ARNIE GUNDERSEN: Unit 3 reactor bottom could collapse and cause "steam explosion"

[FourScore]

Transcript for Exclusive Arnie Gundersen Interview: The Dangers of Fukushima Are Worse and Longer-lived Than We Think

SNIP

...Arnie Gundersen: Unit 3 may not have melted through and that means that some of the fuel certainly is lying on the bottom, but it may not have melted through and some of the fuel may still look like fuel, although it is certainly brittle. And it's possible that when the fuel is in that configuration that you can get a re-criticality. It's also possible in any of the fuel pools, one, two, three, and four pools, that you could get a criticality, as well. So there’s been frequent enough high iodine indications to lead me to believe that either one of the four fuel pools or the Unit 3 reactor is in fact, every once in a while starting itself up and then it gets to a point where it gets so hot that it shuts itself down and it kind of cycles. It kind of breathes, if you will...

SNIP

...Arnie Gundersen: Unit 3 has another problem and the NRC mentioned it yesterday for the first time and it gets back to that saltwater and the effect on iron. They are afraid that the reactor bottom will break, literally just break right out and dump everything. Because it's now hot and it's got salt on it and it's got the ideal conditions for corrosion. So the big fear on Unit 3 is that it will break at the bottom and whatever else remains in it, which could be the entire core, could fall out suddenly. And if that happens, you can get something called a “steam explosion,” and this may be a one in a hundred chance. I don’t want your listeners to think it's going to happen tomorrow, but if the core breaks you will get a steam explosion, but we’re not sure the core is going to break. And that is a violent hydrogen explosion like the one we’ve already witnessed...

SNIP

...Arnie Gundersen: Well, this event is – I have said it's worse than Chernobyl and I’ll stand by that. There was an enormous amount of radiation given out in the first two to three weeks of the event. And add the wind and blowing in-land. This could be – it could very well have brought the nation of Japan to its knees, I mean there is so much contamination that luckily wound up in the Pacific Ocean as compared to across the nation of Japan. It could have cut Japan in half. But now the winds have turned, so they are heading to the south toward Tokyo and now my concern and my advice to friends that if there is a severe aftershock and the Unit 4 building collapses, leave. We are well beyond where any science has ever gone at that point and nuclear fuel lying on the ground and getting hot is not a condition that anyone has ever analyzed.

So the plants, you will see them steaming and as summer goes on, you will see them steaming less, because the air is warmer, but it's not because they are not steaming, you just don’t see it. Because this event occurred in March and it was cool there, so you will see the steam a lot easier. Those plants are still omitting a lot of radiation. Nowhere near as much as on the first two weeks, but a lot of radiation: cesium, strontium, and mainly cesium and strontium – those are going to head south, whether or not there is a tropical hurricane. The wind is going to push it south this time and so the issue is not the total radiation you might measure with a Geiger counter in your hand, but hot particles...

MUCH MORE AT: http://www.chrismartenson.com/page/transcript-exclusive-arnie-gundersen-interview-dangers-fukushima-are-worse-and-longer-lived-we-

[WillyT]

1. K & R !!!

:kick:

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Ah yes, more dancing bunnies

What dan I say?

[jpak]

3. When will the shrill anti-nucular terror-mongerings stop!!!!111

Nuclear power is safe!!!!1112

[Mojorabbit]

4. k n r. nt