Nuclear Engineer Arnie Gundersen: Fukushima Meltdown May Result in 1 Million Cases of Cancer

[bananas]

Amy Goodman had Arnie Gunderson on Monday March 12.
Arnie has been an excellent source of information throughout the ongoing disaster at Fukushima.
Transcript at http://www.democracynow.org/2012/3/12/nuclear_engineer_arnie_gundersen_fukushima_meltdown

democracynow.org - The Obama administration is backing an expansion of nuclear power plants, but have the lessons of Fukushima been learned? We speak to former nuclear industry executive Arnie Gundersen on the fallout from Fukushima, the design failures of the Mark 1 nuclear reactor used at Fukushima and many U.S. power plants, the economics of nuclear energy and the battle over nuclear power in his home state of Vermont. Gundersen is a former nuclear industry senior vice president who has coordinated projects at 70 nuclear power plants around the country. He is the chief engineer at Fairewinds Association and co-wrote the new Greenpeace report, "Lessons from Fukushima."

To watch the complete daily, independent news hour, read the transcript, download the podcast, and for additional Democracy Now! reports about the Japanese disaster, visit http://www.democracynow.org/topics/japan_disaster

[kristopher]

1. Radioactive materials may have sunk 30 cm into ground

Radioactive materials may have sunk 30 cm into ground

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Radioactive materials released from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi power plant into the atmosphere were found 5 centimeters beneath the ground three months after the breakout of the nuclear crisis last March, but are now believed to have sunk 10 to 30 cm deep, a study by a research institution showed Wednesday.

The hazardous materials must have seeped into the land with rain, according to the Japan Atomic Energy Agency.

"Further delay in decontamination works will make the radioactive materials sink into the ground deeper, and it will impose more burdens on those involved in the decontamination," said Haruo Sato, researcher at the agency's Horonobe Underground Research Center in Hokkaido.

A group of researchers of the agency examined the penetration of four radioactive materials, including cesium 137, at 11 points in Nihonmatsu, Kawamata and Namie in Fukushima Prefecture, which are within a radius 20 to 60-kilometers from the Fukushima complex, in June.

Most ...

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20120314p2g00m0dm016000c.html

[NickB79]

5. On the plus side, deep contamination of the local soils prevents wider cesium distribution

Throughout Japan and North Pacific ocean. The deeper the cesium sinks in, the more solidly it is sequestered in the local environment.

Admittedly, it's not much of a silver lining, but it's better than having even more cesium distributed into the oceans

[kristopher]

6. That's the right depth for uptake by root systems, isn't it?

[OnlinePoker]

7. Self-radiating fruits and vegetables

What will the food industry think of next.

[madokie]

8. No need for pesticides as the insects will be glowing bright so they'll be easy to simply pick off

of the vegetables. Yes what will they think of next

[kristopher]

2. High cesium levels detected in mud at Fukushima dam lake

High cesium levels detected in mud at Fukushima dam lake

Mud at the bottom of a dam lake near the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant is heavily contaminated with radioactive cesium, government research has shown.

Tsukuba University professor Yuichi Onda, commissioned by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology to conduct the survey, released the findings at a symposium on March 13.

Onda's team detected radioactive cesium of some 3 million becquerels per square meter at the bottom of the Horai Dam lake, about 60 kilometers west-northwest of the nuclear plant, along the Abukuma River in Nihonmatsu, Fukushima Prefecture. The level was 10 times higher than those of nearby reservoirs, and was roughly equivalent to soil contamination levels in the 20-kilometer radius exclusion zone around the Fukushima nuclear plant.

From July to August last year, Onda took samples from the 20-centimeter-deep mud on the bottom of the dam lake, dried them and compared them with mud samples from four nearby reservoirs registering contamination in the 200,000 to 400,000 becquerels per square meter range. Cesium from the crippled power station is believed to have condensed in the mud on the bottom of the Horai Dam after flowing into the river with soil and rainwater.

According to professor...

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20120314p2a00m0na003000c.html

[FBaggins]

3. You've got to give the guy credit for chutzpah

Instead of admitting his wildly erroneous predictions were worthless, he's doubling down on the nuttiness.

Luckily for him, his paycheck doesn't depend on ever being right. Far from it in fact. The more spectacular the claims (regardless of reality), the more he makes in the future.

[bowens43]

4. or it may not......nothing but opinion and wild speculation.

we've seen this kind of unsubstantiated, sensationalist nonsense from this guy before.

[OnlinePoker]

9. Compare this to Chernobyl, a far worse disaster

A 2006 WHO fact sheet predicted about 9000 additional cancer deaths in Belarus, Ukraine, and the Russian Federation as a result of that meltdown.

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs303/en/index.html

[RobertEarl]

10. A core question

We know where the core is at Chernobyl, where is the core now at the 4 reactors in Fukushima one wonders?