Fukushima Nuclear Disaster News - Debunking Arnie Gundersen

It's really getting tiring debunking everything that clowns like Arnie Gundersen say about Fukushima. It doesn't matter how many facts or data that I link to or how much I try to fact check what this guy says, people still write really stupid (and childishly rude) stuff to me and challenge me on it. 


Of course, I can tell the rude stuff comes from ill-educated hysterical Americans. It's pretty obvious.


What's even more tiring is getting mail from fools who actually believe that out of control reports that "the top 1/3 of Japan is uninhabitable," and things like that. I think Fukushima is a serious situation and should be considered so... How much that has to do with (some) reports that claim "we must evacuate the Northern hemisphere" etc...Is beyond me. Take everything you hear with a grain of salt. Tepco has an agenda; the government has an agenda; anti-nuclear power people have an agenda (actually it's pro-fossil fuels and big oil -  but they don't realize it... Everyone has an agenda. In my experience, the only ones who come out of these things well are the skeptics... I am one.

It really reminds me of the early days of the Global Warming idiocy. People were foaming at the mouth believing that too because they believed the crap they were told. What was their rationale?


1) It was a government cover up and conspiracy 
2) "They" were lying to us


Why do people think this way?


3) Most people are illogical and cannot have an original thought if it were the last thing they ever did


It's a victory for the public education system that it churns out so many people with such a poor level of education. 


I don't really mind being challenged on what's written here, but let's stick to the points, if we can, shall we? The lunatic fringe writing stuff to me like what I received yesterday was so totally out of whack that I deleted his comments. (Note: I do enjoy every one's comments and appreciate that they take the time to write them, but please do read the rules on commenting before you write. It is foolish to take ten minutes writing something that gets immediately deleted when you could read the rules in two seconds and make sure that doesn't happen).


Some of these guys actually write comments like this:


"Mike, you are full of sh*t... Care to debate me?"


Hmm.... What an intelligent, polite and marvelous argument this guy puts forth. What a fantastic invitation to debate the points. I can tell, by the quality of his writing, it would be like debating Neanderthal man. I don't know how I can counter such an excellently structured argument... 


Perhaps by hitting the table with a crude wooden bat and saying, "Korg no like!"...


Could he possibly mean that he wants to, "debate me on the point of the contents of my body?" If so, no. I do not... If he means that - judging by the excellent logic of his argument shown in his comment - should I debate him on the same level of childish insults as he does by, say, calling his mother various unsavory names? Then, no to that one too. 


I'm sure that his mother is a wonderful woman. Most moms are like that.


So, without further ado, here's another article debunking Gundersen. I hope it will be the last, but, alas, suspect it won't. First up, let's be fair. I will show you both anti-atomic power (Gundersen's comments) and "pro"-nuclear power comments. You be the judge.


From Atomic Insights: 

Arnie Gundersen has been making money by spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt about nuclear energy for more than a decade. His career has received a measurable boost since March 11, when a large earthquake and powerful tsunami successfully peeled off most of the many layers of protection at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station.

Ever since that day, Gundersen has been giving scary interviews in a variety of media outlets that include a number of dire predictions. He claimed that the spent fuel pool for unit 4 had gone dry and that he had the video to prove it. That claim remains available on his web site, so he is apparently standing by his early evaluation despite all evidence that contradicts his claim.

(snip) 

He has been making the rounds of the advertiser supported media recently with stories about the dangers of “hot particles” that are so tiny they cannot be picked up by normal radiation detectors. (Note: Radiation can be measured at extremely low levels, far below the levels that can cause human health effects. There is a reason why doctors inject small amounts radioactive materials into their patients as tracers to assist them in diagnosing organ function – those tracers make bodily systems visible without endangering the patient. If the hot particles are so tiny and dispersed that they cannot be detected, they are nothing to worry about.)

You can read more about Gundersen here at Atomic Insights.

Of course, I also blasted Gundersen for these same ridiculous remarks on the very blog in "Wind Patterns and Rainy Season in Japan" where I derailed his ignorant and completely false claims that "the wind was turning and now blowing radiation towards Tokyo." I also dismantled his absurd claims of "anecdotal evidence" of people having a metallic taste in their mouths was proof of Iodine in the air as a byproduct of radiation in "Metallic Tastes in Mouths Proves Nuclear Disaster! Or Does it?"

Finally, and as an aside, one other reader complained that I bashed Gundersen for his foolish claims of radioactive air filters in cars. The reader claimed that he searched for third-party evidence of this claim by Gundersen and could find nothing. This reader then somehow concluded that this fact was proof that I was making up evidence against Gundersen and trying to discredit him (well, that's what he said. Yeah, I know. The logic is quite convuluted...) But I don't want to keep railing on the educational system of the USA. In that post about car air filters I even showed the results of a search in Japanese for what Gundersen was claiming and found nothing excepting links to his absurd claims. See it here in "Radioactive Air Filters in Cars?" 

For today here's more about what Gundersen claimed that is totally disproven by facts on the ground. Gundersen claimed in an article on Al Jazeera:

"So ten to 15 years from now maybe we can say the reactors have been dismantled, and in the meantime you wind up contaminating the water," Gundersen said. 

Is this true? You be the judge. Here's today's news from the Nuclear Energy Institute:

Contaminated Water Levels Beginning to Drop at Fukushima Daiichi

TEPCO is making headway in reducing the volume of contaminated water on site. In the last week, the new water filtration system has treated more than 13,000 tons of water. Recycling the treated water into the plant cooling systems also began last week, and the rate of water accumulation is now being reversed. The company says water levels in the basements of the reactor buildings could drop by more than three feet by next month. About 120,000 tons of water have accumulated in basements at the facility and in storage facilities. 

This seems to quite directly contradict Gundersen's claims, no? I think it is also ridiculous that TEPCO insists that there will be no water leaks... How could there be no water leaks? But I digress...

The article continues:

Also, the company has installed steel plates at the seawater intake structures for Fukushima reactors 1 through 4, closing off a path for leakage of contaminated water from the reactors to the ocean.

So, judging from the news these last two days, here are the facts and the timetable settled so far:

1) Radiation levels at the crippled plants are expected to be within safe limits so that human engineers can reenter the plants on July 17, 2011. That's eight days from today.

2) The contaminated water is being cleaned and contaminated water levels are dropping.

3) Radioactive water leaks have reportedly been stopped.

Of course this disaster at Fukushima is bad and serious. But considering the claims of just a few shorts months, even weeks ago, when Gundersen was claiming:

"Fukushima is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind. Fukushima has three nuclear reactors exposed and four fuel cores exposed. You probably have the equivalent of 20 nuclear reactor cores because of the fuel cores, and they are all in desperate need of being cooled, and there is no means to cool them effectively."

Gundersen likes to use words like "maybe" (see above) and words like "probably." That means that he is just guessing. Also, don't look now, but the reactors were being cooled months ago.

As far as being the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind, I'm sure that is debatable. I'm sure people near the BP oil disaster that has already killed at least eleven men and sickened hundreds, if not thousands, of people; as well as killing wildlife in the hundreds of millions if not more, would strongly disagree with you Gundersen. Or the over 130 dead from Chernobyl in the first 90 days...

So far the death tally from Fukushima nearly four months later: Zero. 

These are facts indelibly etched into history...

Note: In my next post, I blow this, "Fukushima is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind" claim to pieces. That claim is pure and total nonsense. How can people be so arrogant and ignorant of history to even entertain such a thought? Read it here.