Relevant to Meltdown

The following letter was emailed to me through a colleague. The letter's author -- Robert Christopherson -- was intimately involved in the construction of the nuclear facilities in Japan and so, in my mind, has high credibility.

"Dear Geosystems Team,


We are having a difficult emotional time these several days and not because of my stupid knee. The events in Japan are real to us and relate personally to 40 years of work. I have a personal connection with the engineers that worked for GE who designed and worked on these reactors. I've given hundreds of talks on nuclear power over the years beginning in 1974 and have done debates and panel discussions to audiences in public and on TV and radio about this problematic technology. The 3 GE engineers/managers in charge of GE's nuclear division in San Jose, that resigned from GE in Feb. 1976 in protest, is just as significant today and yet is unreported. I knew these men---here is some back story on what is happening in Japan.

The Japan quake is from a well-understood subduction zone where the Pacific Plate, moving NW, is convergent in area shared by the Philippine and Eurasian plates. Imagine a 210-mi x 50-mi segment of the ocean floor abruptly punching upward 50 ft, as the subducting plate shifts. This is what pushed the sea water upward with such force to produce the tsunami.

As with most disasters death is underreported, the 1000 number has dominated the press, yet towns of 10,000 people cannot be accounted for and as of Sunday night a 1000 bodies were picked up along beaches. Likewise with the 6 nuclear plants that are experiencing cooling problems, the press coverage has been poor and the nuclear power PR machine is in full swing. In the past hour, I have heard 5 people interviewed who gave disinformation about nuclear reactors, the nuclear industry, the ongoing accidents, the mechanics of a reactor, and false information about ionizing radiation. And worse, they presented revisionist history of the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl accidents, getting the years wrong, the accident sequence, and the role of mechanical/equipment failure in both places. I have a bookcase in my garage with all the scientific and government findings about both accidents.

If you see an occasional interview with a scientist from Union of Concerned Scientist, or several other scientists, those are good. The key is that there is no lower threshold for ionizing radiation---none. So all the interviews you hear that radiation amounts are "very tiny," "insignificant," etc., are misrepresenting science (see John Gofman's classic Radiation and Human Health (910 ppgs), among many sources). Also, the innerworkings of a boiling water reactor (BWR) and what is actually happening in Japan is misreported. Of the light-water reactors in service there are pressurized water reactors (PWR) built by the former Westinghouse, Babcock & Wilcox, Combustion Engineering, among others. These are different from the General Electric BWRs, or the Toshiba and Hitachi versions that use the GE design. The 6 reactors at the Fukushima site are all BWR---units #1 through #5 are all the old Mark I designs, Unit #6 is a Mark II design; all built between 1971 and 1979 with the help of GE. The "torus ring" pressure suppression system of the Mark design was problematic from the beginning. There are 24 Mark I plants in the US. By the way the manufacturers of these reactors sold them with a full one-year parts and labor warranty---like a toaster.

The "defense in depth" concept is important in nuclear plants, that is why they have containment buildings in which the reactor vessel containment sits. Fukushima Units #1 and #3 both have had hydrogen explosions that blew down walls and launched the roofs of these highly reinforced structures into the air. This leaves the primary reactor vessels as the remaining defense between the core and the atmosphere. You have no doubt heard interviews diminishing the loss of these 2 containment structures in Japan following these explosions since they are not the reactor vessels themselves. These 40-year old reactor vessels are embrittled from their life in a high-radiation environment (steel ductility lost). Unit #1 was actually scheduled to be permanently shut down by the end of this month.

Hydrogen gas is formed when fuel cladding and pellets begin to mechanically fail (melt) as the zirconium cladding exceeds normal operating temps of 343 C° (650 F°), whereas, the pellets inside the rods operate at about 2204 C° (4000 F°), in a loss of coolant accident (LOCA). In a LOCA action must be taken in the first 60 seconds and even with a scram when control rods are inserted to cease primary reactions, the "ash" build up that accumulates in the core from previous fissioning since the last refueling, will continue to fission producing significant heat---a flow of cooling water is essential. The LOCA at Three Mile Island (a PWR) led to 95% of the core mechanically slumping to the bottom of the reactor vessel, at Chernobyl the meltdown was complete, although that was a graphite reactor. The fact that there have been 2 hydrogen explosions in Unit #1 and #3 and that the second explosion also disrupted the coolant in Unit #2, indicates all this is going on in the plant...extremely serious, yet most media interviews diminish the event's significance, unless it by is a credible scientist.

When cesium-138, Iodine-129, krypton-85, and the many other isotopes, are reported emitting from the failing reactors, they can only originate from one source within the reactor---failed zirconium cladding around the fuel pellets, gathered in assemblies that form the reactor core. And the only explanation of this is a failure in the cladding, meaning, fuel cladding is melting. The report that they are dumping sea water into the plant to cool the core is questionable because sea water contains so much mineral content that can all be radioactively stimulated---more radioactive pollution---nuc plants use distilled water normally. The introduction of sea water essentially ends the possibility that the plant will ever operate again---a billion dollar capital investment per unit lost. The word that fire trucks are being used to pump water into the reactors is sad, the quantities needed are so huge and the exposure to intense radiation of the brave firefighters is tragic.

As people evacuate they are told to cover their mouths and they are given iodine tablets----covering your mouth will not filter out hot particles. Iodine is taken to saturate the thyroid so iodine-129 does not get absorbed and cause thyroid cancer. However, with water and food lacking, I don't have confidence that iodine tablets are actually making it into mouths. I understand the media says this as the plan. All this indicates that this is a major nuclear catastrophe and there is a meltdown underway in more than one reactor.

In Feb 2, 1976, Dale Bridenbaugh, Manager of GE's Mark I Containment Program, Dick Hubbard, GE's Manager of Quality Assurance, and Greg Minor, GE's Manager of Advanced Nuclear Control, with 58 years combined careers with GE, resigned in protest over the Mark I design, deployment, and sales effort. They opposed the behavior of the PR departments in selling the Mark IV designs before the Mark I was resolved. These 3 heroes turned over all files and 1000s of pages to oversight committees and regulatory agencies (see Investigations of Charges Relating to Nuclear Reactor Safety, Hearings before the JCAE, Feb–Mar 1976, 94th Congress, 2nd session, 1037 ppgs). Dale B. worked on India's GE plants at Tarapur, India, and told me of the shock he experienced when visiting the site to see the lax radiation standards and oversight. (GE assisted India getting nucs, Westinghouse assisted Pakistan--we live with the legacy today.)

The Fukushima reactors are the same as those that the 3 men were concerned about, In Dale's 2-page resignation letter he said in part, "I am no longer convinced of the technical safety of nuclear power and I fear the high risk of political and human factors...I have become increasingly alarmed at the shallowness of understanding that has formed the basis for many of the current designs."

I was on programs with these men in talks and debates where we worked together to inform the public, and at the time, fought against significant disinformation on the part of the industry and their politicians----just like we hear right now.

This is all the unreported back story of the Mark I and II.

Long after the tsunami mess and earthquake damages are mopped up the radionuclides and cancers will be a problem. Reactors #1 and #3 are the ones that had hydrogen explosions. Unit #3 unit was using problematic plutonium-enhanced fuel. Regulations state that 20 half lives is the rule for sequestering ionizing radiation sources from the biosphere. For example, Cesium-137 has a half life of 30.2 years...so about 600 years for 20 half lives; iodine-129 with a half life of 1.7 million years, times 20 means 34 million years. Plutonium-239 has a radioactive half life of 24,400 years---this means 480,000 years of sequestration from the biosphere---what a mess.

Meanwhile a US naval task force of ships traveling to Japan to assist, led by the aircraft carrier Reagan, encountered radioactive clouds. Three helicopters had to return to their ship after their radiation censors were set off 60 mi from the coast, all 17 crewmen had to be scrubbed and the choppers decontaminated. I checked the weather maps this morning and the polar jet stream is dipping down right over this part of Japan, carrying materials westward.

Peace,

Robert Christopherson"