18th Interview with My Dad, a Nuclear Engineer, about the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Disaster in Japan

You can listen to all the interviews on the new vimeo channel Brandon and I created. You can also listen to most of the interviews on Brad Go’s YouTube channel.

Here’s the vimeo channel:

Brad Go’s YouTube channel: 

This afternoon my dad and I recorded our 18th interview on the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster. Please see the rest of the blog (sidebar) for previous interviews. We are no longer answering listener questions, but please do continue to send emails to georneysblog@gmail.com. We really do appreciate all the comments and nice emails we receive! You can also follow me on twitter @GeoEvelyn.

Here are some websites we refer to in today’s interview:

In today’s interview:
1. My dad gives his usual update

2.We address a final batch of questions from listeners:

(a.) Is there a possibility that radioactive water is seeping into the ground? What potential harm could this cause?

(b.) How could it happen that, after much less than a century of nuclear power, we’ve got an accident that is completely beyond the design basis of a nuclear plant? Aren’t the designs of these plants supposed to take into account events far rarer than that? Was this so out of the blue that we can be reasonably sure something like this won’t happen again in the next, say, 200 years, or does this mean that in the next couple of decades, we might well have another disaster, perhaps of some completely different nature, that is so beyond the design basis of a plant that its safety mechanisms are as compromised as we’ve seen at Fukushima?

(c.) Why do they build several nuclear reactors close together, such as the 6 reactors and 7 spent fuel pools at Fukushima? What are the advantages of building several reactors close together? What are the disadvantages of building several reactors close together?

(d.) What missing information do you wish you had to help you better understand what is happening at Fukushima?

Hope to have an audio link soon. Here is the interview on vimeo:

Please see the announcement page for more information about these interviews:

If you have time and interest, please transcribe this interview. Our final wrap-up interview will take place on Saturday, April 9th.

Announcement: The End of the Interviews with my Dad, a Nuclear Engineer

As my dad and I just announced in Interview 17, we have decided to do just two more interviews about the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster in Japan.

We will conduct a last interview update on Thursday, April 7th. This will be the last interview in which we address questions from listeners, so please email any remaining questions you may have to georneysblog@gmail.com as soon as possible.

On Saturday, April 9th we will conduct a final interview in which we summarize the previous interviews. In this final interview my dad will also discuss newer generations of nuclear power plants and talk a little about a proposed idea to use thorium, rather than uranium, as a fuel source in nuclear power plants.

After Saturday, we will not conduct any more interviews unless there is a major development at Fukushima. We may also conduct the occasional interview from time to time to remind people that the nuclear disaster at Fukushima will take months to years to fully resolve and overcome.

We hope that these interviews have been helpful for people. As I mentioned in a previous note, I will be compiling all of the interview transcripts in an easy-to-read book form. My father and I will be self-publishing this book on Lulu (unless a publisher wants to come forth and help us?), and we will donate 25% of the book profits to earthquake and tsunami disaster relief in Japan. The book will include all of the interviews through the interview we will be doing on Saturday, and there will also be some extra information on my father and I (including a collection of family photos) and a chapter compiling some of the many, many emails and comments we have received over the course of doing these interviews. The interviews will remain freely available here always; I just thought that some people might like the interview transcripts available in an easier-to-read book form.

There are still a few interviews that need transcriptions. If anyone would like to transcribe some or all of Interviews 14, 15, 16, and 17, my father and I would be most grateful. I can send payment in the form of pretty rocks or gear from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, where I am a graduate student.

17th Interview with My Dad, a Nuclear Engineer, about the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Disaster in Japan

Radiation in Daily Life. Figure taken from MEXT website here (click on any of the PDFs and scroll to last page).Click figure to view larger. My dad refers to this figure in the interview today.

You can listen to all the interviews on the new vimeo channel Brandon and I created. You can also listen to most of the interviews on Brad Go’s YouTube channel.

Here’s the vimeo channel:

Brad Go’s YouTube channel: 

This afternoon my dad and I recorded our 17th interview on the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster. Please see the rest of the blog (sidebar) for previous interviews. Please keep sending questions and comments to georneysblog@gmail.com. You can also follow me on twitter @GeoEvelyn but please do not send questions via twitter. Please note that our next interview will be the LAST interview in which we will address listener questions, so send in your questions if you have them.

Here are some websites we refer to in today’s interview:

In today’s interview:
1. My dad gives his usual update

2.We address questions from listeners:

(a.) Can you explain some of the different units that are used to measure radiation and radioactivity?

(b.) Can you comment on the radiation reports on the MEXT website? 

(c.) Is it possible the Fukushima plants did have hardened vents but they were inoperable due to air-operated valves which were dependent on air compressors which were without power?

(d.) In the US plants are required to show they can survive an extended station blackout (this sort of accident) and make design and procedure changes if they couldn’t under their original design. Did the Japanese regulator follow the US lead in this area?

Hope to have an audio link soon. Here is the interview on vimeo:

Please see the announcement page for more information about these interviews:

If you have time and interest, please transcribe this interview. Our next interview will be on Thursday, April 7th. This will be the LAST update interview before our final wrap-up interview.

A Quick Note: A Message from My Dad, a Nuclear Engineer, for TEPCO and the Japanese Government

A message from my dad for the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and the Japanese government, from Interview 16:

“We’ve tried to remain calm and rational and not get too excited. So, just because we haven’t raised our voice and started yelling and screaming doesn’t indicate at all that we don’t have concerns. I think from early on, if you go back and listen to some of the early interviews, the lack of transparency from TEPCO– I’ve been saying all along I think before, definitely before, the mainstream press, and I remember in one of the interviews early on I was really happy when finally Anderson Cooper was starting to take them to task for their lack of transparency– we’ve been saying since day one that TEPCO has not been forthcoming. And, in the last interview, and I realize it’s probably been three days, we talked about: hey [TEPCO], two-and-a-half weeks into this, now three weeks into this, how come you can’t get two or three reactor operators or engineers together from some of your other plants [and] interpret for the public what’s going on and produce a comprehensive briefing every day? And their [TEPCO’s] press releases are still not very informative.

The other thing that we’ve commented on is the lack of a website that an average person can go to and have the radiation and contamination readings in plain English so that they can understand where it’s above the limit and where it’s below the limit and where they should and should not be concerned. And the IAEA had at least put some information out there, and we had referenced people to it a few days ago, but still as far as I know, today– now there may be a site in Japanese that I can’t find or read– but to my knowledge there’s still not a website that people can go to that shows them: here’s the radiation and contamination readings for the past twenty-four to forty-eight hours– and here’s where we are above the limit, here’s where we are below the limit. It just doesn’t seem to exist. The information is scattered. Clearly, I think the Japanese government could be doing a better job there. I’m surprised that they’re not.

And the other thing  that we pointed out– we had a very long discussion about venting and the fact that the NRC in the US had required plants with the Mark I containment to go back in and put in hardened vent systems and that TEPCO obviously didn’t do that– now they’re not in the United States so they’re not compelled to follow orders from the NRC, but certainly they were aware that this design change had been required in the US, and I think TEPCO as a nuclear operator has a responsibility to do the right thing whether they are required by the government or not. But also– where was the Japanese government in requiring this for the plants in Japan? So, as far as I’m concerned they’re both at fault. And that has to be looked at. The Japanese government has to look at their regulatory agency and say: okay, what else should have been done to our nuclear power plants in Japan that we haven’t required?…

…given the lack of transparency, given the lack of implementation of the design changes, given some of the other shortcomings that we’ve heard of in terms of radiation suits and radiation badges, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to question if TEPCO should be allowed to continue to operate nuclear power plants. Now, I’m not yelling, I’m not screaming, but I don’t think I can be any clearer in saying that I don’t trust TEPCO, and I’m not sure anybody else should either based on what’s happened during this accident. ”

-Cdr. Mark L. Mervine, Nuclear Engineer (USNR, Ret.) 

16th Interview with My Dad, a Nuclear Engineer, about the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Disaster in Japan

You can listen to all the interviews on the new vimeo channel Brandon and I created. You can also listen to most of the interviews on Brad Go’s YouTube channel.

Here’s the vimeo channel:


Brad Go’s YouTube channel: 


This afternoon my dad and I recorded our 16th interview on the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster. Please see the rest of the blog (sidebar) for previous interviews. Please keep sending questions and comments to georneysblog@gmail.com. You can also follow me on twitter @GeoEvelyn but please do not send questions via twitter.

Here is a website we refer to in today’s interview:


In today’s interview:
1. My dad gives his usual update

2.We address numerous questions from listeners:

(a.) What is going on with the resin they are spraying at Fukushima to lower radioactive particulate dispersal?

(b.) The rescue effort is now bringing some large barges with fresh water, and there is talk about re-purposing a gigantic floating platform as a radioactive water holding tank.  Clearly, this has never been done before.  How long would the highly radioactive water have to be stored in the floating platform before it could be dispersed into the ocean more safely?

(c.) What potential problems will there be because there is so much radioactive water being generated at Fukushima? What will happen with these large volumes of highly radioactive water?

(d.) Are they now planning concrete entombing of the reactors at Fukushima? What would this lead to? How wide would the exclusion zone be?

(e.) What is happening to the enormous volumes of water that are being pumped into the reactors and spent fuel pools? Where does all this water go?  
   
The above are all of the questions we had time to answer today, but we will answer some more questions tomorrow. Please continue to send questions if you have them.

3. We address a concern from a listener: “Why do we sound so ‘trusting’ of TEPCO and the Japanese government regarding the nuclear disaster?”

To paraphrase our answer in the interview, just because we do not raise our voices and scream in anger does not mean that we are not deeply concerned and critical. We try to be calm and rational in these interviews as we believe this is the best way to provide clear information. We also want to avoid– to the best of our ability– conspiracy theories, misinformation, and unnecessary panic, which will only make the disaster worse. If you feel that we are too trusting, please listen again. From early on in the interviews we have actually been critical of TEPCO and the Japanese government in how they have handled (and not handled) the nuclear disaster.

In recent interviews, we have becoming increasingly critical of TEPCO and the Japanese government. For instance, we have been critical about the lack of clear, cohesive information from both TEPCO and the Japanese government, the unwillingness of TEPCO to communicate with and ask for help from the Japanese government and international community when they need it (for instance, asking for more radiation badges and suits), possible mistakes made by TEPCO (not checking the spent fuel pool water levels), and many other items. In the past two interviews, my dad has condemned both TEPCO and the Japanese government for not following the advice of the US Nuclear Regulatory Committee (NRC) to retrofit the Mark I reactors with important safety modifications that likely would have prevented the steam explosions that severely damaged reactor buildings 1, 2, and 3.

In the interview today, my dad said that in his opinion we should seriously question if TEPCO should be allowed to run nuclear power plants. I’m not sure how much more critical he can be than that. I hope this clears up any confusion over how “trusting” we are of TEPCO and the Japanese government.

Hope to have an audio link soon. Here is the interview on vimeo:

Please see the announcement page for more information about these interviews:


If you have time and interest, please transcribe this interview. Our next interview will be on Monday, April 4th. Thanks to Dave, a transcript is now available after the jump.

                                                                                                                                                   
Transcript for Interview 16:
A:      Hello!
Q:      Hi, Dad!
A:      Hello!
Q:      Sorry about that.  They put me on hold!  Are you ready for the interview today?
A:      I’m ready!
Q:      Ok, let’s go ahead and get started.  I’ll edit out that first part.  So,  my name is Evelyn Mervine, and, this is an interview with my Dad, Mark Mervine, who is a nuclear engineer.   This is,actually,  I believe, the 16th interview that I have done with my Dad about the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster in Japan.  And, it is currently 1:50 P. M. Eastern Daylight time. And, it is the 3d of April.  And, I just want to quickly say,  sorry there was such a gap between the  interview we did on Tuesday and today.  We had travel schedules and there was some weather, so it was difficult for us to do an interview.  And, if you want to listen to any of the previous interviews, you can do so on my geology blog, georneys, which is G E O R N E Y S – georneys.blogspot.com.   So, today, the interview is gonna be the usual format.  My Dad is going to give an update, and, actually, I’ve received quite a number of questions from listeners, so we’re gonna try and answer as many of those as we can today.    So…Why don’t you give us an update on what’s been happening at Fukushima over the past few days.  I know there’s been quite a bit of news.
A:      Well, there has quite  a bit of news, but not much of a change in the actual status of the plants.  So, as a recap, there are six nuclear power plants at the Fukushima site.  Units 5 and 6 were least impacted, and, both of those units are in cold shut-down and would be considered safe, as long as they can maintain power and cooling to them.   There are seven spent fuel pools. One at each reactor, and a common one  and, the common one also has  electrical power for cooling, and, that one is considered  to be in a safe condition.  And, units 1 through 4 have been the reactors we’ve been concerned about during this accident.  Units 1 through 3 were operating at the time of the earthquake, and shut down automatically.  And, unit 4 was completely defueled for maintenance and its entire core load along with a lot of other spent fuel was in the spent fuel pool.  And…we’ve had explosions at each of these reactors that we think came from hydrogen that was generated from fuel damage.  So we know that we have fuel damage in each of the three reactors that were operating, and, the spent fuel pool from Number 4, and, that’s at a minimum.  We may also have fuel damage from some of the other spent fuel pools, but, until we’re able to actually get some close-up visuals, we won’t be able to tell for sure. In terms of changes in the past few days, the conditions of the plant haven’t really changed.  The big thing that happened in the last week was getting fresh water to the site, and, pumping fresh water into the reactors instead of sea water.  And, also fresh water is being used for most of the spent fuel pools, although I saw something today that surprised me, that  said that they were still using sea water for the spent fuel pool at Number 4, and, so, I’m not sure if that report is correct or not, because previously .   We had seem reports that they were using fresh water for all.   But…from a public concern standpoint, as long as they’re getting water in there, that’s the most important thing.   Fresh water, obviously,  is preferable, and, I would be surprised since they have now the large amount of fresh water from the Navy barges, that they would still be using sea water.  But,  it may be a kind of equipment situation.
Q:      So, basically, what you’re saying is that there is no change in that, at those four reactors, I guess one is shut down, so is not as big a concern, but, the three that we’re  concerned about,  they’re still using this temporary cooling system and, they’re not using their  normal cooling, and, we have no idea when the normal cooling is going to be restored.  This is sort of the same situation we were at Tuesday?
A:      Correct.
Q:      Ok.   And, there’s been no report…I mean, I just said this…but there’s been no report as to how long it’s going to take to restore normal cooling?
A:      There’s no indication, which we commented on last time as to what is the timeline.  Now the news that I do want to talk about, that has been – I don’t know if you would call it front page news, but, it has been on some front pages, is the leak of radioactive water into the ocean.  They believe they’ve found the cause of that, which is a pipe trench from unit 2, that  has got a big crack in it.  And they’ve made a couple of different attempts to patch that crack, once with concrete, and, another time with resin mixture.   And, so far, they haven’t been able to stop the leak.  So, we have this leak of highly radioactive water from the lower levels of unit 2, which is getting into the ocean, and, they believe that is what’s causing a majority of the radioactivity in the ocean water.
Q:      That’s sort of good news and bad news.  It’s good news that they have figured out where the leak is coming from, but it’s bad news that they can’t seem to stop it.
A:      Correct.  Again, they’re trying some different techniques, with resin with some fillers – Sawdust, newspaper – The reason for that is that  it will expand and hopefully will expand enough to seal up this crack.  Which, it’s not a little crack, it’s a big crack, which is why it’s leaking so much.   The other thing, in terms of updates, is, in looking at the IAEA website, they’ve got a little bit more information on the restoration of power.    And, for units 1, 2 and 4, they’ve indicated they now have power to the instrumentation.
Q:      Excellent.
A:      But, not for unit 3.  They just indicate lighting for the control room only.  So, they have made some progress then in electrical power restoration and getting  instrumentation back to three of the four units.
Q:      And, the instrumentation,that’s useful because that can be used to  monitor the condition of the reactors.   Is that extremely helpful in this situation?   Is that what they mean by instrumentation?
A:      It is extremely helpful, also, it would be needed in order to restore any of the cooling systems. 
Q:      Ok, so, that’s really a first task before they can even think about restoring cooling.
A:      It’s a very important step; and, up until now we were not really sure how much progress they had made, but, they have made a little bit of progress.   But, again, to your question,  and to the comment we made last time,   Can somebody give us an estimate when we can expect to see some type of normal cooling system restored at any of these plants? 
Q:      I have a simple question – I realize you may not be able to answer this.  The crack in the piping…is that a result of the earthquake, the tsunami, the explosions?  Do they have any idea how that crack occurred?
A:      You broke up a little bit, but, I believe you asked about what caused  the crack in the piping?
Q:      Yea, was it the earthquake, was it the tsunami, was it the explosions?  Do they have any idea?
A:      So, I can’t say for sure.  I did see a news report that said they believe  this may have occurred during the earthquake.  It’s possible that this trench may have had a flaw in it from…for some period of time, and, the movement  of the earth may have caused the crack to expand.  There normally isn’t any water in there, so it would not have been a problem in normal operations,. 
Q:      What is…what is this pipe used for normally? 
A:      They said it was a trench that carried electrical cables.
Q:      And, it’s just filled up with water because they’ve been pouring so much water onto the reactors?
A:      It’s filled up with water that has come from the basement of the turbine halls.  And, I actually sent you a link that you can post on your website, of a very good article on Wikipedia.  And, they have a drawing – a very simple drawing – that shows the elevations of the plant, and an explanation of how the water would get into this trench. 
Q:      Excellent.  I’ll post that.
A:      So, that does a better job of explaining it than we can do over the phone.
Q:      Ok.   Sorry to interrupt you,  I just wanted clarification…
A:      No, it’s ok..
Q:      Do you want to go on with your update?
A:      I can give a little more of an update, again, from the IAEA website, in terms of how they’re getting water into these plants, the… for units 1, 2 and 3.  They’re all being done by electric pumps now, and, they have diesel backup power in the event that they were to lose electric power.  And for the spent fuel pools, they’ve been using a concrete pump for unit 1.  For unit 2, they’ve actually got it going through one of the normal cooling lines.  That doesn’t mean they’re getting cooling, but, they are able to hook up the pipes and get the water in through one of the normal lines.   The same thing for unit 3 and 4.   But, they continue. Also, to spray water from the top for some of these pools as well.  And, the United States is actually sending over a much larger and…much larger concrete pump, that has the capability of being remotely controlled,  so they’ll have that available to them, as well…
Q:      But, they’ll be using that to provide water, not concrete.  I think there’s been some misunderstanding about that, right?
A:      Right.  That’s not for concrete.  They’re using that to pump water into the spent fuel pools.  Correct.
Q:      Right.  But, they can be further from their radiation. 
A:      Right.  And, in particular, this one is capable of being remotely controlled, so, they are able to  get closer and be more precise, because you don’t need a human to be there. 
Q:      Excellent.
A:      Alright, so, that’s the update for today.
Q:      Ok.  I have one quick question of my own, then, I will ask you the listener questions.    I just want you to comment on…I know you mentioned to me a couple of days ago that there a situation about     the  the radiation badges, and TEPCO not dealing properly with that?  Can you comment briefly on that, and, then, I will ask you some listener questions.
A:      So, what they were doing was that they would send a group of, say, three people to work in an area, and, since they didn’t have enough radiation badges, they would just give one to the group.  And, my point was, again, in all these nuclear power plants you have all these resources – you have resources available to you from the international community.  If you were short on radiation badges, either get some there from the other plants, or, ask the international community for them.  I’m quite confident that the United States would have flown some in if they were asked, and, I’m sure the same is true for France or other countries that have a lot of nuclear power plants.  And, certainly would be willing to help.  So, again, you know, it goes back to this whole thread, that, not just us, but other people have talked about which is the lack of communication and lack of transparency from TEPCO.
Q:      And…it’s important for every person to have their own radiation badge, because, you can have different levels of exposure, even in the same area, correct?
A       Yes, you could and, there’s…and there’s…correct, and people aren’t going actually to be standing in exactly the same spot.  The other thing that has been reported is that they have run out of radiation suits and other types of equipment.  And, again, it’s just hard for me to believe that with as many nuclear power plants as they have in Japan that they can’t borrow some equipment from other places.  And, if indeed there’s a shortage in Japan, then ask the international community! 
Q:      I’m sure that there would be support for that.
A:      I don’t think there’s any question.
Q:      Ok.  Well, we’ll maybe talk more about TEPCO in a minute.  But, let me go ahead and go through some of these emails.  I’ve actually gotten several emails that have many, many questions,  I guess there’s been a a bit of a gap between interviews, so, let me go ahead and start with the first email.  This actually comes from someone who’s in Japan, and, has sent me a couple of nice emails and is actually at ????  Ogama Dartmouth, which is the university where I went to for undergrad .  So, it’s nice to hear from a Dartmouth alum…So, I’ll read through these questions and we’ll try to answer as many as we can.  The first one, I think you talked about a little bit.  He was asking about the rescue effort, now spraying a resin to lowerradioactive particle disbursal.  I think this may be specifically for the pipe we just talked about.  And, he was wondering if you had talked about this before, and, if this method has ever been used before? 
A:      No, it’s a different thing, actually, that he is talking about. 
Q:      Oh, is that different?  Ok!
A:      They were actually talking about spraying a resin over some surfaces and the ground, to lock any radioactive particles in place, and, keep them from spreading.  And, that’s really all I can say.  I really can’t comment on it, because I really don’t know what they’re using, how their applying it, but, the concept was, that in some areas where they may have significant amounts of particulate contamination, either on the ground or on a building or whatever, they could spray this resin over it and that would lock it in place, and, it’s not gonna be picked up by the wind, or washed away with rain or something like that. 
Q:      but this is, sort of, not a technique that is put into practice often, because we don’t often have a nuclear disaster, so, this is sort of…They’re trying to see how this works, but, they don’t know much about it.
A:      Right, I mean,  I’ve just told you what I know….
Q:      OK…Let’s move on.
A:      I don’t know what kind of resin it is, where they’re applying it, how they’re applying it, but, apparently in some cases, they’re trying to take some steps to minimize the spread. 
Q:      Ok.  So, the second question from the same person, is about the large barges with fresh water.  And…I’ll just ask the question.   The rescue effort is now bringing in some large barges with fresh water, and, there is talk about re-purposing a giant, floating platform as a radioactive water holding tank.   Clearly, this has never been done  before, and, he wanted to know how long the highly radioactive water be stored in the floating platform before it could be disbursed into the ocean or somewhere  where it can be stored more safely?
A:      Ok.  So, I saw something in the news about that.  What’s going on  at the plant, I mean, we didn’t include this in our update,  is that they’ve been trying to take water that’s in the condensers and pump them into other storage tanks…pump them…pump the water from the condensers into other storage tanks so, they can then pump the highly radioactive water from the basement of the turbine halls into the condenser.  Eventually they’re going need to do something with that water, and, they may, depending on how long this continues…they may need some additional storage space.  They are apparently bringing in a barge where they can pump the radioactive water into this barge as a holding tank.  To my knowledge, they were gonna just hold it in this tank until they were able to transfer and have it processed.  I don’t think the intent was to tow it out in the ocean and just dump it.
Q:      Ok.  So this relates to his next question, which is…I guess he’s very concerned about there being a great amount of highly radioactive water produced   Now, normally, the cooling system is sort of a closed loop, and, you’re recycling, and, you’re not producing large amounts of highly radioactive water so his question and concern is  what do they do with that?  You’re sort of producing large quantities of radioactive waste that you’re going to have to store and do something with.  And, he wants to know how long do you store it?  And, what do you do with it?   You talked just now about reprocessing Is there something you can do that, at least, minimize the volume of radioactive material you’re storing?  Can you talk a little bit about that?
A:      Yea.  What you would do  is that you would take that water, and process it through a series of filters, to  remove particles and radioactive particles, and,  hopefully, produce water that was not radioactive at the output.  Obviously, there would still be some water and some sludge that would be highly radioactive, but, the goal would be to significantly reduce the amount of radioactive water.  And, then that concentrated water, or… They could be running that through charcoal filters  So, the filters themselves that would have to be disposed of as radioactive waste,  but, the goal would be to filter this water and try to remove as much radioactivity as possible so that then, it would be less radioactive, to the point where it would be local levels, where it could be disposed of as just water.
Q:      But, it’s still a problem that they are producing so much radioactive water, because at some time, they are going to have to process that, and, it’s going to be extra work down the line.  It’s obviously not ideal to produce this water, correct?
A:      Correct.  And, right now, we’re pumping water in, and the question is “where’s the water going?” 
Q:      Yea.
A:      Well, if the primary containment is intact, and, we don’t know for sure if the primary containment is intact for all three of these units,  or whether there are some leaks, because we don’t know exactly how all this radioactive water got into the basement of the turbine halls.   We’ve speculated in a couple of our interviews.   We’ve said MAYBE there could be a leak in containment.  Maybe it’s coming from the spent fuel;  Maybe it’s condensation from the steam we’ve vented, but we don’t know for sure.  
Q:      And it could be all three!
A:      It could be all three…Correct.  So..normally, if the containment was intact this water would be going into the reactor vessel.  It would be flashing to steam, and, the steam would be vented to the bottom of the containment, into the torus, as we discussed.  Eventually that torus would fill up with water.  The water would come up those down comer tubes and the water would start to fill up the containment itself.  Obviously, eventually, the containment would completely fill up with water, if it’s not leaking.  What you want to do is get some normal cooling systems restored, so that we’re not just pumping water in, and, once we get normal cooling we would flood the reactor full of water  and, now you’re in a cooling loop and you’re not adding any more water. 
Q:      but, as we just talked about in our interview, we’re not there yet for reactors 1 and 2…
A:      We’re not there yet, and, we’ve got no time line from TEPCO or the Japanese government as to when they could possibly expect to be there.
Q:      In the mean while, it’s still a very precarious situation, so it’s frustrating.
A:      So, yea,  Let me…Let me…be clear.  And, we can repeat it again in a minute.  We are still in a extremely serious situation at all four of these nuclear power plants.  Not just for reactors 1, 2 and 3 for the core damage, but, also we know, at a minimum, we have fuel damage from the spent fuel pool at unit 4 and probably from some of the other units as well.  So,  this situation is not under control, we are not out of the woods,  it’s a very serious situation and, you know, we’ve indicated at least it hasn’t gotten any worse, as opposed to how it was going in the first week, but, there hasn’t been as much progress as we would hope, in…in…the past couple of weeks.  It’s an extremely serious situation we are in.
Q:      Ok.  Let me move on.  The last question that came from this Dartmouth alum  is about concrete entombing.  I think we may have touched on this a little bit before, when talking about Chernoybl.  But…the question was, basically, it seems that discussions about concrete entombing are now on the table, whereas they weren’t during the first few weeks of the nuclear disaster, and, he wanted to know if these four reactors are entombed or abandoned, what does that mean, long-term?   How wide does the exclusion zone need to be?  How long do they have to be entombed?   That sort of thing.
A:      I don’t think we’re there yet.  I haven’t seen any discussion about that.  I don’t know if that was confusion caused by sending this concrete pump over…
Q:      Ok.
A:      Which is actually going to be used to pump water.  So, I haven’t seen anything about that.  Now, to answer the question;  if that was something that was decided to be done,  I wouldn’t see the exclusion area probably being much more than the site boundary, given that they would entomb these, and, concrete is a vary good shield of radiation.  And, I think it would drive the radiation levels down to the  point that the exclusion area wouldn’t  be much more than the site boundary.   Now,with  that being said,  what we don’t know is what the long term situation is for the current exclusion zone, which is 20 kilometers, In terms of how contaminated the soil is, and, when, either through natural decay or remediation efforts people would be able to that zone. 
Q:      Ok…Just to clarify something else.  He talked about these reactors being entombed or abandoned.  And, I don’t know if abandoned is the right word, but, we’ve talked about this many times, but, there is absolutely no way that reactors 1 through 4 can be re-opened.  There has been just too much damage. There is a chance that reactors 5 and 6 might be reopened, but, you talked about other issues with that.  But, these plants are going to have to be decomissioned, and, the effort is not going to be to get them to restore nuclear power, but, to basically try and keep them from being a danger to people by getting them into cold shut-down.
A:      Correct.  And it would be desirable to get these under control;  to get these reactors cooled down; and not have to entomb them, because what the people of Japan should want should be for that to happen, and for these plants to be decomissioned properly, and the area there to be returned to its natural environment.   And, if you entomb them, you’re basically saying “I’m going to have this big, concrete tomb around these four reactors forever”  So, that should definitely be the last resort, and, as long as we continue to make progress and the situation doesn’t get  any worse, I don’t think that option’s really on the table.  But, again, we’re trying to make this judgment from a long way away, with very little information.
Q:      Ok.  Well, thank you for commenting on that.  Let me move on to a second email.  This email has only one question, and, maybe we have touched on this a little before.  But, this person basically did not understand where all the water was going, and, sort of wondered what is happening to the water now?  We talked about this a little bit before   A lot of the water is just evaporating, right?   A lot of the water is going in, but it is very hot, so it is just disappearing, but,   he wants to know where it is going; what various parts is it going to; is it vaporizing to the atmosphere;  is it flowing back to the sea?   So if you could comment a little more on that;  I know we have touched on that already. 
A:      Ok;  Well;  we actually just talked about it a minute ago.  So..we pump the water in, it is flashing to steam, it is being condensed, or vented and being condensed.  It is filling up that torus, eventually, it will come up those down comers, and start to fill up the containment, assuming that the containment isn’t leaking.  The water that is being poured on the spent fuel pools is apparently ending up in the basement of these buildings and, in the case of unit 2, we’ve got this crack in this trench and some of that water is leaking out into the ocean.  But, for the rest of them, they are gonna try to pump the water into the condensers and, then eventually, into this barge, and, then hopefully, they’ll be able to take that barge and hook it up to the reprocessing plant, and, clean up as much of the radioactivity as possible.
Q:      Ok, thanks Dad.   Let me move on to another Email.  This email is actually a pretty long email.  There are a lot of concerns and questions,  so, I’m just going to summarize the main point in the email. So this person has ????    and seems frustrated that we seem to be having total faith in the government and industry officials, thinking that they can be trusted and expected to be forthcoming with information, and, this person’s sort of angry about that.  Actually, I’m not sure…I’m not sure where exactly that was coming from because, particularly in our more recent interviews, but  also from our earlier interviews, I think that we have actually been very frustrated both with TEPCO and the Japanese government.  I don’t know if “trust” is the right word, but they are certainly not performing in a way that we find to be acceptable, and, I think we’ve commented again, and again, probably almost every interview, for the past few interviews that there is information that TEPCO is not communicating with the people.  So…I’m not sure where this is coming from, but, if you could just comment on this.  And, one thing that we have done is we have told people to listen to the government and trust them about environmental readings of radiation, and, listen to them to try and not create panic.  Can you comment on this email we got, a little more, Dad?
A:      Alright.  Well. I try to remain calm and rational and not get too excited, so, just because we haven’t raised our voice and started yelling and screaming, doesn’t indicate at all that we don’t have concerns.  I think from early on, if you go back and listen to some of the early interviews, the lack of transparency from TEPCO, I have been saying all along, I think before…definitely before the main stream press, and I remember in one of the interviews early on,  I was really happy when finally Anderson Cooper was beginning to take them to task for their lack of transparency.  We’ve been saying  since day 1 that TEPCO has not been forthcoming, and, in the last interview, and it’s really only been three days, we talked about – Hey, 2.5 weeks into this; now, 3 weeks into this, How come you can’t get two or three reactor operators or  engineers together  from some of your other plants, determine, for the public, what is going on, and produce a  comprehensive briefing every day?  And, their press releases are, still, not very informative.  The other thing that we have commented on is the lack of a website that  an average person can got to and have radiation and contamination readings, in plain English, so that they can understand where it’s above the limit, and where it’s below the limit, and, where they should or should not be concerned.   And, the IAEA had put some information out there, and we had referenced people to it, but, still, as far as  I know, today – and there may be a site in Japanese that I can’t find or read- but,  to my knowledge there’s still not a website that people can go to that shows them “here’s the radiation and contamination readings for the past 24 or 48 hours, and, here’s where we’re above the limit and where we’re below the limit”  It just doesn’t seem to exist.  The information is scattered.   And, so, clearly, I think that the Japanese government could be doing a better job there.   And, I’m surprised that they’re not.
        And the other thing that we pointed out – we had a very long discussion about venting, and the fact that the NRC in the US had required plants with the Mark 1 containments to go back in and put in hardened vent systems, and, TEPCO obviously didn’t do that.   Now, they’re not in the United States, so they are not compelled to follow orders from the NRC, but certainly they were aware that this design  change had been required in the US, and I think that TEPCO, as a nuclear operator, has the responsibility to do the right thing, whether they’re required by the government or not   But, also, where was the Japanese government  in requiring this for the plants in Japan?  So, as far as I’m concerned, they’re both at fault, and, that has to be looked at.  The Japanese government has to look at their regulatory stance, and say “OK, what else should have been done to our nuclear plants in Japan that we haven’t required?”
Q:      Do other countries – and you may not be able to comment on the details of this – do other countries generally follow the advice of a bigger organization, like the NRC?
A:      Generally, speaking, they do…Obviously, every country has its own laws and regulatory bodies, but, in general, especially for something as significant as this,  they would follow the guidance and direction from both the manufacturer and the NRC.  And, had we had these hardened vents, we would have avoided the explosions of the reactor buildings for units 1, 2 and 3.   Unit 4 was caused by the spent fuel rod pool.  We’ve already talked about how, had they gotten…inspected and gotten water up there sooner,  they could have avoided all that.  I think, given the lack of transparency, given the lack of implementation of design changes;  given some of the other short-comings, that we’ve heard of , in terms of  radiation suits, and radiation badges  I don’t think it’s unreasonable to question if TEPCO should be allowed to continue to operate nuclear power plants.  Now, I’m not yelling, I’m not  screaming but, I don’t think I can be any clearer in saying that I don’t trust TEPCO, and, I’m not sure anybody else should, either, based on what happened during this accident.
Q:      And if the Japanese government can’t get good information from TEPCO, how can they…How can you trust them either?  I guess they’re doing independent radiation readings but it is frustrating that there isn’t clear information on that.
A:      It’s the government’s responsibility so, if they’re not getting the information, then, they need to do more.  it’s their responsibility.  They’re the ones that authorized this company to build these plants; that issued the licenses.  It’s the government’s responsibility.
Q:      And, as good a job as the IAEA and NEA and other websites have done, with our limited time and resources, it’s really not our job to do this.  It’s the job of TEPCO,  it’s the job of the Japanese government and, they’re not doing it.
A:      So, I think, 3 weeks into this, a lot better job could be done.  I’m not questioning the challenges they have in the plant.  I’m not questioning how hard  most people are working and risking their lives, but,  providing better information about what’s going on in the plant, and providing better information to the public on contamination and radiation levels wouldn’t seem that hard  of a job, three weeks into this.   And, so, I think you have to question both TEPCO and the Japanese Government in the way this is being handled. 
Q:      Ok.  Do you have anything else you would like to say before we wrap up the interview today, Dad?
A:      I do.  I didn’t include this in the update, and, kind of wanted to save it for the end  From the time of the earthquake and tsunami, TEPCO had reported that two of their plant workers had been unaccounted for.  And, unfortunately, and, I guess  not that it wasn’t unexpected, but, in the past 24 hours they found the bodies of these two workers in the -1 level of the unit 4 building.  So, kind of sad.
Q:      Did they die during the earthquake and tsunami?
A:      Apparently they died during the earthquake and tsunami, yes.
Q:      that is sad.  I hope that…I don’t know how many more casualties there will be as a result of this, but with the exposure, it’s probably too soon to say.  But it’s very sad. 
A:      But, again, obviously, thousands and thousands of people in Japan died in this event.  But, these people had been unaccounted for, obviously,  for almost three weeks, so, at least they found their bodies which will give their families some peace. 
Q:      Yes…  Ok, well, We actually did receive some more emails with questions, and, I’m going to try and address those questions.  We couldn’t do every one of those questions today.   There was an email from another person who is in Japan, and someone who wants to know a little bit about different units that measure radiation.   So, we will try to address those questions tomorrow, and any other questions that get sent today, or that I go through and decide would be a good question to answer.   We’re still receiving many questions that are duplicate questions,   When I can very clearly find an interview, I write back and tell you where it is.  But, if I don’t answer your question, it is probably because we have already answered it and, we’ve done enough interviews at this point that it’s difficult for me to go back and find out where we answered a specific question.  But, we are trying.  In some cases, we reiterate things that aren’t clear, but, we’re trying not to completely answer questions that we have answered in detail in some of the previous  interviews.  So, with that, Dad, should we  do an update tomorrow? Are you able to do that?
A:      I should, if it’s about the same time.
Q:      Ok, sound good.  I will talk to you tomorrow.
A:      Ok!
Q:      Alright.  Have a good night, Dad.

A Quick Note: Interview Postponed by Nor’easter

Here in New England, the weather is often unpredictable. Seasoned New Englanders often say to each other and to befuddled visitors or newcomers, “If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes.” Today, there is a late season nor’easter sweeping through New England like an April Fool’s prank. There is rain and snow and slush everywhere.

Unfortunately, the weather has upset our work and travel schedules, so my father and I are unable to carry out our scheduled interview update about Fukushima today. Thus, we are postponing to Sunday, April 3rd. We plan to record the interview in the early afternoon.

We apologize for such a big gap in interviews. To tide you over until Sunday, we recommend taking a look at the information on the IAEA and NEI websites:

I’ve already received a few questions for Sunday, but please continue to send questions and comments to georneysblog@gmail.com. You can also follow me on twitter @GeoEvelyn.

15th Interview with My Dad, a Nuclear Engineer, about the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Disaster in Japan

Picture of a Boiling Water Reactor Nuclear Power Plant like the Fukushima Plants. My dad refers to this image in his interview.

You can listen to all the interviews on the new vimeo channel Brandon and I created. You can also listen to most of the interviews on Brad Go’s YouTube channel.

Here’s the vimeo channel:


Brad Go’s YouTube channel: 


This evening my dad and I recorded our 15th interview on the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster. Please see the rest of the blog (sidebar) for previous interviews. Please keep sending questions and comments to georneysblog@gmail.com. You can also follow me on twitter @GeoEvelyn but please do not send questions via twitter.

In today’s interview:
1. My dad gives his usual update

2. My dad talks some about high radiation levels at reactor #2 and potential sources of this radiation

3. My dad elaborates on the venting of steam from reactors and explains why venting of steam at the Fukushima Mark 1 nuclear power plants is different from venting of steam at American Mark 1 nuclear power plants, which have been retrofitted with design modifications

Hope to have an audio link soon. Here is the interview on vimeo:

Please see the announcement page for more information about these interviews:


If you have time and interest, please transcribe this interview. Our next interview will be on Friday, April 1st. Thanks to Kenyon, a transcript is now available after the jump. 


Transcript for Interview 15:
MARK: Hello

EVELYN: Good evening dad

MARK: Good evening.

EVELYN: Are you ready for our interview?

MARK: I am

EVELYN: Alright, let’s get started. My name is Evelyn Mervine, and this is going to be an interview with my dad, Mark Mervine, who is a nuclear engineer. This is the 15th in a series of interviews that we have been doing about the Fukushima Nuclear power plant disaster in Japan. Today is the 29th of March, and it is currently 9pm EDT. In today’s interview it is going to be the usual format: my dad is going to give an update—and there has been some more news about Fukushima in the last 24 hours since our last update; and then I’m going to ask him a couple of questions. With that, dad, why don’t you go ahead and get started.

MARK: Ok, actually I spent a fair amount of time today taking a look at the news from various different websites and there actually isn’t a great deal of news. I’ll editorialize in a minute. What we do know from today—and I’ll just briefly kind of give an update for those that haven’t been able to listen to the last couple of interviews. There are six reactors at this site, of which numbers one through four have been the ones of the most concern. Five and six were the least impacted, and they were able to get electricity restored to five and six sooner than the others. Both of those plants are in a cooled down, safe shut down condition. As a reminder there are seven spent fuel pools—on at each reactor and then a common one. As we’ve reported they’ve also been able to restore electricity and cooling to the common spent fuel pool. 

That brings us to reactors one through four. The progress has been slow at these reactors. To our knowledge they have electricity back to the control room for lighting, and they’ve been working on trying to restore instrumentation to some of these units, but it’s not been reported that they’ve had any success restoring any of the cooling systems to any of these reactors. The biggest news we’ve had in the past few days is that they’ve shifted from pumping seawater into reactors one, two, and three to pumping freshwater into those reactors. The other news in the past 24 hours is they’ve also shifting to using fresh water for the spent fuel pools. For reactors two and three they are now pumping fresh water into those spent fuel pools. For reactor two they are using a temporary motor driven pump, and reactor three they are using a truck with a pump to pump that water in; and they are making plans to be able to pump fresh water into the spent fuel pool at reactor four in the next few hours. So that’s the update, technically, from the plant. 

Now a little bit of editorilization here. We’re two–and-a-half weeks into this, and although it’s very much a very serious situation and we don’t want to take anything away from the efforts that a lot of people are making: risking their lives, making these efforts, working under extreme conditions to try to minimize the situation and prevent it from getting any worse. What I think is surprising now at the two-and-a-half week point is ‘where is the information on exactly what is going on?’ TEPCO has a lot of nuclear engineers, they run many, many nuclear power plants. They can certainly free some people up to do a better job of providing information and briefing the public. It really is almost impossible to get any kind of detail. In the first week when events were happening every day, and the situation was getting worse, I think you could understand that. But at this point, two-and-a-half weeks in, there should be complete and comprehensive briefings given every day as to the status of these plants. If you look at their press releases from today they’re incomprehensible…garbage, essentially.

EVELYN: Well, and we’ve talked about in the last couple days that organizations like the IAEA and the NEI have tried to step up their reporting efforts, but if they’re…

MARK: And they have, but…

EVELYN: …not able to get information from TEPCO, how can they step up their reporting efforts?

MARK: And they have, but at this point in the game, with as many resources as they have, it shouldn’t be that hard to put together a team of two or three engineers that can take the information from the plant and put together a comprehensive briefing on exactly what’s happening. I’m just really kind of surprised at this point. I…when we started doing these I had no idea there would be any value in us continuing as far as we have, because you would have figured by now—first off that they would have made a little more progress than they have, but second off that they should be able to provide fairly transparent information themselves at this point. It just doesn’t seem like it would be that hard to
me. With that being said I’ll step back now. It is very frustrating, and I know that people are kind of
counting on us to get information—and it’s very hard. I spent a lot of time today trying to get more
comprehensive information, and it just isn’t out there.

EVELYN: We both have full time jobs as we’ve said before, and my dad does a lot of time researching this. We do the best we can, but our reports are not going to be perfect. Part of that is because it is just so difficult to get information in one place that is easy to understand. If my dad, who is a nuclear engineer, has so much trouble, it must be extremely frustrating for the general public, as we’ve said before. It hasn’t, I guess, improved to the point where we feel we can stop doing these interviews.

MARK: For instance—how about a statement on just how much progress they are making on restoring electrical power. I mean, if the news isn’t good—give us the bad news. Give us some expectation as to when they’re going to be able to get cooling systems restored in some of these units. There is just no news…umm, it’s surprising—and shocking—to be honest with you.

EVELYN: Ok, do you have anything else with the update before I ask a couple of questions?

MARK: No, and I wish I could give a more comprehensive update. But…again, what we know is they are injecting fresh water into units one, two, and three, and they are now getting some fresh water to some of the spent fuel cooling pools. Other than that the status doesn’t appear to have changed a lot in the last 48 hours.

EVELYN: All right, well I’m going to ask you a couple of questions, then. A few listeners sent in today an article—I believe it was in The Guardian—and it was talking about there being some trouble with reactor number two. I don’t know if you can confirm this in any way, but the article said that there was a possibility that the fuel had actually…I guess…melted through part of the containment? It was actually sort of resting on the concrete base of the containment. I’m not sure what the evidence was for this, but can you comment on this at all? Have you seen more about that?

MARK: Ok, so what they’re talking about is that the fuel would have melted through the reactor
vessel. So there are supposed to be three barriers to the environment: the first is the fuel
cladding itself. The second is the reactor pressure vessel—which is a huge thick steel
pressure vessel that normally contains the reactor, and the water, and the steam, control rods—all
those things. And then the containment building, which is a steel and concrete structure around the
reactor that will contain anything that does leak out of the reactor if there was a leak.

I think…given the information that we have, that would be speculation on somebody’s part. I’m not saying that that isn’t the case, but I don’t know of any way to confirm it. What we do know is there’s very high radiation and contamination levels in the unit two turbine hall. How that got there is not clear. I think there are three possibilities:

–One: it is possible that the fuel in the number two spent fuel pool is damaged, and the flooding
of water from all the spray and the helicopters and those type of thing has carried a lot of that damaged fuel down in the building, to the basement…

EVELYN: We talked about that being a possibility at…number three…

MARK: Well, it’s a possibility at any of these plants, right…I mean, you don’t…

EVELYN: Yeah, I think maybe we were not perfectly clear on that yesterday. All the water, if it goes over those fuel rods and splashes out or something when they’re throwing it from helicopters, that can carry radiation with it if there is spent fuel damage, correct?

MARK: Correct.

[Two]: We also know that we vented a lot of steam, especially early on in this accident. That
was vented into the reactor building. We know that that caused the explosion. Unit two has the least
damage to its reactor building, but it does have some damage. Again, if that fuel was seriously damaged, then that radioactivity is in that steam. Some of it escaped, but some of it’s going to condense—and again, be washed down to the bottom.

The third possibility is that:

[Three]: That there could be some sort of leak in the containment building that with all this
water that they keep adding that some of that is leaking out into the basement of the building.

EVELYN: None of those are good things, none of those three options, right?

MARK: No. But what we do know is that for there to be this much radiation and radioactivity in
the basement of that building that it is coming from damaged fuel. There is a good probability that
both…that there is a significant amount of damage to the fuel in the reactor and, potentially, damage to the fuel in the spent fuel pool. So it could be from either of those sources, or a combination of both. But from other indications in terms of reports from the IAEA that reactor vessel water level in all these units is about half core-height, it seems kind of implausible that the core would have melted to the bottom of the reactor vessel and still have water in it, but again, without having more information as to exactly what’s going on it’s hard to actually give an answer.

It would be…as much as that person is speculating that the core may have partially melted through the reactor vessel, it’s speculation on my part saying that the radiation and radioactivity in the terminal is coming from spent fuel damage from either the reactor, or the spent fuel pool, or both. We obviously don’t have access to the precise radiation and contamination levels, we don’t know what else is going on in the plant, again—where is the transparency from TEPCO as to exactly what’s happening?

EVELYN: I feel like that should be an easy question for them to answer.

MARK: At this—again, early on we did question their transparency, but at the height of the accident
where there were explosions and things were getting worse every day…you might cut them some slack. But like I said, these people have lots of resources, they run lots of reactor plants. It can’t be that hard to get two or three reactor operators or engineers with knowledge of the plant to be able to translate the information that they’re getting, correlate that, and give some kind of comprehensive briefing.

EVELYN: Especially since there are so many international people involved with nuclear power who are offering them help. I mean, if they can’t do it, they could get help from somebody to do that.

MARK: Alright. Again, I can’t say…I can’t confirm it, I can’t totally rule it out.

EVELYN: Ok, well, let’s go on to the second question. I’ve received a few emails about this over the past few days. I think people are a little bit confused about what is going on with the venting of the steam–which I think is primarily hydrogen gas. I realize that one limitation is that you don’t know the exact design specifics of the Fukushima plants, but you’ve worked on similar plants. Can you talk a little bit more about what happens when they vent steam, where it goes, what that means?

MARK: Yes. I have to reference people back to that drawing that you posted several days ago…

EVELYN: I’ll post it again with this interview.

MARK: …as to the design of the containment of the Mark I containment. Let me just pull up the
picture myself so I can give people a good reference.

Ok, so in looking at that picture, down at the bottom is this round donut looking thing that is cut away.
That is the torus, and that torus is partially filled with water during normal operation. You
can see in the drawing some big pipes that come down at an angle, that are connected to a ring, and
spider/finger like pipes that go down underneath the water. What the concept of the torus and the water suppression are is that if you were to have a break in a pipe and be losing coolant—which would flash the steam obviously, then the water in the the torus serves as a suppression pool to cool that steam; the concept here was they could make the design of the containment a little bit more compact by having this water suppression pool to condense some of the steam and reduce the pressure within the containment structure. What they would have been doing to reduce pressure in the reactor vessel itself to allow first seawater, and now freshwater to be pumped in is they would be opening a valve at the top of one of the steam lines, and that would have a piece of pipe attached to it. That would be routed down and go into this suppression pool. So they were venting the steam out of the reactor and condensing it down in the bottom of this torus, or suppression pool. During operation, the Mark I containments are required to be oxygen free—they actually purge them with nitrogen so that there is no oxygen in there. The reason for that is to prevent an explosion inside the primary containment. So even if you get the fuel damage and the hydrogen, because there is no oxygen in the dry well portion of the containment, then you don’t have the oxygen to interact [with] and cause an explosion. Umm, let’s see…what else

EVELYN: So when they vent that, I guess there is some confusion about where that goes.

MARK: Ok, so there’s two different venting that would have went on. First, we vent steam into the
bottom of this torus, and it condenses. But eventually what happens if you vent enough steam,
then you start building up pressure in that containment building. In order to prevent exceeding the
pressure rating of that containment building, then you would do a second venting where you would
actually vent the containment. So initially we vented the reactor vessels, and we quenched that, but after a lot of doing that we build up a lot of pressure and steam inside the containment and
now we gotta to vent that.

EVELYN: And you vent that to the reactor building, or to the atmosphere, or both, or…?

MARK: Ok, and I think this is where a lot of confusion is coming from for people, because the original
design of these plants had that containment venting through a series of duct works and filters right in
the reactor building. There was a retro-fit required by the NRC back in the late 80s for all of the Mark
I containment structures—I think there are 23 of these in the US—to put in a hardened vent for the
containment. The hardened vents actually go into a fairly strong piping system that is outside of the
reactor building. If this particular scenario occurred at a US plant when they vented the containment, it would have been vented outside of the reactor building, and you wouldn’t have had the explosion of  the reactor building. Generally speaking, most regulatory agencies around the world follow the directions and guidance of the NRC. In this particular case, apparently, the Japanese government did not require those modifications to the Mark I plants.

EVELYN: Well, and we know there had to be steam building up in there because we had the
explosions—I mean, there is nothing else that can explain those explosions, correct? I mean…and we’ve confirmed that that’s why.

MARK: Correct. Again, this was a change in the design of the plants that was required for plants in the US, but it doesn’t mean that it was done to all the plants worldwide; and apparently it was not done to these plants in Japan. The other thing I guess I could comment on with respect to the containment is there was a lot of talk early on about—potentially—damage to the core in Reactor Two, that there was some type of explosion. There were also modifications ordered by the NRC to the torus areas of these containment designs to strengthen them. There were I think…three or four separate modifications that were done because after these plants were built there were studies that realized there was going to be a lot more stress and loading on some of this piping than was originally considered when the plant was built. Each of the utilities have had to go back and implement three or four different design changes and strengthen or modify how, exactly, some of those pipes are connected down in the torus. It’s again speculation, but my guess is that when this is all said and done and done, there may be something to be learned where whatever was going on in Reactor Two, the stresses exceeded the capability of some of that piping that you can see in the cutaway picture—and that may have been the source of the explosion that they heard. It might have just been simple failure of some supports or some piping. You would not expect a hydrogen explosion within the containment because it is inerted with nitrogen.

EVELYN: Ok.

MARK: Ok, so again as a recap—the first venting we would do would be from the reactor vessel down a pipe, into the bottom of this dry…excuse me, torus, where the water would quench it. But if you keep injecting water, and keep venting, you’re going to build up enough steam and enough pressure with-in that dry well portion that you’re going to have to relieve the pressure of the containment—not the reactor vessel, but the containment. And the way it was obviously done at this plant was through this old method, because apparently they didn’t have the design change for the hardened venting, and that was within the reactor building. Again, speculation, but I assume since they’ve reported on Units Five and Six that since they’ve removed some roof panels or drilled some holes, that they didn’t do the modifications on those units, either. As much as we might criticize TEPCO—and we should—because they certainly were aware, made aware, by GE that the US was requiring this and they could have undertaken it themselves—but also, where was the Japanese government oversight to require these changes?

EVELYN: Well, I think there will be many hard lessons learned from Fukushima. I know the NRC is taking an active role in looking at all the US plants, but I hope Japan is does that as well. If that problem is at these plants, at Fukushima, who knows how many other plants this might be a problem at—not just in Japan, I guess, but worldwide.

MARK: So I know that our own regulatory body, the NRC, is not perfect, but this is one case where they did require these changes, and these changes were made at all of the plants that have this containment design in the US. I hope that clears it up for people, because I think people were confused because they see online what the NRC is requiring, and they’re wondering ‘well, if they have these vents outside the building, how are we getting explosions inside the building?’. The way that we did that is apparently these plants did not get those design changes.

EVELYN: Ok, well thanks for commenting on that, dad. Do you have anything else before we end the interview for tonight?

MARK: I don’t. Again, I really think that after this much time they just really have to step it up and
provide more information. It’s kind of sad that different people around the world have to speculate
on what’s happening when—again—they have a lot of resources at their disposal, and they should be
providing a comprehensive overview that just isn’t happening. Again, what happens is…they’re…if they have any credibility left, they’re destroying it by not being transparent.

EVELYN: As happy as we are that these interviews can help people, we’re not working on this full time; we don’t have the resources that they have, we don’t have the information that they have, I mean…this isn’t really our job to be doing this. But because there is so little cohesive information, we feel that we have to do these updates to the best of our ability. We try, but it’s not perfect and, really, it would be great if TEPCO and the Japanese government, and different organizations could step up so that we wouldn’t have to do these updates so we wouldn’t have to do them—and they could do them much better than we could, that’s for sure.

MARK: Do you have any other questions?

EVELYN: That’s it for tonight.

MARK: Ok, I’m not going to be able to do another interview for a couple days, because I’m going to be on an airplane, and be on another continent, but hopefully we can get together on Friday.

EVELYN: We’ll plan on doing that Friday. My dad will be in Europe, but we’re going to try and arrange a time so we can talk on Friday. That will be our next update. If you have any questions, send them in, and if there is developments over the next couple days we’re sorry, but we won’t be able to comment on that until Friday. So that’s it!

MARK: Alright, thank you Evelyn, goodnight.

EVELYN: Ok, goodnight dad!

26:36. End Interview.

14th Interview with My Dad, a Nuclear Engineer, about the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Disaster in Japan

You can listen to all the interviews on the new vimeo channel Brandon and I created. You can also listen to most of the interviews on Brad Go’s YouTube channel.

Here’s the vimeo channel:


Brad Go’s YouTube channel: 


This evening my dad and I recorded our 14th interview on the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster. Please see the rest of the blog (sidebar) for previous interviews. Please keep sending questions and comments to georneysblog@gmail.com. You can also follow me on twitter @GeoEvelyn but please do not send questions via twitter.

In today’s interview:
1. My dad gives his usual update

2. My dad addresses my question “How does Fukushima compare with Three Mile Island and Chernobyl?”

3. My dad answers two questions from listeners: “How will they increase shielding at the Fukushima nuclear power plants now that the cooling water is more radioactive?” and “Is there a way to fingerprint radiation as coming from a specific nuclear power plant?”

Here is a website we refer to in today’s interview:


Hope to have an audio link soon. Here is the interview on vimeo:

Please see the announcement page for more information about these interviews:


If you have time and interest, please transcribe this interview. Our next interview will be on Tuesday, March 29th.  Thanks to Dave, a transcript is now available after the jump. 
                                                                                                      
Transcript for Interview 14:
Q:      Good evening dad!
A:      Good Evening.
Q:      Are you all ready for the interview?
A:      I am.
Q:      Ok.  Let’s get started then.  My name is Evelyn Mervine and this is going to be an interview with my father, Mark Mervine, who is a nuclear engineer.  This is actually the 14th interview we have done over  the past few weeks about the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan.  If you’d like to listen to any of the previous interviews, or read them (many of them have transcripts), you can do so at my geology blog, georneys –  which, I guess is more of a nuclear power blog these days, but will return to being a geology blog.  But, that’s G E O R N E Y S – georneys.blogspot.com   and because we are doing many of these interviews, I just want to quickly state that today is the 28th of March and it is currently 8:40 PM Eastern Daylight Time.  And, in today’s interview, we are going with our usual format, where my dad gives an update on the events at Fukushima;  And, our last interview was actually about 48 hours ago, so it will be a 48 hour update.  Then, I’m gonna ask him a couple of questions that were sent in by listeners.   So…with that, dad, why don’t you go ahead and get started with your update?
A:      Alright.  Good evening.  So, as a reminder to everybody, the Fukushima 1, or Fukushima Daiichi power plant actually consists of six reactors  and, we’ve been most concerned about  units 1 through 4; units 5 and 6 were least impacted, and, were shut down at the time of the earthquake and tsunami and were the first to be able to get some kind of electrical power back.  Those two units are in cold shutdown and are of no real concern to us at this point.  We also talked about the spent fuel pools at the site;  there are seven, one at each reactor, and then one, shared or common,  pool.  And as we were able to report, they were able to restore electrical power and cooling to the common pool, and, that has not been a concern to us for the past several days.  so..we turn our attention to units 1 through 4, which have been the source of most of our concern, and, in terms of bringing people up to date, on site power has been partially restored to each of these units.  They have electricity for lighting in the control room for each of these units and they continue to work on restoration of instrumentation  and pump and valves that will, hopefully, allow them to restore some type of normal high pressure or low pressure cooling  or injection into the reactor core. 
Q:      Can I ask a quick question?  The cooling right now is still kind of  the system they rigged up with sea water, except they are using fresh water now, but it’s not in any way the normal cooling system for these reactors that they are using right now?
A:      Correct.   The biggest…the two big changes in the past several days;  the first was, that we reported on in the last couple of interviews, is that they have shifted over to fresh water for injection into reactors 1 through 3.  Per my people, unit 4 was shut down for refueling and maintenance at the time of the earthquake and tsunami, so all of the fuel has been removed from it and moved to the spent fuel pool, so,  there is no concern about the actual reactor or containment of unit 4.  The other thing that is unknown is, that for most of the duration of the past two weeks  what pumping was able to be done with seawater was by diesel powered pumps.  And now that they have some electricity back, they’ve shoved it over to  electric powered pumps. 
Q:      But those are still temporary pumps.  They are not the normal pumps used for cooling, correct?
A:      Correct.
Q:      Ok.  I just wanted to confirm that.
A:      The other thing that they’ve been doing, They have been continuing to use fire trucks and the concrete pumping truck to pump sea water into the spent fuel cooling ponds at units 1 through 4.  And, also, today, it was indicated that they hope, going forwards, instead of using seawater they will be able to use fresh water now to pump into the spent fuel pools.  And, as we had reported, the United States had sent two, large barges full of fresh water, to a port nearby, so they will, I assume, truck the water from these barges to the plant.  So, they have a fairly significant supply of fresh water available to them now.  And, the reason that is important is – as we had reported – we were really in uncharted territory where we got a significant quantity of sea water injected into these reactors and  as the water boils off, it will leave the corrosive salt residue behind, and the concern is, of course, making even more difficult  to cool the fuel, and, the potential for clogging the pipes, the valves and the pumps, once they are able to restore some type of normal cooling.
Q:      Ok.  I’ve got two quick questions for you.
A:      Yep!
Q:      So…spent fuel pools numbers 5 and 6 – those are at the stabile reactors that are in cold shut down –  Are they using their normal fresh water and normal pumping for those pools?  Have they been doing that all along?  Do you know?   For those two pools? 
A:      That’s a good question.  And, the answer is I don’t know for sure.  My belief is that that is the case, that they never had  to add any seawater to those units, so that is what I would believe.
Q:      I know they haven’t had to add seawater to the reactors, so, presumably  they probably would not have added seawater to that.
A:      I do  believe that they might of…I do believe that…Well, I am not 100% sure that they might have  added a little  seawater to the common spent fuel pool, but they do have electrical power restored to that, so, if they did have to add some seawater, they, by now,  made good progress in diluting that and  cleaning it up.
Q:      Ok
Q:      so it sounds like reactors 5 and 6, including their spent fuel pools and also the common fuel pool are in pretty good shape right now and are sort of stable.
A:      Right;  and one of the….One of the …  Obviously they were less impacted by the tsunami to begin with, but, the biggest advantage they had was the physical separation.  If you look  at a photograph, units 1 through 4 are close together, then there’s a significant space, and units 5 and 6 are close together.  So.  They didn’t incur  damage from any of the explosions…
Q:      The four explosions that happened.
A:      We know, for example that we had some cooling in unit 3 that we lost when we had  the explosion in unit 4, and, they thought that was because of the damage caused by the explosion of unit 4.
Q:      Ok.  My second question for you is:  I know we have talked  before about adding boron to the seawater.  I presume they are still adding boron to the fresh water, cause we are concerned about fuel damage so they probably are trucking in this water, and adding boron, which absorbs neutrons and keeps those fuel rods from interacting with each other.  Is that probably what they are doing?   I don’t know if you can confirm that…
A:      well, I can’t 100% confirm it, but, that’s what was reported and that would be logical.
Q:      Ok.  I just wanted to check on that point.  Sorry…go on with your update…
A:      Ok.  The other thing that has been a big news item, obviously, is the radiation and contamination levels that they found in the turbine halls of these things.  And…we talked a little bit about this last time, and, I think it’s important for people to have a perspective.    There was a report that the radiation levels were, I don’t know…a million times normal or something, then, it was retracted and they said “oh no, they were only 100,000 times normal”.  Ah.  Well, Ok…That’s great, but, what’s normal?  In these turbine halls, even those in a boiling water reactor, you would expect that the background radiation level would be almost zero, and, certainly, when the plant is shut down, they would be zero.  So…even though the steam and the water in the pipes would be slightly radioactive, and when the plant was operating you would see some slightly elevated radiation levels, once the plant  shuts down, the radiation levels would drop, and, certainly you would not expect  any particulate contamination in the building, outside of what’s physically in the pipes.  So, saying it’s any percentage above normal isn’t really  a good measure,  doesn’t really tell you anything other than being maybe a sensational report,  in that it’s almost nearly zero, ah, so virtually any level could be 1000, 10,000, or 100,000 times the normal level.
Q:      I mean, zero times a big number is still zero, so, I mean it isn’t exactly zero….
A:      If the normal was 0.001 something, then, you can multiply that by a large number and still not have a very high radiation level.  So, what’s important in reality is what are the actual radiation and contamination levels in absolute numbers.  Not in a multiple of what it normally is.
Q:      It’s a little bit deceptive for people, because they hear that multiplier, which is huge, and, they panic.  And, it’s not that there isn’t a radiation concern, but, it’s sensational.
A:      It makes for a sensational news story.  Now, with that having been said, there have been actual reports of levels that have been quite high, but, I think it’s important not to get carried away with 100,000 times, or a million times normal because normal levels would be almost nothing.  What is important is what are the contamination levels and what are the dose rates and they are quite high, apparently, in the bottom of the turbine hall and some of these piping trenches.  And some of the speculation from early reports was Oh!  We have a breach in the containment.  Well, I cant’s say if we do or if we don’t, and, honestly, I would say at this point, it’s probably irrelevant because the big…the big goal of containment, obviously,  is to keep any radiation that would be released due to the damage of fuel inside of containment from getting out into the environment.  But, unfortunately, in this case we know that we’ve got damaged fuel, in at least one of these spent fuel pools, and at least unit 4, and potentially some of the others.  And…because we’ve had to take these extreme steps of to drop water from the helicopter, spray it with a fire truck, pump it in by concrete pumping truck,  we know that some of that…actually we know only probably, of all the water that’s imported, only a small percentage, or, less than half, actually, went where it was intended to go.  And the rest of it washed down…ran down into the basement.  The other thing is, and, we know, because we explained this early on, that they only had these relatively low pressure pumps – these diesel pumps –  pump seawater into the reactors, that they had to lower the pressure in the reactor by venting steam.  And, we know that that steam was vented into the reactor building which caused them to have the hydrogen explosions which we explained  and, so, we know that whatever was in that steam also got out into the environment and certainly, by spraying of this water has washed down to the lower levels of the building
Q:      So, it sounds like we should be concerned with radiation being released into the environment because we’ve already had significant radiation released into the environment.  Not that there’s going to be, but, it’s already happened and we just need to keep it from getting worse.
A:      Well, let’s clarify this.   Right now, we have water and particulate contamination at several of the units at Fukushimi 1.  This is probably….probably  not a concern to the countryside.  It’s different from when we were having to do a lot of venting and a lot of materials carried up into the atmosphere.
Q:      Um hum…
A:      There’s still some happening obviously, because when they pour water on these units we still see steam so there’s still some small release of radiation taking place, but, not…and radioactivity….but not to the extent that we had, you know,  a week or ten days ago.  The more likely scenario here is some of this is getting out into the ocean, and, you know, is causing some of the elevated levels that we are getting from  the readings they are taking from the ocean.  So, I just…I want to be clear that there shouldn’t be a concern about this water contamination in the turbine hall continuing  to spread to farmland and those type of  things in the air.
Q:      It’s basically the major radiation is basically confined to the plants and so the only people affected by it are the ones that have to work in it.  I mean, that is a concern because you do need people to get in there and operate these plants , and fix these plants, right?
A:      The contamination rates and dose rates are impacting the workers, no doubt.  But what they’re trying to do is clean up this water, but the problem is that there is a lot of it and where to put it.  In a couple of these units they were actually pumping it into the condensers, so if you remember, way back in the beginning of the interview, we explained that  the reactor generates steam that goes through pipes and drives a turbine.  Attached to the turbine is a generator, and that’s how we generate electricity.  But, then, that steam has to go into a condenser, and be cooled, usually by intake seawater on the other side of the condenser, which cools the steam and turns it back into water, so, the condenser has a lot of room in it, so, they’re trying to pump some of this water into the condenser and, basically, use the condenser as a big tank…which is a good idea.  You basically have a big tank sitting there, that you’re not going to use again, so why not take advantage of it?
Q:      Eventually, you’re not using that water, and it needs a temporary holding place so it’s not going in places where people need to be working, repairing things, so it sounds like that is a good option
A:      it’s a good, temporary solution.
Q:      Ok.
A:      The other thing that we saw in the news in the past day or so, was that they’re detecting plutonium in the soil.  Ok.  So…if you actually read the article, it’s true, they did detect plutonium in the soil.  But…the levels were extremely low.  I mean, barely above what you would find if you took any sample of soil and sampled it for plutonium.  So, many, many places around the world, because of all the nuclear testing that was done over the last 50-60 years, you’re going to detect small quantities of plutonium.  So, again…that was the headline, but, if you read the whole article, there really isn’t much of a  concern  there, and, none of us should really be shocked by this, because we’ve explained over and over again, that, although unit 3 did use MOX fuel, plutonium exists in all fuel rods once they have been in the reactor for a significant period of time.  Actually, I wanted to thank one of your listeners…one of your listeners sent you a link to a paper that was done by somebody from the American Nuclear Society, and, it did clarify the amount of MOX fuel used in unit 3.  and…it was only 32 fuel assemblies, which is only about 6% of the core.   So, we had said we knew for sure that it was no more than 1/3 because they had only started using it during the refueling last Fall.  But, in fact, it was a much smaller amount, so, given….given the small number of fuel assemblies that were used, I think we can stand behind our comment that we didn’t think that the core from unit 3 was really any more significant than any of the spent fuel pools or the cores in the other units.
Q:      And as you said, several times, they’re all dangerous, whether they use MOX fuel or not.  They’re all bad.
A:      It’s all bad.  It is true that a Mig Oxide fuel assembly would have more plutonium in it than a normal one, even a normal used one, but, most reactors cannot operate with a full core of MOX fuel cells, because it does change the, and again, we said this isn’t a really good word, but,  it does change the burn properties of the core, and so it  changes the power distribution and the power density in different parts of the core, so it would have to be engineered correctly, so, most of them cannot do 100% Mg Oxide anyway, so we knew it only going to be 30% to 40%  of the core and, in fact it was only about 6%.  But, again, the point is…we knew we had some fuel damage.  We know all fuel has plutonium in it so, it shouldn’t be a shock that we would have some level of plutonium contamination in some of these areas. 
Q:      Just speaking again, quickly, on the radiation that was released;  just to clarify.  A lot of news  reports they talk about this being either similar to  or different from to Chernoybl  or Three Mile Island.  I mean, I think we’ve covered this before, but, we’re not expecting to get a major radiation release like we saw at Chernoybl, right.  I mean, this is a different situation and a different type of plant.  Can you comment on that?   I know you did that right at the beginning, just a little bit…actually a friend was asking me about this just tonight…is this like Chernoybl?  Is this worse;  is this better?   Sorry to spring this on you dad.  Just in terms of the radiation released into the environment,  there was much more released at Chernobyl.  Is that true?
A:      At the Chernoybl plant you actually had an explosion of the core and, this is a refresher, it was an entirely different kind of nuclear power plant than  is used by traditionally what we  call The West.  In the West there are two types of reactor in common use.  There is the Pressured water reactor and the boiling water reactor.   Both types are water cooled, water moderated reactors and, the Chernoybl reactor was graphite moderated and they were conducting a test, and had over-ridden safety features.  Those reactors are not inherently stable, like a water moderated reactor and, the core actually exploded and caught fire, and these plants did not have a containment building, so,literally, the entire core was released to the environment and because of the explosion, and because of the fire, a lot of radioactivity was carried up in the atmosphere and spread, pretty much, world wide. 
Q:      And eventually, they had to put a sarcophagus over that.  Right?  So…
A:      Yes, and   now, they’re actually  building  a new one around that one to  further contain it.
Q:      I mean, is that the sort of thing they could ever  build at Fukushima?  I know it is a different type of plant and a different amount of radiation being released, but, eventually, might they do the same thing at Fukushima?
A:      I don’t think…I don’t think we’ll go down that route and I’ll explain that  in a minute.. 
Q:      Ok…sorry to spring that question on you, but, I had that question today, and I was not 100% clear on it myself.
A:      Well, let me pull the other question…Then we go to Three Mile Island which is actually coming up…I don’t know if it is today or tomorrow on the 32d….
Q:      I think it just happened actually.
A:      In that case, we had virtually no release of radiation or radioactivity into the environment and eventually after a number of years they were able to fully decomission that unit, and, I think the big thing was after four days, the situation was  under control.  We’ve got something in between here. Now, we talked about this in some of the other interviews.  Law experts are saying “well, if Three Mile Island was a 5 and Chernoybl was a 7, then this should be a 6”  And, I think it’s really how you literally interpret the scales, and, I’m not sure it really matters, to be honest with you.   It’s definitely worse than Three Mile Island because so much radioactivity has been released into the environment and the fact that  we have multiple reactor cores and spent fuel pools involved.  It’s not as bad as Chernoybl because we did not have this catastrophic explosion and fire, and, the spewing of, basically, an entire core into the atmosphere and surrounding countryside.  So, although it’s been a long, tough road, the containment buildings have done their job.  The situation that…you know, you hate to use 20/20 hindsight…but, the situation that we should have taken more care to prevent was the damage to the spent fuel pools.  The potential and, I don’t know, When we’re finally able to get up there with a camera and see, I am sure we will find damaged fuel in those spent fuel pools. We need to find a way to prevent that from happening, because I think, from where I sit, and of course, I may be proven wrong at some day in the future, but in light of the problems that we’re having now in terms of the contamination levels in the water at the plant, is probably a result of the spent fuel pools.
Q:      Certainly, they were pouring a lot of water in there  and it wasn’t hitting it perfectly, so some of that water was washing off, and, highly radioactive
A:      My point was, you know, we had actually brought this up before they really started having problems…was, you know, they could have gotten or something up, and refilled those pools and avoided this whole scenario. Certainly, you know, with unit 4. So, again, we weren’t there.  We weren’t dealing with what those people had to deal with, but, perhaps, a little bit of action a little bit quicker,  the actions they ultimately did take might have mitigated it a little bit.  But, it is what it is;  we are where we are, from my perspective, it’s definitely worse than Three Mile Island, not as bad as Chernoybl…somewhere in the middle.
Q: Ok.  That’s a good question to hear, because I know we asked that question at the beginning  and, at the time, you said it was at least equal to Three Mile Island  and, now, it sounds like you’ve rated it as being worse.  It’s good to know where it is on that scale.  So…
A:      And I think the other important thing to point out is that we are not out of the woods;  This is not over   It may not be front page news to the extent that it was two weeks ago, but, you know, here we are, two plus weeks into this, and we don’t have a single cooling system restored at any of the four, impacted units.  There’s a long way to go before we can consider these plants to be safe and not at risk of any additional releases of radiation into the environment.
Q:      From both the reactors and the spent fuel pools.
A:      Right.
Q:      Which, uh,  Correct me if I’m wrong, but we had the earthquake and we had…which, I don’t think there was too much damage from the earthquake, the plants pretty much withstood the earthquake well…And there was the tsunami, which did have flooding,  which affected the generators, and affected some of the electrical systems;  and then, finally we had an explosion, correct me if I’m wrong, each of those four plants.  We had explosions in three reactor buildings, then, spent fuel pool number 4.  Those explosions have done significant damage to all of the, sort of, controls, and regular cooling systems so even if they have power restored, there’ve been just a lot of things that have been destroyed,   right?
A:      Well, they have very limited power restored.  So, power to control room lighting; power for cooling pumps for units 5 and 6 and the shared spent fuel pool.  They’ve got electrical pumps instead of diesel pumps for the fresh water injection that’s taking place, but, not a significant amount of progress   in terms of restoring electrical power to instrumentation or cooling systems in the plant. 
Q:      And I mean, looking at the pictures, And we were talking about this earlier, there’s just so much damage to those plants, right, from the explosions and flooding or whatever.  It’s gonna be an enormous task to restore all that isn’t it? 
A:      And now it’s being impeded by the high radiation and contamination levels so that’s why they are taking steps to try to mitigate that and, as we indicated, try to pump this water into the condensers or somewhere else in order  to drive those radiation and contamination levels down a little bit, which will enable…make it a little easier to work.
Q:      And meanwhile we have a cooling system which is temporary and, not ideal at all, right?  So, its not the most stabile of situations, right?
A:      And, it’s not really a cooling system.  We’re just pumping fresh water in, and monitoring the pressure.  If the pressure gets too high, we have to vent.
Q:      And that releases more radiation into the environment.
A:      That’s not the normal cooling system, and, just so we’re real clear here, the best they’ve been able to do is cover about half of the core of these units.  That’s how high the water level is.
Q:      So there’s still lots of fuel exposed.
A:      If it’s still there.  If it’s not a melted blob.
Q:      Oh, my God.  Wow!
A:      Ok?  Just to be clear, we are by no means in any kind of safe condition with these reactors. Um…As we’ve indicated, The good news is that it’s not getting any worse.  Every day. It’s getting a little better, but, we have a long way to go
Q:      Why can’t they fill the water up?  Is it just being…is the heat just high enough that it evaporates as soon as they put it on?
A:      I think…I think there is some regard for minimizing the amount of radioactivity they release into the environment. 
Q:      By venting that steam?
A:      Right.  So what…Basically what they are trying to do. I think,  is  hold their own and not make the situation any worse until they can restore some high-pressure pumps and finally fully flood  so then have the cooling turn off the heat.
Q:      So, they’re still using these low-pressure pumps which, basically, they can’t cover the core with those because  they don’t work when the pressure is too high.
A:      Well, it’s a balance of if I still have heat, I’m going to be generating steam.  If I generate too much steam, I’m going to generate too much pressure, which means I’m going to have to vent to the atmosphere, which you don’t wanna do, right?   You don’t wanna leak any more radioactivity into the atmosphere then we have to, so, it’s a balancing act.  
Q:      And if they don’t vent it, there could be an explosion within the containment itself?  Which is why they have to vent it even though it’s a bad option?
A:      We…If We…you have the reactor vessel itself,  and then you have the containment around the reactor vessel, so, depending on exactly what we are venting and where, if I was to vent within the containment  building, and allow too much pressure to build up in the containment building, I could jeopardize the containment building.  And, of course, I don’t really want to vent any more to the atmosphere from the containment building, so, like I said, it’s a balancing act.
Q:      they need to get those high-pressure pumps working as soon as they can…and  they have none working at any of those three reactors.
A:      We need to get, ah, some type of higher pressure pump, and, also the capability to provide coolant. 
Q:      Ok.
A:      Alright….One further update then I’ll pull you out a couple of  questions.
Q:      Um Ha.
A:      I think today, in particular, there is a lot of good information on the International Atomic Energy Agency website (the IAEA website) so, that’s http://www.iaea.org.  They actually have Some slide shows listed that you can watch in your web browser.  And, there’s status of the plant; there’s information on  sampling that they’ve done in Japan, both water and particulates…
Q:      That’s great, because we talked about that yesterday, that there wasn’t good information that you could find yesterday…On Saturday, rather…
A:      Yea, its not 100% clear, in terms of, OK, this is the level and this is what it means, but, it is there.  And, there’s also a slide show on the water samples they’ve done in the ocean.  And, they  show those results over four or five different  days.  So, I think that’s great.  I know you posted the link there yesterday, but, people should definitely go  check it out.  A lot of good information there  today.
Q:      Excellent. 
A:      Right. So, what have  you got for questions?
Q:      I have a couple of questions from listeners.  And, these might actually  be two questions from a single listener, but, I’ll just go ahead and ask the questions.  SO, I know you’ve talked about this a little bit before, but, one listener wanted to know about the additional shielding they might have to add to the plants cause, now, we’re not in a normal situation, as I think you emphasized in today’s interview and previous interviews, so a lot of the pipes the different equipment that is transporting, I guess, mostly water that normally wouldn’t be very radioactive has now become quite radioactive.  So, for people to work in the plant, in sort of the normal way, they are going to have to increase the shielding from what they normally have.  And,  I guess he wanted you to talk a little bit about how they might go about increasing the shielding in the plant, making the plant safer, so people could continue to work there for many years because, I mean, even if they get this situation stabilized, from what I understand, it’s going to be many years until the fuel cools down and they…they’re going to have to monitor this for many years so they’re going to have to increase that shielding so, just talk about the practicalities of how they might do that.
A:      Ok, so, it’s gonna depend a certain amount on the actual, physical construction of each of the units, and, although  the plants are similar, they are probably different, because they were, ah, built at different times.  Unit 1 is actually a smaller plant, then, units 2. 3 and 4 are  very similar in size but the physical layout may be slightly different, because  as nuclear power plant design was kind of evolving, in the era these plants were built;  and,  unit 6 is actually a completely different type of boiling water reactor – ah – the next generation after, with a  completely different containment design.  A Mark 2 instead of a Mark 1.  but, generally speaking, in a nuclear power plant, it’s not – these pumps and valves won’t all  be all in one room.  They’ll be on different levels;  They’ll be in different compartments, so there might be a compartment where the two pumps are located, or,  depending on the design, they may have had physical separation of the ?????  so they are not in the same compartment.  But, what I’m trying to say is;  some of this piping and valves and pumps may be in semi-isolated compartments behind concrete walls and those type of things, so, what they’re gonna have to do for shielding will vary a bit based  on the exact layout of the plant and in some cases, the concrete walls that are already present may provide enough shielding to reduce the radiation enough that it is not a significant danger.  In other cases, where there may be openings in walls for doorways and windows and that sort of thing, they may have to put up  shielding.  And, that could be in the form of lead blankets that could be hung, or it might be in the form of concrete block – solid concrete, obviously, -that they could bring in.  And, in some cases if it’s a localized, high radiation spot, they may actually put like a lead…a sheet of lead, that was designed to be hung, on some sort of temporary form.  So, it’s just gonna vary, based on the layout of the plant.  But, the key is that the water that normally flows through the system, , which is usually slightly radioactive, given the extent of damage that I think exists with the core, that water is going to be very radioactive  and so the radiation levels will be much higher than normal, so there’s no doubt the are gonna have to take extra precautions, and, there’s gonna be some, if not a significant portion of the system that will have to have extra shielding put around them.  It’s kind of hard to explain, but, if the piping comes out, and went into a heat exchanger, and the heat exchanger sat in a concrete bay by itself, that concrete bay may provide enough shielding except  when you physically went into it, you might not have to do anything else, except in the opening where you would go in. to inspect it. 
Q:      Although, this questions a .little bit putting the cart before the horse, because, before we can think of all the details of long-term safety at the plant, we need to get the basic cooling up and running.  I mean, I don’t think they are thinking about shielding every little pipe
A:      No, but, the point is, That when you, …Once you’re able to get these systems working, the minute you turn it on, you’re going to have these really high rate  issues  ????.
Q:      So that’s why they do the shielding before they turn it on.
A:      That’s why you have to give some consideration to it beforehand, because once you turn it on, you aren’t going to be able to get in there to put the shielding in place.
Q:      Yep, That’s a good point, I am sure they are thinking about all these things.  Ok…So, I think you’ve answered that question.   So, the second question…
A:      I did…I did to the best of my ability, and tried to think of another analogy., And, well, it’s like if you had a big tank of radioactive water, but, it was in your basement,  If you were standing outside your house, you may not have the radiation level, but if you were standing in your house over the top of it, maybe you would.  So, you might put a sheet of lead on your floor…
Q:      (laughs)
A:      that would keep it from coming up.  It’s going to depend on the physical construction of the plant and where these components are located, whether they were in individual compartments already  or not.
Q:      Well, as we have talked about many times,  we have never been in a  situation of this kind before,  so, many of these adaptations, they are just going to have to come up with.  It’s not like there is a handbook that tells you how to deal with this situation.  I mean, We’re  beyond the worst case design  cases for these plants, so they’re having to improvise pretty much everything right now.  Would you say that’s true, Dad?
A:      there is no manual for the situation we’re in, that’s correct!
Q:      but, as we said, there are many smart people working hard on this, so hopefully it will be under control soon.  But, it does  seem like it’s quite a serious situation at those four plants.
A:      Well, I think there’s some definite good signs in the past week.   It’s pretty clear they’re getting advice from the outside, and a lot of advice was given to them with respect to the use of fresh water.  They’re obviously getting a lot of support from the United States on that, so, very clearly… early on, it may have been all Tokyo Electric Power company, but, now, clearly, there are a lot of smart people engaged, and they’re getting a lot of advice, and, they are definitely taking the advice, and, the key is, the more information that TEP co. shares with experts around the world, the more help they can get in coming up with solutions to solve these problems.
Q:      It sounds like they’re being somewhat more transparent.   I mean, there’s no saving these plants, and, uh, there have been significant radiation releases, so they need  to just get them in a safe situation.
A:      How transparent they’re being is still to be determined. Because, as we said, just a couple of days ago, the Japanese   government was very stern with them with respect to  lack of transparency, so, again, there’s a lot of people willing to help, a lot of smart people out there  I hope they’re taking advantage of all that. 
Q:      I hope so too.  Ok…So, let me ask the second question for tonight, and, then we’ll wrap up,
Someone wanted to know…I mean, we’re in a situation here where we haven’t really been before, where we have six nuclear reactors  that are in trouble, and, also, In Japan there are, I forget, I believe he said there were 54 nuclear reactors in Japan.  Is that right;  a right number?
A:      Something around that
Q:      There’s about 50, let’s say…so, Japan relies heavily on nuclear power and I think that we have been fortunate that only one, I guess, system of nuclear power plants has been affected by the earthquake and tsunami in a significant way.  But, this person they said they wanted to know, if you have radiation in a place in  the environment that’s far away, for instance, .Tokyo, is there any way to tell which reactor it came from?  Say you had not only Fukushima at Fukushima Daiichi, but, you had another plant which was also having trouble, would there be any way to tell, sort of, fingerprint  that radiation source?
A:      Well, that’s a good question, and, really it’s not my area of expertise.  I would think that, in some respects that might be possible because the fuel for these reactors is custom made, and, I guess if you knew the exact core makeup and the amount of years it had been in service, you could probably get a fingerprint, but, in this particular case,  We’re pretty sure where the radiation’s coming from.  With that being said, people have to keep in mind that there’s always radiation in the environment.  We talked about the radon gas in the US that’s buried…that’s found a lot.  In some of the….
Q:      Rocks, Dad (laughs)?
A:      You Know, I was going to say that it’s found a lot in the East, in the mountain areas, but, in fact, I think it’s pretty prevalent probably throughout the US, because there’s a certain amount of uranium in the crust of the earth everywhere, and, you’re gonna get radon gas pretty much. Pretty much  everywhere.  We know that there’s radioactivity from cosmic rays.   I mean, We talked about in one of our interviews, that  airline crews get a lot more radiation than the average person because  they’re flying higher in the atmosphere where there’s less shielding.  SO, there’s always radiation in the environment, and, actually if people look at the information that’s on the IAEA website,it shows the radiation levels in Tokyo, kind of on a graph over a few days, and, it’s pretty much at a normal background level right now, so there’s always some radioactivity out there, and, when you see it going up,  or more  in the environment, I guess in theory you could fingerprint that to a source, but, again, that’s not my area of expertise and there’s no other plant that havehad these kind of issues, so, I think we are pretty confident that we know the source. 
Q:      I think this person was wondering if there was any possibility that any of the other nuclear plants in Japan were having troubles as a result  of the earthquake.  And, see,now we did talk about one   plant that did have problems initially, but, now they are in cold shutdown, that was the Fukushima 2.
A:      that was the Fukushima 2 plant which is about seven miles to the south.
Q:      I think it would be pretty clear if there were troubles with any of the other plants. I mean, that would be on the news, I would hope.  (laughs). So, I think its clear that the radiation is coming from  the Fukushima Daiichi…
A:      And the other thing that people do not talk about is that there is a lot of radiation released from a coal plant.  So, when you crush and burn that coal, you release a lot of that radon, and, it goes up the smokestack.
Q:      Into the atmosphere.
A:      And, uh, again, the point is, there’s a lot of naturally occurring  radiation and, if the people are expecting the samples to be zero, they’ll never be zero. 
Q:      Well, and you talked about this before…you have to know that everything is radioactive  to an extent.   We all have traces of uranium in us.  And, the rocks that I study, for example, have trace amounts of uranium in parts per billion, which, sounds pretty small,  but, believe it or not, I can crush that rock, and extract that uranium, and actually measure it.  But, all the geological samples I work with, even things that have high levels of uranium, and, we’re talking here about parts per million, so, the key is not whether the radiation exists or not, it’s  whether it exists at a level high  to be harmful to human health.  And, that is what we’re concerned with here, not is there zero radiation, because as he said, there never will be zero radiation.  Everything is radioactive, just some things are more radioactive than others. 
A:      And so, as we’ve mentioned several times, a lot of effort is going into monitoring the water and food supplies in Japan, and, I know people probably  remain very concerned, as we would probably  be if we were in Japan, but, my advice is to follow the advice of the government, and, it does appear that any food that is found to be suspect is being removed from the food chain and, if you’re told the water is fit to drink, it’s actually fit to drink.  And, I would point out that here, in New England, we’ve been able to detect now, some radioactivity from the fall out from this disaster in Japan.   Again, the levels are at such a low level that it’s just not a concern, but, for sure,  since a lot of the water supplies in New England are open lakes, for sure  some of that has gotten into the drinking water here.  But, .we’re not going to stop drinking our water when the levels are so low as to not be an issue.  And, as we pointed out, there’s plenty of naturally occurring radioactivity in the water anyway. 
Q:      Alright.  I think that answers that question.  Do you have anything else  before we end?
A:      Yea.  We really did not answer the question, and, yea, there’s probably a way to do it, but it’s just not my area. 
Q:      It sounds like that is not something they should be putting a lot of energy into right now, because they know where it’s coming from, and, they need to reduce it, and, not worry about which reactor it’s coming from at this moment.  So…good question.  Sorry we can’t answer it better.  Anything else, Dad?
A:      I don’t have anything else.
Q:      Ok, I just want to announce that we are going to do an interview tomorrow night, so send in your questions, if you have them, but, then, because of travel schedules, we’re not going to do our next interview until Friday  and, then, unless there’s something major in the news, we’re actually going to take a break for the weekend, and do the next interview on Monday.  I know we keep saying we’re going to stop doing these interviews, but, I guess there’s still news;  still things to be concerned about, so, I guess we have to continue with this for a little while longer, don’t we?
A:      Yes, but, I do think we’re getting closer.  I think….I think today, for example, there was quite a bit of good information on the International Atomic Energy Agency website, the more days that go by where we get better information, and those sources are available to people,then, I think there will be   less need  for this.  But, we’ll interview tomorrow, and do it on Friday, and take it from there.
Q:      Ok.  And we have promised, so we have to do this; to do an interview towards the end, so when you’re ready, talking a bit about the improvements made in nuclear power plants since the Fukushima plants were built, and, also talking a little bit about  Thorium, but, my dad still has to do some homework on that, so, we’ll do that one…maybe we’ll think about doing that one later next week or the following week.   
A:      Alright.
Q:      Ok, Dad…thanks very much!
A:      Alright…good night.
O:      Have a good night!

A Quick Note: Upcoming Interviews with My Dad, a Nuclear Engineer, and Lulu Book

Some Quick Announcements:


1. Upcoming Interviews:

While my dad and I wish we could stop doing our interview updates, the situation at Fukushima remains serious. We will discuss this more in our interview tonight, but keep in mind that the nuclear disaster at Fukushima will not be resolved in a matter of days; there are many long months and years of work ahead, especially since some of the reactors have been badly damaged by the earthquake, flooding (from the tsunami), and subsequent explosions. To fully clean-up the Fukushima site will require decades.

We probably won’t continue doing these interviews for decades, but we will continue them awhile longer.

This week we will be conducting interviews on Monday (3/28, later this evening), Tuesday (3/29), and Friday (4/1). Please send any questions or comments to georneysblog@gmail.com. You can also follow me on twitter @GeoEvelyn.

2. Lulu Book:

I just wanted to let you know that sometime soon (sometime in April, hopefully) I plan to self-publish a book titled “Conversations with My Dad, a Nuclear Engineer, about the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Disater in Japan” on Lulu. In this book, I will compile all of the interview transcripts (which I will clean-up and check for errors) and also write brief summaries of the content in each interview. I will also include a chapter with some background on my father and I, including some pictures of us over the years, and a chapter with some of the many, many emails and comments we have received in response to these interviews. For the emails and comments, I will only use first names (or anonymous if the person did not give a name) and will avoid any personal details.

My father and I will donate 25% of the profits of each book to charities supporting Japan earthquake and tsunami disaster relief. If you have any interest in buying a book, let me know in a comment below or by email so that I have a rough idea of how many books might be ordered.

The interviews and audio files will remain freely available here always; I just thought that some people might like to have all of the interviews compiled in an easier-to-read book form. As I mentioned, I will try to have the book published sometime in April; I have a long plane flight to South Africa coming up in a few weeks when I can work on this. Depending on the situation at Fukushima, we may continue to do these interviews on a regular basis for some time. So, it’s possible that the book will need to be updated at some point if we continue interviews past April.

3. More Thank-Yous

Thanks again to all of the transcribers and audio helpers. I mailed pretty rocks to the volunteer helpers below (except Gerald– send me your address if you want a rock) earlier today. Rocks are heavy, so I mailed them parcel post, but they should arrive sometime in the not-too-distant future.

-Skype PR Representative
-Michelle, Gregg, Kirsten, Sophie, Chris, & Maria (transcription)
-Brandon (vimeo & audio help)
-Mike (audio help)
-Brad (YouTube help)
-Gerald (audio file hosting)

13th Interview with My Dad, a Nuclear Engineer, about the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Disaster in Japan

You can listen to all the interviews on the new vimeo channel Brandon and I created. You can also listen to most of the interviews on Brad Go’s YouTube channel.

Here’s the vimeo channel:


Brad Go’s YouTube channel: 


This evening my dad and I recorded our 13th interview on the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster. Please see the rest of the blog (sidebar) for previous interviews. Please keep sending questions and comments to georneysblog@gmail.com. You can also follow me on twitter @GeoEvelyn but please do not send questions via twitter.

In today’s interview:
1. My dad gives his usual update

2. My dad talks in a little more detail about radiation in the environment in Japan

Here are some websites we refer to in today’s interview:



Hope to have an audio link soon. Here is the interview on vimeo:

Please see the announcement page for more information about these interviews:


If you have time and interest, please transcribe this interview. Our next interview will be on Monday, March 28th. Thanks to Dave, there is now a transcript after the jump. 


Transcript for Interview 13:
         

A:      Hello
Q:      Hi, Dad!
A:      Good Evening.
Q:      Good Evening!, are you ready for the interview?
A:      OK!   My name is Evelyn Mervine and I’m going to be interviewing my father, Mark Mervine, who is a nuclear Engineer.  This is, actually, I believe, the 13th in a series of interviews I am doing with my Dad about the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster in Japan.  If you would like to listen to any of the previous interviews, or read the ones that have transcripts, you can do that at my geology blog, Georneys, which is G E O R N  E Y S,  georneys.blogspot.com.   And…Because we are doing so many of these interviews, let me quickly state the date and time.  It is currently the 26th of March, and it is 7:30 PM, Eastern Daylight time.  And, in today’s interview, my Dad is gonna give his usual update about Fukushima, and then in the interview yesterday, he promised to try and do some homework about radiation and radiation reports in Japan, to try and get the general public a little better idea of what kind of radiation is in the environment in Japan.  So he’s gonna give us an update on that and tell us if he’s able to glean anything from the reports in the news he was reading.  So, with that, Dad, would you like to give your update today about  Fukushima? 
A:      Ok.  So, today’s update on the Fukushima 1, or Fukushima Diachi nuclear power plant   As a reminder, there are six reactors at this plant, and, ah, as I have for the past two days I will start talking about ones that are the least impacted; which are units 5 and 6.  These are the newer units which are physically separated at some distance from units 1 through 4.  And these plants have remained in cold shut-down and stable for the past 24 hours.  They’re getting electricity from the grid   There are also six spent…excuse me, seven spent fuel pools, six, one at each of the reactors and a common one.   That common spent fuel pool is also receiving power from the Grid, and, has cooling and has remained stable.
        So now we will talk about units 1 through 4, which are the ones that have been damaged, uh, severely by the earthquake, tsunami, and subsequent hydrogen explosions.  Yesterday we had reported that they had gotten fresh water to two of the three units, and, uh, last night they were able to get fresh water to the third one, so, now, units 1, 2 and 3 have fresh water being pumped into them vs the salt water that had been pumped in for the previous two weeks.  And the US Navy is bringing in two large barges full of fresh water which will be able to resupply the fresh water, so they continue to use fresh water instead of salt water.  And..we talked about that last night as to why that’s preferable   because, ah, the fresh water will not have as many, ah, contaminates, and more importantly won’t have salt in it.  And we talked about, of course, ah, because the water has been heating up, and, they’ve been having to vent  steam, , a lot of the salt has been left behind.  So that’s a significant development now  that all three units are using fresh water instead of salt water.
Q:      Dad, do you know, is that just plain, fresh water, like tap water?  I know that usually in a nuclear power plant – we talked about this  in our previous interviews – you use kind of  purified water.  Are they able to bring in pure water, do you know, or is sort of regular tap water?
A:      I, I don’t know specifically, but, my guess is it’s probably just regular, old fresh water.
Q:      but that is so significant an improvement over using sea water?
A:      Correct.
Q:      So, that is really good news.
A:      Correct.   So, it won’t be perfect but, it will a lot better than using sea water which, not only does it have a lot of salt in it, but, it’s going to have a lot of other organics and contaminates, so, it’s a big step forwards.  And I don’t know exactly where they’re getting the fresh water currently, whether it was brought in by truck, or, they do have some, ah, supply, but, ah, in any event, the, the Navy’s bringing in these two, huge barges which have, ah, significant amount of water on them.
Q:      And even if it is just tap water, I mean, at least they should be getting rid of some of the sediment and other things that, you would; organics and other things that you would see in sea water, so that is good news, news.  Ok…Sorry…Continue
A:      The other development is that, based on the report, it appears they have lighting in all of the control rooms, so, that’s a significant step forwards.   And they’re working on getting as much instrumentation restored as possible.  In terms of radiation levels at the plant, they seem to be stable at the plant, and,  as a reminder, the radiation levels at the site boundary are somewhere between 1 and 3 milRem/hour.   So, another day of progress, ah, another day in which there’s no significant bad news.  Ah, About the other newsworth item is the company that owns these plants, the Tokyo Electric company, came under fire by the Japanese Government in the past 24 hours, for not being as transparent and forthcoming as they should be with respect to those three workers that were contaminated and got a  radiation dose.  I guess the company had been aware that there was some concern about the high levels of radiation in the water pools and they had not made the government aware of it, so they weren’t too happy about it.
Q:      That was after the workers went to the plant?
A:      Well, after it came to light.
Q:      Oh, so they found out that they actually knew about that  previous to that contamination incident?
A:      That’s what was reported, yea.
Q:      That’s not, not very good.  And Tokyo Power company hasn’t been doing a very good job all along at providing information, but, at the least I would hope that they   would be providing information to the government.  Anyway.  It’s good, it’s good that the Japanese government is taking a hard stand on that.
A:      And the other thing that has been reported is that they’re trying to figure out how to pump some of that water out of the plant, so they will be able to, ah, work a little bit easier.  So, they’re working on that.
Q:      It sounds like the water level, in some of the places they have to work at, is pretty high.  I mean, they’re not ideal working conditions.  Especially since there’s radioactivity, and they’re working with  electronics and things.  I mean, some of these plants are quite flooded,  right?
A:      Well, I don’t know if they are quite flooded.  If the water was at the top of the boot level, that is really not that much water,
Q:      Ok
A:      But, the problem, of course, was that it was highly radioactive. 
Q:      Ok
A:      That’s the real problem.  And, this was apparently at, you know, a  basement level.  That would indicate that, ah, the plant, the plant’ no longer very flooded.
Q:      Ok,I wasn’t sure.
A:      Yesterday, I said I would try and do some homework and see what I could come up with in terms of the environment impact.  And, I spent quite a bit of time today, and, didn’t have a lot of luck, quite honestly.  Ah, there is not, you know,  again, I think we have commented on this, ah, on day 1, and, there may be a site in Japanese that I couldn’t find, but, there doesn’t seem be any place where you can go to get a comprehensive  report of the different readings that have been taken around Japan.  Ah, and, certainly there doesn’t seem to be any place that translates that,  translates that into something that is easily understandable by the general public.  So, I was a little disappointed.  I, I, assumed that if I did enough digging around, that I would come up with something.
        I do have some information, and, what I am going to do, Evelyn, is give you the link to the International Atomic Energy Agency website.  Today, they actually posted some really good information and, although it’s not a comprehensive view that, you know, tells people, ah, exactly what the situation is, it’s a lot of good information.  Most importantly, ah, they talk about where the radioactive iodine and cesium have been detected  in drinking water and, ah, in particular, ah, it appears that there was only one section of Japan where  it’s currently above the limits on infants and, in all other places it’s below the limit.  And, it was just barely over the limit there, so, I think that’s good news.  And, they also report some surface contamination levels and dose rate, but, again, there’s really not a map or detail that would have been as helpful as I would have wanted.  With respect to contamination of spinach and other leafy vegetables, they talk about a couple of locations in Japan where the levels were up above the limits set by the Japanese Government but in most other places they’re, ah, below the limits, which I also think is good news.  So, rather than go through those and basically read the report, and, probably do a very poor job of pronunciation,  I think it would be good if we just post a link.
Q:      All those Japanese names?
A:      Correct!…Could read these themselves.  So what the picture it is painting, although not as comprehensive as I would have liked, is that, ah, the situation does seem to be improving and it will continue to improve, especially for Iodine because we talked about the half life for iodine being only eight days.  So that means that in eight days, half of it is gone.  So, if you’re slightly over the limit, and there is no more released, then, within a day or two, you’re going to be below the limit.  Cesium is a little more problematic, because it has a 30 year half life, ah, but, it seems, for the most part, that Cesium contamination is fairly low. 
Q:      That’s very good news. 
A:      So, the other interesting news, and, it was a little surprising, actually, was, ah, there’s been a lot of samples of the water near the plant, the sea water
Q:      Ok.
A:      In the ocean.   And I was a little surprised because I think I actually;  I think Anthony might have asked me this question when he interviewed me last week; was there really concern about the ocean?  And I said I didn’t really think there would be, except in the immediate vicinity of the plant.  But, of course, what, what we really did not take into account there was that, ah, with all the water that they have been pumping on the spent fuel pools, ah, a lot of that, obviously, is running down the building and getting out into the, ah, ocean, adjacent to the plant  And, as we found out from this incident, that some of the water is pretty contaminated.  So, in the ocean, right next to the plant, the levels are actually quite high, and, what was surprising was that they did a sample at 30 kilometers and it was a lot higher than I would have anticipated.  Again, though,with, ah, ocean currents  and, ah, the spherical, ah…you know, as it spreads…you’re gonna get spread spherically, which means that the concentration per liter of water will continue to go down, and, also, the iodine, as we discussed, decays fairly rapidly.  But it was a little  surprising to see some of the report in the news, ah, that adjacent to the plant, ah,  the radioactivity in the water was more than 1000 times the limit.
Q:      Is it feasible for them to try and catch any of that water before it washes into the ocean?  And I guess the ocean is good because it is large and can dilute things….
A:      Actually, I think that’s actually the intent of trying to pump some of the contaminated water.  Ah, not only will it allow them to work in the plant a little bit easier, but,  It’ll, it’ll capture some of that and prevent it from being washed away.
Q:      OK.  That would certainly be good.  Because, I mean, the ocean is big, but, there are limits and, you know, particularly, we talked about the fisheries industry in one of our previous interviews, and that  being affected  And if you can minimize the radiation going anywhere, I mean.  .  You talked about the winds going out to sea, being a good thing because it is not falling on people, but, it’s not particularly great that this radiation is going anywhere on our planet.  So, if we can prevent that, that would be better, I imagine.  So…Ok..
        I’ve got one last question, Dad.   Yesterday you talked about one of the problems with the limits versus the environment reports was that first, they were not  in the same units, and, secondly that they were not in units that were practical for people to understand.  Is that report from the IAEA  is that in the same units and in units that are reasonable for people to understand?
A:      No, and, that’s the problem.  Like I’m saying, there is no, there doesn’t appear to be a website where you can go that, you know, shows a map of Japan, and, shows here’s the results, and, it would be pretty easy.   Either below, at, or above the limit.  Ah, it just does not seem like anybody’s put that together and, ah, so you have to do some interpretation, and, I think the most concise and clear, ah, view that we have currently, is, ah, the IAEA.   And, so you know, let’s hope the link to that website, and, maybe, as more and more samples  are collected and analyzed, maybe somebody will put this together.   But, I spent a good, ah, hour and a half today, trying to poke around and see what I could find, and, I just could not come up with any site that, ah, that was posting, ah, a comprehensive view.
Q:      I feel it can’t be that hard to do, at least to put things in the same units, even if they are not units that are familiar to people. 
A:      Right, but, it’s gonna have to be done by someone who has access to all the information…
Q:      Right.  We would certainly not want to put something together and have there be false information and not…
A:      well, we don’t have…there’s not enough data posted and even what we’re going to show is a link, it doesn’t really show where these results were obtained, so, it would be a great thing for one of the Japanese Ministries to put together, ah, just kind of showing a map of what the impact is.  But, again, ah, I think if you watched enough news, you would be feeling that the situation is pretty bleak, and, you know, we’ve indicated, you know, that definitely it is a serious situation, and by no means are we out of the woods, but, there is less radiation being leaked to the environment – Much less radiation being leaked to the environment currently than there was last week.  And, ah, although perhaps the contamination to the environment is more than we should – maybe we should have anticipated 10 days ago, ah, it, it’s not maybe as dire as you would get of a view from watching the news.
        The other thing that I think is important to point out is, and, I think I mentioned this three or four days ago,  Once they are able to restart these pumps and these cooling systems in these plants, because of the fuel damage and the amount of radioactivity that’s gonna be in the water that’s  in the reactors, they are gonna have to take extra precautions, ah, to shield some of the pipes, ah, because – they’ll basically, –  once they are able to fill up the reactor, they’ll be taking water out of there, putting it through a heat exchanger, and pumping it back in, and, they’ll have to take steps to shield some of that piping.  Normally, the, the water in the reactor is only slightly radioactive  because of the fuel damage we know the water is going to be highly radioactive. 
Q:      And, as you’ve mentioned several times, you know, just because this has fallen off the front page of the news does not mean that the situation is… is completely stabilized, and, there gonna  be many months and years ahead where this is still going to continue to be a problem and we may not be able to get  information for a long time; but, ah, we’ll continue to do these updates, at least for  a little while longer, just because. You know, there are things that people should be paying attention to, and,  there are still concerns, and, there is still some sensation in the media that is not always particularly helpful in getting people the information they need to deal with the situation, which is quite serious.
A:      but, I will say that, ah, I think, I think  that the, IE…I’m sorry, the IAEA and the NEI are trying to post as much information as they have, ah, on their website.  And, there is more information than there was early on, which is helpful.
Q:      And the NEI follows me on twitter, Dad!  So maybe some of their information is coming from here ;  You never know.(laughs)
A:      So we can post  the link to both of their accident logs
Q:      Excellent
A:      And people can look at those, and, see that there’s a little bit of, depending on the point of time you read it, there’s gonna be a little bit of mismatch of information because the situation does change.  But, definitely, all three of those reactors are now getting fresh water, which is great, and there is lot’s more fresh water on the way.  And, ah, progress continues to be made, albeit very slowly, on getting electrical power restored but, there is progress
Q:      Excellent News
A:      And, again, based on the information that is out there, there is definitely concern for the damage to the environment, but, there are a lot of monitoring teams are out there, food is being sampled  and anything that is suspect is being removed from the food chain, so, I think people should feel assured that the food is safe to eat.
Q:      I’m really glad to hear that the NEI and IAEA are stepping up and putting out some good information.
A:      So, I don’t know if you have any further questions?
Q:      That’s all that I have for today.  I know there were some other questions.   There was one that was technically, kind of difficult, and you said you would do some homework on that one.  And we are still not answering any of the questions about the ?warm? Reactors, saving that for another interview.   So, that’s all I have.  Fewer questions are coming in.  Hopefully that is because we are answering many  questions.  But, if anyone does have a question for the next interview, you can send me an email and we will try and answer it.   But…with that…when do you want to do our next interview, Dad?
A:      That’s up to you…Let me know.
Q:      Do you want to skip tomorrow and do it on Monday?
A:      Again, it’s up to you.  I think if there’s no big news tomorrow, then, ah, we can skip it.
Q:      I think that would be good.
A:      Unless there is breaking news, then, I guess, we’ll be back.  Otherwise, we’ll plan on  the next update Monday evening?
Q:      That sounds great.   So,we’ll do an update Monday evening.  Get your questions in tomorrow evening, if you have any. And, unless, again, unless there’s a big news story tomorrow, we’ll just wait, and skip tomorrow.  Ok.
A:      And I will email you these links so you can post them on your website.
Q:      Ok…Sounds good, Dad.  Have a good night!
                                                                    
                                                                    
                                                                     
                                            
A:      Hello
Q:      Hi, Dad!
A:      Good Evening.
Q:      Good Evening!, are you ready for the interview?
A:      OK!   My name is Evelyn Mervine and I’m going to be interviewing my father, Mark Mervine, who is a nuclear Engineer.  This is, actually, I believe, the 13th in a series of interviews I am doing with my Dad about the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster in Japan.  If you would like to listen to any of the previous interviews, or read the ones that have transcripts, you can do that at my geology blog, Georneys, which is G E O R N  E Y S,  georneys.blogspot.com.   And…Because we are doing so many of these interviews, let me quickly state the date and time.  It is currently the 26th of March, and it is 7:30 PM, Eastern Daylight time.  And, in today’s interview, my Dad is gonna give his usual update about Fukushima, and then in the interview yesterday, he promised to try and do some homework about radiation and radiation reports in Japan, to try and get the general public a little better idea of what kind of radiation is in the environment in Japan.  So he’s gonna give us an update on that and tell us if he’s able to glean anything from the reports in the news he was reading.  So, with that, Dad, would you like to give your update today about  Fukushima? 
A:      Ok.  So, today’s update on the Fukushima 1, or Fukushima Diachi nuclear power plant   As a reminder, there are six reactors at this plant, and, ah, as I have for the past two days I will start talking about ones that are the least impacted; which are units 5 and 6.  These are the newer units which are physically separated at some distance from units 1 through 4.  And these plants have remained in cold shut-down and stable for the past 24 hours.  They’re getting electricity from the grid   There are also six spent…excuse me, seven spent fuel pools, six, one at each of the reactors and a common one.   That common spent fuel pool is also receiving power from the Grid, and, has cooling and has remained stable.
        So now we will talk about units 1 through 4, which are the ones that have been damaged, uh, severely by the earthquake, tsunami, and subsequent hydrogen explosions.  Yesterday we had reported that they had gotten fresh water to two of the three units, and, uh, last night they were able to get fresh water to the third one, so, now, units 1, 2 and 3 have fresh water being pumped into them vs the salt water that had been pumped in for the previous two weeks.  And the US Navy is bringing in two large barges full of fresh water which will be able to resupply the fresh water, so they continue to use fresh water instead of salt water.  And..we talked about that last night as to why that’s preferable   because, ah, the fresh water will not have as many, ah, contaminates, and more importantly won’t have salt in it.  And we talked about, of course, ah, because the water has been heating up, and, they’ve been having to vent  steam, , a lot of the salt has been left behind.  So that’s a significant development now  that all three units are using fresh water instead of salt water.
Q:      Dad, do you know, is that just plain, fresh water, like tap water?  I know that usually in a nuclear power plant – we talked about this  in our previous interviews – you use kind of  purified water.  Are they able to bring in pure water, do you know, or is sort of regular tap water?
A:      I, I don’t know specifically, but, my guess is it’s probably just regular, old fresh water.
Q:      but that is so significant an improvement over using sea water?
A:      Correct.
Q:      So, that is really good news.
A:      Correct.   So, it won’t be perfect but, it will a lot better than using sea water which, not only does it have a lot of salt in it, but, it’s going to have a lot of other organics and contaminates, so, it’s a big step forwards.  And I don’t know exactly where they’re getting the fresh water currently, whether it was brought in by truck, or, they do have some, ah, supply, but, ah, in any event, the, the Navy’s bringing in these two, huge barges which have, ah, significant amount of water on them.
Q:      And even if it is just tap water, I mean, at least they should be getting rid of some of the sediment and other things that, you would; organics and other things that you would see in sea water, so that is good news, news.  Ok…Sorry…Continue
A:      The other development is that, based on the report, it appears they have lighting in all of the control rooms, so, that’s a significant step forwards.   And they’re working on getting as much instrumentation restored as possible.  In terms of radiation levels at the plant, they seem to be stable at the plant, and,  as a reminder, the radiation levels at the site boundary are somewhere between 1 and 3 milRem/hour.   So, another day of progress, ah, another day in which there’s no significant bad news.  Ah, About the other newsworth item is the company that owns these plants, the Tokyo Electric company, came under fire by the Japanese Government in the past 24 hours, for not being as transparent and forthcoming as they should be with respect to those three workers that were contaminated and got a  radiation dose.  I guess the company had been aware that there was some concern about the high levels of radiation in the water pools and they had not made the government aware of it, so they weren’t too happy about it.
Q:      That was after the workers went to the plant?
A:      Well, after it came to light.
Q:      Oh, so they found out that they actually knew about that  previous to that contamination incident?
A:      That’s what was reported, yea.
Q:      That’s not, not very good.  And Tokyo Power company hasn’t been doing a very good job all along at providing information, but, at the least I would hope that they   would be providing information to the government.  Anyway.  It’s good, it’s good that the Japanese government is taking a hard stand on that.
A:      And the other thing that has been reported is that they’re trying to figure out how to pump some of that water out of the plant, so they will be able to, ah, work a little bit easier.  So, they’re working on that.
Q:      It sounds like the water level, in some of the places they have to work at, is pretty high.  I mean, they’re not ideal working conditions.  Especially since there’s radioactivity, and they’re working with  electronics and things.  I mean, some of these plants are quite flooded,  right?
A:      Well, I don’t know if they are quite flooded.  If the water was at the top of the boot level, that is really not that much water,
Q:      Ok
A:      But, the problem, of course, was that it was highly radioactive. 
Q:      Ok
A:      That’s the real problem.  And, this was apparently at, you know, a  basement level.  That would indicate that, ah, the plant, the plant’ no longer very flooded.
Q:      Ok,I wasn’t sure.
A:      Yesterday, I said I would try and do some homework and see what I could come up with in terms of the environment impact.  And, I spent quite a bit of time today, and, didn’t have a lot of luck, quite honestly.  Ah, there is not, you know,  again, I think we have commented on this, ah, on day 1, and, there may be a site in Japanese that I couldn’t find, but, there doesn’t seem be any place where you can go to get a comprehensive  report of the different readings that have been taken around Japan.  Ah, and, certainly there doesn’t seem to be any place that translates that,  translates that into something that is easily understandable by the general public.  So, I was a little disappointed.  I, I, assumed that if I did enough digging around, that I would come up with something.
        I do have some information, and, what I am going to do, Evelyn, is give you the link to the International Atomic Energy Agency website.  Today, they actually posted some really good information and, although it’s not a comprehensive view that, you know, tells people, ah, exactly what the situation is, it’s a lot of good information.  Most importantly, ah, they talk about where the radioactive iodine and cesium have been detected  in drinking water and, ah, in particular, ah, it appears that there was only one section of Japan where  it’s currently above the limits on infants and, in all other places it’s below the limit.  And, it was just barely over the limit there, so, I think that’s good news.  And, they also report some surface contamination levels and dose rate, but, again, there’s really not a map or detail that would have been as helpful as I would have wanted.  With respect to contamination of spinach and other leafy vegetables, they talk about a couple of locations in Japan where the levels were up above the limits set by the Japanese Government but in most other places they’re, ah, below the limits, which I also think is good news.  So, rather than go through those and basically read the report, and, probably do a very poor job of pronunciation,  I think it would be good if we just post a link.
Q:      All those Japanese names?
A:      Correct!…Could read these themselves.  So what the picture it is painting, although not as comprehensive as I would have liked, is that, ah, the situation does seem to be improving and it will continue to improve, especially for Iodine because we talked about the half life for iodine being only eight days.  So that means that in eight days, half of it is gone.  So, if you’re slightly over the limit, and there is no more released, then, within a day or two, you’re going to be below the limit.  Cesium is a little more problematic, because it has a 30 year half life, ah, but, it seems, for the most part, that Cesium contamination is fairly low. 
Q:      That’s very good news. 
A:      So, the other interesting news, and, it was a little surprising, actually, was, ah, there’s been a lot of samples of the water near the plant, the sea water
Q:      Ok.
A:      In the ocean.   And I was a little surprised because I think I actually;  I think Anthony might have asked me this question when he interviewed me last week; was there really concern about the ocean?  And I said I didn’t really think there would be, except in the immediate vicinity of the plant.  But, of course, what, what we really did not take into account there was that, ah, with all the water that they have been pumping on the spent fuel pools, ah, a lot of that, obviously, is running down the building and getting out into the, ah, ocean, adjacent to the plant  And, as we found out from this incident, that some of the water is pretty contaminated.  So, in the ocean, right next to the plant, the levels are actually quite high, and, what was surprising was that they did a sample at 30 kilometers and it was a lot higher than I would have anticipated.  Again, though,with, ah, ocean currents  and, ah, the spherical, ah…you know, as it spreads…you’re gonna get spread spherically, which means that the concentration per liter of water will continue to go down, and, also, the iodine, as we discussed, decays fairly rapidly.  But it was a little  surprising to see some of the report in the news, ah, that adjacent to the plant, ah,  the radioactivity in the water was more than 1000 times the limit.
Q:      Is it feasible for them to try and catch any of that water before it washes into the ocean?  And I guess the ocean is good because it is large and can dilute things….
A:      Actually, I think that’s actually the intent of trying to pump some of the contaminated water.  Ah, not only will it allow them to work in the plant a little bit easier, but,  It’ll, it’ll capture some of that and prevent it from being washed away.
Q:      OK.  That would certainly be good.  Because, I mean, the ocean is big, but, there are limits and, you know, particularly, we talked about the fisheries industry in one of our previous interviews, and that  being affected  And if you can minimize the radiation going anywhere, I mean.  .  You talked about the winds going out to sea, being a good thing because it is not falling on people, but, it’s not particularly great that this radiation is going anywhere on our planet.  So, if we can prevent that, that would be better, I imagine.  So…Ok..
        I’ve got one last question, Dad.   Yesterday you talked about one of the problems with the limits versus the environment reports was that first, they were not  in the same units, and, secondly that they were not in units that were practical for people to understand.  Is that report from the IAEA  is that in the same units and in units that are reasonable for people to understand?
A:      No, and, that’s the problem.  Like I’m saying, there is no, there doesn’t appear to be a website where you can go that, you know, shows a map of Japan, and, shows here’s the results, and, it would be pretty easy.   Either below, at, or above the limit.  Ah, it just does not seem like anybody’s put that together and, ah, so you have to do some interpretation, and, I think the most concise and clear, ah, view that we have currently, is, ah, the IAEA.   And, so you know, let’s hope the link to that website, and, maybe, as more and more samples  are collected and analyzed, maybe somebody will put this together.   But, I spent a good, ah, hour and a half today, trying to poke around and see what I could find, and, I just could not come up with any site that, ah, that was posting, ah, a comprehensive view.
Q:      I feel it can’t be that hard to do, at least to put things in the same units, even if they are not units that are familiar to people. 
A:      Right, but, it’s gonna have to be done by someone who has access to all the information…
Q:      Right.  We would certainly not want to put something together and have there be false information and not…
A:      well, we don’t have…there’s not enough data posted and even what we’re going to show is a link, it doesn’t really show where these results were obtained, so, it would be a great thing for one of the Japanese Ministries to put together, ah, just kind of showing a map of what the impact is.  But, again, ah, I think if you watched enough news, you would be feeling that the situation is pretty bleak, and, you know, we’ve indicated, you know, that definitely it is a serious situation, and by no means are we out of the woods, but, there is less radiation being leaked to the environment – Much less radiation being leaked to the environment currently than there was last week.  And, ah, although perhaps the contamination to the environment is more than we should – maybe we should have anticipated 10 days ago, ah, it, it’s not maybe as dire as you would get of a view from watching the news.
        The other thing that I think is important to point out is, and, I think I mentioned this three or four days ago,  Once they are able to restart these pumps and these cooling systems in these plants, because of the fuel damage and the amount of radioactivity that’s gonna be in the water that’s  in the reactors, they are gonna have to take extra precautions, ah, to shield some of the pipes, ah, because – they’ll basically, –  once they are able to fill up the reactor, they’ll be taking water out of there, putting it through a heat exchanger, and pumping it back in, and, they’ll have to take steps to shield some of that piping.  Normally, the, the water in the reactor is only slightly radioactive  because of the fuel damage we know the water is going to be highly radioactive. 
Q:      And, as you’ve mentioned several times, you know, just because this has fallen off the front page of the news does not mean that the situation is… is completely stabilized, and, there gonna  be many months and years ahead where this is still going to continue to be a problem and we may not be able to get  information for a long time; but, ah, we’ll continue to do these updates, at least for  a little while longer, just because. You know, there are things that people should be paying attention to, and,  there are still concerns, and, there is still some sensation in the media that is not always particularly helpful in getting people the information they need to deal with the situation, which is quite serious.
A:      but, I will say that, ah, I think, I think  that the, IE…I’m sorry, the IAEA and the NEI are trying to post as much information as they have, ah, on their website.  And, there is more information than there was early on, which is helpful.
Q:      And the NEI follows me on twitter, Dad!  So maybe some of their information is coming from here ;  You never know.(laughs)
A:      So we can post  the link to both of their accident logs
Q:      Excellent
A:      And people can look at those, and, see that there’s a little bit of, depending on the point of time you read it, there’s gonna be a little bit of mismatch of information because the situation does change.  But, definitely, all three of those reactors are now getting fresh water, which is great, and there is lot’s more fresh water on the way.  And, ah, progress continues to be made, albeit very slowly, on getting electrical power restored but, there is progress
Q:      Excellent News
A:      And, again, based on the information that is out there, there is definitely concern for the damage to the environment, but, there are a lot of monitoring teams are out there, food is being sampled  and anything that is suspect is being removed from the food chain, so, I think people should feel assured that the food is safe to eat.
Q:      I’m really glad to hear that the NEI and IAEA are stepping up and putting out some good information.
A:      So, I don’t know if you have any further questions?
Q:      That’s all that I have for today.  I know there were some other questions.   There was one that was technically, kind of difficult, and you said you would do some homework on that one.  And we are still not answering any of the questions about the ?warm? Reactors, saving that for another interview.   So, that’s all I have.  Fewer questions are coming in.  Hopefully that is because we are answering many  questions.  But, if anyone does have a question for the next interview, you can send me an email and we will try and answer it.   But…with that…when do you want to do our next interview, Dad?
A:      That’s up to you…Let me know.
Q:      Do you want to skip tomorrow and do it on Monday?
A:      Again, it’s up to you.  I think if there’s no big news tomorrow, then, ah, we can skip it.
Q:      I think that would be good.
A:      Unless there is breaking news, then, I guess, we’ll be back.  Otherwise, we’ll plan on  the next update Monday evening?
Q:      That sounds great.   So,we’ll do an update Monday evening.  Get your questions in tomorrow evening, if you have any. And, unless, again, unless there’s a big news story tomorrow, we’ll just wait, and skip tomorrow.  Ok.
A:      And I will email you these links so you can post them on your website.
Q:      Ok…Sounds good, Dad.  Have a good night!