who has been wrong all along, and whose agenda is unknown and who is an anonymous internet typster.

Gosh..... Who to trust?

******************
NEVER:
Was i wrong? Is there is a nukie statement out there somewhere that tells the world that Fukushima was going to blow up like it did? Surely you have such a link handy. EH?

Seriously, they did say it might happen once every 200 years, i think. Well, 200 years is, in a normal human's lifespan; Never. Nope, not wrong.

And as for the escaping water that is being dumped on the melted core..... do you remember this Japanese link you gave us? This one:
http://radioactivity.mext.go.jp/en/
Where they showed proof that the seafloor just offshore from Fukushima is, in my words, coated with cesium? Seems the water from the cores is going a wee-bit further than your basements?

FBaggins wrote:
...primary containment structures are still there and are one of the main reasons (hence the escaping water flowing into basement)

You, FBaggins, really should quit lecturing me on being precise, and heed your own advice.

[PamW]

14. WRONG!!! WRONG!!! WRONG!!!

RobertEarl writes:
Who to believe..... Arnie or FBaggins?

Arnie who on the one hand has been pretty much right all along. Whose agenda seems focused on keeping humans safe from the nukies, and is a veteran of the industry.

Or FBaggins who has been wrong all along,

Robert,

Your statements above are just plain WRONG.

It's been Gunderson that has been WRONG on these matters. Whenever I'm having lunch with my physicist and scientist colleagues in the cafeteria of the national lab where we work, and I bring up Arnie Gunderson, the reaction from my colleagues is always the same; they roll their eyes and say, "What has that idiot Gunderson said now?"

Gunderson has been completely WRONG. He's said that Unit 3 was a nuclear explosion, and that has been disproved.

In the same video, he stated that the updraft of the Unit 3 mushroom cloud was caused by the focusing effect of an empty fuel pool and the explosion originating deep within it. WRONG!!! The updraft in the stem of ANY mushroom cloud is caused by a Rayleigh-Taylor instability of the hot air heated by the explosion. How did we have mushroom clouds in atmospheric nuclear tests in Nevada with no fuel pool to focus it?

Gunderson posted a video for the city council of a city near San Onofre in which he multiplied 6 months by a probability per month of an event happening of 60%; and came up with a 360% probability of the event happening within the next 6 months. Anybody who has taken high school level mathematics knows that you don't multiply probabilities like that, and even more egregious, should know that probabilities are bounded above by 100%. A 360% probability doesn't exist. Idiot Gunderson "thinks" it does.


The problem is that you are manifestly ignorant of science; so when Gunderson spews his CRAP, you think it's plausible.

A scientist like myself, or someone with scientific knowledge like FBaggins reacts to that by saying; "Gunderson is spewing CRAP!! He doesn't know what he is talking about".

In reading the posts of FBaggins over time; I have to say that he has pretty much been right on the mark with respect to the science.

I know that won't sit well with many here. However, we are talking about science. In science, there is a right answer and everything else is wrong. Science is not up to human prejudices; we have Mother Nature to be our absolute arbiter; and what she says is TRUTH.

PamW

[RobertEarl]

15. Who to believe?

PamW or Arnie?

Pam who is an anonymous internet typer, or Arnie who is well respected and out-front and who has been proven right time and again.

Arnie, were he looking out for himself and his bank account, would just be quiet. Instead he bucks the system he worked in to bring us folks the truth that nuclear power is not safe.

PamW tells us, against all common sense, that nuclear power is safe.

I know who I believe and trust and it sure ain't you, PDubya.

[PamW]

16. WRONG!!! WRONG!!! WRONG!!!

RobertEarl,

WRONG again.

You say Arnie is well-respected; but that's only the opinion of the people who don't know science.

In the scientific community; Arnie Gunderson is considered a JOKE!!

Just because someone doesn't have a financial interest does NOT mean someone is scientifically credible.

I can't prove my credentials, or who I am. But I can tell you things that Arnie has been WRONG on, and back those up with credible sources from Universities / National Labs / National Academy of Science / and other credible sources in the scientific community.

Let's take one of the most egregious things Arnie has said; the Unit 3 explosion was a nuclear explosion.

1) You can't have a nuclear explosion in a Pu-239 / U-238 mixture when the percentage of Pu-239 is below 14% MOX is only 7% Pu-239

2) Arnie says that the hydrogen imploded the reactor fuel just as explosives in nuclear weapons do. Arnie is WRONG because nuclear weapons use explosive lenses with at least 2 different explosives with differing propagation rates. Arnie's statement just shows he doesn't know how nuclear weapons work.

3) A nuclear explosion has a temperature of 10s of millions of degrees, and radiates in the X-ray regime. If an object is thermally radiating X-rays, then it is radiating all frequencies lower, and hence all frequencies of visible light. Therefore the initial flash of the explosion has to be white; but Arnie says it's yellow. That means the temperature is not hot enough to radiate greens, blues, and violets; hence it can't be the millions of degrees of a nuclear explosion. It must be a few thousand degrees; which is the temperature of a chemical explosion.

If your scientific education is lacking in that you don't understand one or all of the above; I will gladly give you scientifically authoritative references on any of those. Just tell me which you don't understand.

PamW

[RobertEarl]

17. Well, hey

Didn't you tell us nuclear power was safe?

If you really read what Arnie has said, you would know that he has said that we won't know what really happened in the bowels of the reactors until we can get in there and examine the reactors.... in maybe 10 years. Yet here you are telling us YOU KNOW what happened.

Get a grip. You do not know what happened. No one does. At least Arnie has the integrity. Yes, INTEGRITY, to admit it.

[NickB79]

18. Exactly! No one knows until they actually look in there

I'm of the opinion that plutonium-powered unicorns punched holes in the containment vessel with their glowing horns. And since no one knows FOR SURE what happened until we get in there, all other evidence to the contrary be damned, my theory is as valid as Arnie's, right?

[PamW]

20. Correct...

Correct... your unicorn theory is just as valid as Arnie's theory.

We KNOW that BOTH of you are 100% WRONG

PamW

[PamW]

19. WRONG AGAIN!!

I've never said nuclear power was "safe". That takes a value judgment.

What I have said is that the probability of an accident is low. It's similar to airliners. Are airliners "safe"? One can say that the probability of an airliner crash is low. That's not the same as saying that you can guarantee that a given airline flight won't go down. Additionally, my comments as to low probability apply ONLY to power plants that meet the NRC's license requirements. Fukushima had features that we don't allow in the USA; like unburied diesel fuel tanks, and backup diesel generators that are not in watertight vaults.

We CAN say some things about the accident even now. When Air France 447 went down a few years ago; nobody knew anything. However, could we make some conclusions about what happen? Could we have agreed even way back then that Air France 447 was not brought down by a nuclear explosion aboard the craft?

I think we could have agreed on that; because there was no nuclear material on board that could be part of a nuclear explosion. Even though we knew "nothing"; we know it wasn't a nuclear explosion because there was no nuclear material.

Same logic applies here. Reactor fuel is about 3-4% U-235, the fissile isotope of uranium. Additionally, Unit 3 contained MOX with 7% Pu-239.

You don't have to work at a nuclear weapons lab like I do; these following values are available to the general public; but nuclear explosions can not happen in Uranium that has less than 20% U-235; or in Plutonium that is less than 14% Pu-239.

This is akin to saying that your gasoline lawn mower won't run on a mixture that is 5% gasoline and 95% water. The percentage of gasoline is just too low to support a running engine.

Likewise, less than 20% U-235, or less than 14% Pu-239 just won't support a nuclear explosion.

In fact, there's a reason why these two values are published; it has to do with the amount of security you have to provide. Would you not agree that if somebody has some material that can be used as nuclear bomb fuel that they have to provide a high level of protection? You would be correct if you said "yes".

However, is there a level of material concentration in which we don't need to provide that amount of security because the material can't be used as bomb fuel in any case? That also is true. If you have Uranium that has less than 20% U-235; it is called "low enriched" and you don't have to provide as much security for it because it can't be made into a bomb anyway. The same is true for Plutonium with less than 14% Pu-239.

So just as we can say that Air France 447 was not brought down by a nuclear explosion because there was no nuclear fuel on board; we can also say that Unit 3 was NOT a nuclear explosion because although there was nuclear material in the form of reactor fuel there; there was NO material that was "bomb grade" material; and hence there can't be a nuclear explosion with material that is too dilute in fissile isotopes.

Additionally, as I mentioned above; you CAN tell a nuclear explosion from the flash. The flash has to be white and not yellow.

Additionally, a nuclear explosion is really two explosions; there is a hydrodynamic explosion as well as a radiation explosion. The interaction of these two gives nuclear explosions a unique "double flash" character and we have satellites that look for that. Why don't you Google "Vela satellite" and "double flash" and educate yourselves.

Additionally, the CTBTO - the Comprehensive Test Ban Organization is set up to identify nuclear explosion from the isotopes ejected into the atmosphere. As I've explained previously on this board; reactors use a low energy or "slow" neutron spectrum. Bombs, by necessity; have to use a high energy or fast spectrum of neutrons. ( Bombs can't wait for neutrons to slow down - it takes too long. The explosion would be over by the time the first batch of neutrons slows down.) The distribution of fission products depends on the neutron spectrum. So if you look at the ejected radioisotopes you can distinguish between reactor debris and bomb debris.

The CTBTO is set up to do exactly that type of analysis. The CTBTO is the United Nation's "police" for enforcing the Comprehensive Test Ban when it enters into force. CTBTO has to be able to distinguish between a reactor accident and a nuclear explosion in order to do their job. Otherwise, some nation could "cheat" on the CTBT. They could illegally develop nuclear weapons, and illegally test them; and when the fallout was detected, they could just say, "Oh - we had a reactor accident".

How would the CTBTO enforce the treaty if some nation could cheat by claiming their illegal nuclear test was a reactor accident? Well CTBTO can distinguish the difference by the distribution of fallout as I said above. A reactor accident gives you one distribution of fallout, and a nuclear explosion gives you another.

The CTBTO said that the fallout from Fukushima was consistent with a reactor accident and NOT a nuclear explosion.

So we DO KNOW some things about this accident; one of which is that the event at Unit 3 was NOT a nuclear explosion.

PamW

[RobertEarl]

24. I posted the same below to FBaggins

Know what? You the expert....

You know everything that has gone one there.

I don't know why i didn't think of this before.....

I await your explanation of how the nuke plants blew up, what has transpired in the last 18 months there and in what condition the 4 reactors are in and how long before they are fired back up and giving us electricity again.

Oh, yeah, and exactly how much radiation has been released, where it went, how long will it last, etc, etc. I know this should be easy for you. You have all the answers.

Just post an OP and show us how smart you are. I can hardly wait, but i won't hold my breath. Thanks!

[PamW]

38. OK

First, let me explain what it wasn't. The event at Unit 3 was NOT a nuclear explosion.

Only the "lunatic fringe" anti-nukes believe that. Scientists certainly don't, because they know better. The more mainstream environmentalists don't believe it was a nuclear explosion either:

http://www.treehugger.com/clean-technology/mini-faq-about-japans-nuclear-power-plant-crisis.html

Thankfully, it is physically impossible for a nuclear power plant to explode like a nuclear bomb. It simply doesn't have the right kinds of materials: A fission bomb uses highly enriched uranium or plutonium (90%+ of U-235 or Pu-239), while a nuclear power station generally uses Uranium that is only enriched to around 5% (sometimes up to 20% in smaller research reactors). A nuclear power station also lacks all the other mechanisms that are necessary to create a nuclear explosion (like for example the implosion or gun-type assembly configurations that allow supercritical mass to be reached).

Following the link in the last sentence yields:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fission_bomb_assembly_methods.svg

Note that the implosion technique shows that implosion is accomplished with "High-explosive lenses" and not just high explosives as Arnie states. Wikipedia also has an entry for "explosive lenses"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosive_lens

which states:

In general, it is a device composed of several explosive charges that are shaped in such a way as to change the shape of the detonation wave passing through it, conceptually similar to the effect of an optical lens on light. The explosive charges that make it up have different rates of detonation.

Since the above states that the different charges have different rates of detonation, there must be at least TWO different types of explosives. There's only one explosive ( hydrogen ) in Arnie's scenario.

Therefore, Arnie's understanding of nuclear explosions isn't even up to the cartoon level one finds on Wikipedia.

Why were there explosions? There was an explosive hydrogen / oxygen mixture that ignited. Where did the hydrogen come from? It came from the water. When the zirconium tubes that contain the uranium get very hot; they react with the water to oxidize the zirconium. The oxygen atom from the water molecule combines with the zirconium to form zirconium oxide. That releases free hydrogen - what's left of the water molecule.

When will those reactors be fired up again, you ask? NEVER!! TEPCO cooled them with corrosive seawater; so one would never trust the steel to serve as a pressure vessel again. Those reactors are done generating power.

The scientists at my lab know quite a bit about the accident, since we were the ones advising the White House and giving them the best information we know.

Other labs and Universities have also been researching the accident including the Nuclear Engineering Dept. at University of California at Berkeley. They have a group that has been measuring the fallout. It is known as BRAWM. Mark, one of the members of BRAWM posted this summary of the radioisotopes released on their forum:

http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/node/5774#comment-21635

Fukushima released just under 5 kilograms of Cesium-137, 35 grams of Iodine-131, a little over 2 grams of various Plutonium isotopes...

From those values one can make meaningful comparisons. For example, Fukushima released a little more than 2 grams of Plutonium isotopes. Due to atmospheric nuclear weapons testing in the '40s and '50s; there are about 10 metric tonnes of Plutonium in the environment. That's 10,000 kilograms or 10,000,000 grams of Plutonium. So Fukushima add 2 grams to 10 million grams. ( ...and someone gave me a hard time when I called that addition "marginal" )

As FBaggins has stated, the containments are breached, but they are not non-existent.

Arnie Gunderson now makes a living as a consultant to anti-nukes like those opposing Vermont Yankee. Therefore, he has an incentive to make nuclear power look bad. The more he makes nuclear power look bad, the better his customers, the anti-nukes, like it.

FBaggins is correct that you are not being intellectually honest. You believe Arnie because he tells you what you are predisposed to believe. You are thinking with your politics instead of your brain.

As a scientist, I don't know how people can do that.

Truth for me is not what I want it to be; truth is what science tells me is true.

There's the real difference between FBaggins and I on one hand; and you on the other.

PamW

[RobertEarl]

39. is that right?

PamW is quoted saying:

The scientists at my lab know quite a bit about the accident, since we were the ones advising the White House and giving them the best information we know.

Fukushima released just under 5 kilograms of Cesium-137, 35 grams of Iodine-131, a little over 2 grams of various Plutonium isotopes...

Due to atmospheric nuclear weapons testing in the '40s and '50s; there are about 10 metric tonnes of Plutonium in the environment.

So Fukushima add 2 grams to 10 million grams. ( ...and someone gave me a hard time when I called that addition "marginal" )

Truth for me is not what I want it to be; truth is what science tells me is true.

[FBaggins]

40. It's in the ballpark.

Nobody can give you precise numbers because the total release can only be estimated. The estimates are refined with more and more data... but they're still estimates.

Take the Cesium-137. The most recent I've seen (May) upped the release to 360,000 TBq (Iodine equivilent - and don't get me started on that). Iodine equivelence for Cs-137 is about 40:1, so we're looking at about 9,000 TBq (or nine quadrillion becquerels). The specific activity of Cs-137 is 88 Ci/g which converts to 3.256 terabecquerel per gram. 9,000 divided by 3.256 gives you 2,764 - or just under 3 kg.

So if anything, PamW was being conservative (or there's a higher release estimate that I haven't seen). I'd consider anything from half that amount to double that amount as accurate to within the likely error rates.

[PamW]

42. THAT IS RIGHT!!

You should know by now that I don't "make up" or fabricate information. For everything I say, I have a scholarly reference waiting to justify it. Let's take the issues you've raised one by one:

The scientists at my lab know quite a bit about the accident, since we were the ones advising the White House and giving them the best information we know.

Courtesy of Lawrence Livermore National Lab:

https://str.llnl.gov/JanFeb12/sugiyama.html

One of NARAC’s major tasks during the Japan response was to work with NRC, DOE, and the White House to construct a wide range of hypothetical scenarios, or “what-if” predictions, for the atmospheric dispersion and deposition of radioactive releases.

Next we have:

Fukushima released just under 5 kilograms of Cesium-137, 35 grams of Iodine-131, a little over 2 grams of various Plutonium isotopes...

The BRAWM team at the Nuclear Engineering Dept. of University of California-Berkeley has been measuring and analyzing the fallout from the Fukushima event since the beginning. One of their members, Mark Bandstra, provided the following summary in the forum maintained by the BRAWM team:

http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/node/5774#comment-21635

Mark's summary values corroborate the values I stated in my post.

Next we have:

Due to atmospheric nuclear weapons testing in the '40s and '50s; there are about 10 metric tonnes of Plutonium in the environment.

The reference to this is courtesy of the George Perkins Marsh Institute at Clark University:

http://www.clarku.edu/departments/marsh/projects/community/plutonium.pdf

On page 5 under the heading "Fallout" we have:

The largest amount of plutonium released into the environment comes from atmospheric bomb testing (1945-1962). About 10 metric tons of plutonium were released into the atmosphere as a result of these tests.

So for all of you who were gullible enough to believe Helen Caldicott's claim that a single kilogram of plutonium released into the environment would eradicate all life on Earth, should be feeling rather silly. Caldicott's value is TEN THOUSAND times smaller than what is actually in the environment, and life still hasn't been eradicated from the Earth. More self-serving anti-nuclear hype and propaganda.

Finally,

So Fukushima add 2 grams to 10 million grams.

This follows from the 2nd case which verified that Fukushima released a little more than 2 grams of plutonium if you sum the isotopes; and the final verification of 10 metric tons in the environment by Clark University.

There we have it. It is ALL CORRECT, with scholarly citations to back it up.

PamW

[RobertEarl]

43. Thanks, more questions

So... how many kilograms of plutonium were in the MOX fuel at reactor #3?

And have they been able to get in there and weigh what is left after it blew sky-high, spreading chunks of reactor fuel all over the countryside?

We sure are lucky to have an expert like you hanging around to answer these technical questions.

Oh, and... what would be the cpm of .6 rem?

[PamW]

44. NONSENSE QUESTION

RobertEarl asks:

...what would be the cpm of .6 rem

There is no answer to the above question because it is ill-posed NONSENSE.

Once again, you have confused two different physical quantities and postulated an equivalence between them when there is none.

CPM - counts per minute is a unit of "activity" - how fast is a radioisotope decaying.

REM is a unit of "dose" - which is how much radiation energy is absorbed per unit mass.

Those are two different physical quantities.

Your question makes as much sense as asking:

What is the length in feet of something that weighs 5 pounds?

There is no answer to such an ill-posed, nonsense question.

Give me a well-posed question; and I will give you an accurate answer.

As for determining the amount of plutonium released; you wouldn't do that by weighing what is left.
We couldn't weigh the plutonium that's left to a degree of accuracy that would allow us to determine how much escaped.

However, the good news is that we have much more accurate techniques than weighing. The detection of radiation is exquisitely accurate. Therefore, the way to measure how much escaped is to measure the radioactivity that escaped.

That has been done by many groups such as BRAWM at the University of California at Berkeley referred to above. They have determined an answer that is consistent with other groups that are measuring the same thing; how much radioactivity escaped.

As above; the amount of plutonium that escaped Fukushima is a little more than 2 grams.

PamW

[AtheistCrusader]

25. The video is 1 year old dude.

So either TEPCO has been able to 'cover it up' for a whole goddamn year, or it was bullshit.

(It was bullshit)

[RobertEarl]

26. What's your point?

The stack is still there, right? Has it been cleaned up? Has any of the plant been cleaned up? Do you know?

[AtheistCrusader]

29. *facepalm*

[RobertEarl]

30. Great conversation there, bub

What's your point?

[AtheistCrusader]

31. Despite his grandfatherly, calm demeanor

Mr. Gunderson has been proven, just by virtue of time, to be wide of the mark on several occasions. This is not to say TEPCO has been flawless in their predictions, or honesty, but rather, it brings Arnie down to their level to some degree.

I missed the part were anyone said nuclear power was 'safe'. Safe is an extremely relative term.

[leveymg]

27. I trust Gunderson because he's been right about the big picture. There was a meltdown, which you

poo-pooed, to use a very unscientific term. There has been significant loss of containment, which again you guys said wasn't going to happen.

Why should we believe you now, with all your science, you have been so wrong about so much. You pro-nukers have simply lost your credibility and don't seem to have the slightest notion about what to do about the continuing meltdown and escape of radiation other than it'll run it's course, trust us. Well, why should we now?

[FBaggins]

32. I doubt it.

I think you trust him because he says what you are predisposed to want to hear.

It most certainly isn't "because he's been right about the big picture"... because he has not been. He'd been demonstrably wrong on virtually every major thing he's said.

Just off the top of my head:

1 - He said that Fukushima would be "Chernobyl on steroids". It wasn't close.
2 - He looked at the explosion at unit 3 and pronounced that it wasn't a hydrogen explosion, it was a prompt criticality in the fuel pool or within the core (essentially a nuclear explosion).
3 - He looked at IR images of the plant and told us that one or more of the cores had gone critical again (a sustained fission chain reaction had restarted)
4 - He looked at photos of one of the pools and pronounced that it had gone dry and that the fuel was "in air".
5 - He predicted a million deaths (and then toned it down to a million cancers over 2-3 decades).

The first four were clearly wrong (and there was every reason to know that at the time). The 5th is ridiculous... but can't be shown to be wrong for many years. These are hardly his only errors.

To be fair to Arnie... he's done a better job with SONGS analysis. He hasn't been entirely right, but has done well within reasonable bounds caused by insufficient information.

There was a meltdown, which you poo-pooed, to use a very unscientific term.

I'd encourage you to actually go back and review the posts from the first week of the disaster. The pro nuclear crowd most certainly was not saying that there wouldn't be a meltdown. I remember multiple posts saying exactly the opposite in the first day after the tsunami (and I'm reasonably certain that PamW was one of them - I know I was).

The first thread I found that included all three of us was PamW correcting errors re" hydrogen creation within a core and both of us thanking her for straightening out our misperceptions.

There has been significant loss of containment, which again you guys said wasn't going to happen.

I guess you'll have to explain precisely what you mean by that. The cores are pretty clearly still within the primary containment - which likely is what was predicted... so you would be wrong if "significant loss of containment" means the core exiting containment. It would be reasonable, otoh, to say that there has obviously been a large release of radioactive materials (both through venting and through water leaking out of three cores). It's fair to call that at least some kind of "loss of containment"... but then it would be very hard to demonstrate "us guys" ever saying that it wasn't going to happen.

don't seem to have the slightest notion about what to do about the continuing meltdown

I'm sorry... did you seriously intend to say continuing meltdown? As if some part of the core is still in a molten state?

[FBaggins]

21. Hilarious

Arnie who on the one hand has been pretty much right all along... Or FBaggins who has been wrong all along

Interesting. I can give you a pretty long list of the things Arnie has been wrong about (I see that you've already been given some). Can you provide just two or three where I was wrong?

Was i wrong? Is there is a nukie statement out there somewhere that tells the world that Fukushima was going to blow up like it did?

Sorry... did you think that was logical when you typed it? Unless someone predicted in advance of the earthquake that a specific plant was going to fail in a specific way... that means they told us that it could never happen? Those are really the only two possibilities in your mind?

Seriously, they did say it might happen once every 200 years,

What is "it" in this imagined world you're presenting?

And as for the escaping water that is being dumped on the melted core..... do you remember this Japanese link you gave us? ... Where they showed proof that the seafloor just offshore from Fukushima is, in my words, coated with cesium? Seems the water from the cores is going a wee-bit further than your basements?

Again with the weak logic, eh?

A great deal of cesium was released with steam in the early days of the event. You don't think that some of it would have landed on the water nearby and ended up on the sea floor right next to the plant? You don't think that the heavily contaminated water that leaked out in the first couple weeks could also account for most of it? You really think it's proof that the release is ongoing in some significant way?

If so... tell me how it magically impacts only the sea floor and not the water?

Regardless... it's ridiculous to use it as proof of your errant statement that we know that there is no primary containment.

[FBaggins]

22. Oh... and while we're on the subject...

I forgot that you dodged pretty simple questions that would prove your point:

But while we're waiting - here's a pop quiz for you. Take a look at the picture. It looks like the guy is almost literally touching the hot spot with a ten-foot pole. Let's assume that the reading is taken a couple inches from the source. We'll just accept the 10 Sv/hr dose rate. It's an oversimplification in the extreme, but at the same time it's also the limit of what that equipment could measure... so the real rate could be much higher. We have to pick something, so we'll just go with 10 Sv/hr (truly a dangerous figure).

Now assume the guy is, in fact, standing ten feet away. What is the dose rate where he is standing?

And, given that answer and the location of the reading (along with the elevated contamination all around the plant at the time)... is Arnie's assumption credible that they would have detected it much earlier if it hadn't been building up over the weeks since the event?

Come now. Let's make it easy and simply prove whether Arnie was right or wrong. It's a straightforward problem. If you can't do it, then ask for help.

[RobertEarl]

23. Know what? You the expert

You know everything that has gone one there.

I don't know why i didn't think of this before.....

I await your explanation of how the nuke plants blew up, what has transpired in the last 18 months there and in what condition the 4 reactors are in and how long before they are fired back up and giving us electricity again.

Oh, yeah, and exactly how much radiation has been released, where it went, how long will it last, etc, etc. I know this should be easy for you. You have all the answers.

Just post an OP and show us how smart you are. I can hardly wait, but i won't hold my breath. Thanks!

[FBaggins]

33. Feel free to review my prior posts.

DU hasn't deleted anything. My analysis from the very first couple days of the event is still there. I've corrected Arnie-philes scores of times. Feel free to point out those where he was right and I was wrong.

I don't know why i didn't think of this before.....

Oh... but you have. You have regularly tried to desperately shift the conversation away from your own errors by trying to distract. The question is why you think anyone has fallen for it?

Come on RE... it was a very simple question. Highschool physics students all around the country can do it. I've already simplified out all the hard parts.

I'll give you a hint. Look up "inverse square law".

[RobertEarl]

35. Is he dead?

Or alive?

I don't know the answer to your question.

You have all the answers and so i am just looking forward to your explanation of what happened at Fukushima, where are the cores, how much radiation has been released and where it all went and when will it be cleaned up and when can people move back on to their land.

[FBaggins]

36. Of course he isn't dead.

Unless he was later hit by a bus.

I don't know the answer to your question.

And thus we find the beginning of true wisdom. Congratulations!

Radiation follows an inverse-square law - which simply means that the intensity is inversely proportional to the square of the distance. So if you were to take a reading 60-times as far away (120 inches instead of 2)... the reading would be 3,600 times lower. In this case, we compare 10 Sv/hr (a very dangerous dose rate) to 2.8 mSv/hr (you avoid taking a nap there... but the worker is in no danger (especially wearing protective gear). And yet Arnie told us "To be anywhere near that for a couple of minutes would be a death sentence"

We thus know for a fact that Arnie was spreading lies (I find it hard to believe that he just didn't know - the only other possibility). In an environment where there were LOTS of places over 3mSv/hr, it's entirely reasonable to think they missed this hot spot by simply not walking close enough to that pipe. Moreover... there wasn't any rational explanation for what he hinted was happening (that the contamination hadn't been there originally and was building up over weeks/months). That's the high-pressure vent pipe. Any ongoing releases wouldn't be going through it.

Let me lay it out for you. You've been conned. This is a guy who used to work in the nuclear field (though he pads even that resume) and was fired. Believe him or not re: the "whistle-blower" bs... it doesn't matter. He ended up as a high school math teacher. A perfectly respectable profession (though one would assume he could do an inverse-square calculation), but not one that pays what he made before and he lost almost everything during the lawsuit. He found that he could make a little money attacking his former employers in court cases trying to stop nuclear power plants. He quickly realized that the more sensational his claims, the more often he was called to testify and the more money he made. IOW... he's the very definition of a shill. He has no reason to tell you the truth and every reason to lie... and has done so throughout the Fukushima timeline.

i am just looking forward to your explanation of what happened at Fukushima

You've had it several times... usually in reply to your own made-up explanation. Such as your recent ridiculousness that the fuel pools burned because they lost coolant for a few hours and it could happen here in minutes. I have no intention of writing a book for you.

[RobertEarl]

37. heh

Last edited Tue Aug 14, 2012, 11:22 PM - Edit history (1)

"...he's the very definition of a shill. He has no reason to tell you the truth and every reason to lie... and has done so throughout the Fukushima timeline. "

"I have no intention of writing a book for you."

But Arnie is writing a book. And there are lots of people who really do appreciate some truth. We don't expect that it will be perfect. After all, a Fukushima has never happened before.

Why was the the counter on a pole? Because if the guy holding the pole got too close to the source of the killer radiation, it would burn the living crap out of him. Duh! We all know the closer you are to a radiation source means more danger.

Why you refuse to answer the simple questions about how much radiation has been released, where it went, and when can the people move back on to their lands, doesn't make sense. You are the answer man!!

Anyway.... what about those mutated butterflies? They didn't even get "close".

[FBaggins]

41. "Arnie is writing a book"

What a shocker!

Just another way to make a buck. They certainly aren't peer reviewed by any actual experts (in fact, they're usually self-published or the foreign equivalent).

And there are lots of people who really do appreciate some truth.

Not anyone paying attention to him. Sorry.

We don't expect that it will be perfect.

Then you're in luck!

Why was the the counter on a pole? Because if the guy holding the pole got too close to the source of the killer radiation, it would burn the living crap out of him. Duh!

You think so? Sorry. That's simply wrong. It's a pretty standard way to take measurements. Yes... it's so you stay away from the source... but not because "it would burn the living crap out of him"

Why you refuse to answer the simple questions

Lol! "Simple" questions that involve explaining everything that has happened? But the answer is quite simple... I have explained much of it to you in the past and you've been what the church used to call "invincibly ignorant". That is... you just keep right on posting as if nobody ever explained it to you.

Anyway.... what about those mutated butterflies? They didn't even get "close".

What about them? The ones you see in the photos actually did "get close" by that standard. The lab experiments exposed them to 55-120 mSv of radiation (and during critical development phases... not as adults). That's unlikely to cause a recognizable impact on humans, but there's decades of research showing much larger impacts on insects. I remember one study from Chernobyl documenting several insect types and averaging 30% of the population.

[caraher]

28. By the way...

This is pretty much exactly the exercise I gave my class of non-science majors - showed them the picture and lurid headlines, asked how is it that if this is "death in seconds" (I believe MSNBC's web site ran with that caption) that person is still alive.

Then we did some experiments on the inverse-square law, shielding, etc. and asked them to estimate the actual dose rate to the worker in the picture. This is really basic stuff; anyone who can't handle the trivial calculation FBaggins asks for really doesn't have a clue how to interpret this story.

Of course, ratcheting down the impression of immediate fatal peril in the situation pictured in no way implies there's no reason to be concerned about releases of radiation from Fukushima. But those hazards have much more to do with what is happening far from the plant than with a hot spot on a pipe on-site, for everyone but the workers at the plant.

[FBaggins]

34. Exactly right.

Couldn't have put it any better.

[Yo_Mama]

10. This is from last year

The radiation level detections. They happened last year, not this year.

So don't hold your breath waiting for something to happen.