Nuclear Engineer Arnie Gundersen talks with CNN's John King 4/5

[flamingdem]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07j8Jl-hgyU&feature=yout...

[flamingdem]

1. Arnie Gundersen on RT talking about fish

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BHEYd_Mi4M

It doesn't appear to be here but on another interview he said
no fish for 25 years... cesium

It will be okay to eat Nori in less time though...

[wtmusic]

2. You do know that Arnie Gunderson is a math teacher

who never worked as a professional nuclear engineer, don't you?

That his only direct experience running a reactor was 40 years ago in a college lab, and it put out a whopping 100 watts?



http://atomicinsights.blogspot.com/2011/02/arnie-gunder...

[greenman3610]

3. even so, Gunderson's analysis has been spot on

and new documents from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission verify his concerns about what is happening at Fukushima.
From the NYTimes:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/06/world/asia/06nuclear....

Among the new threats that were cited in the assessment, dated March 26, are the mounting stresses placed on the containment structures as they fill with radioactive cooling water, making them more vulnerable to rupture in one of the aftershocks rattling the site after the earthquake and tsunami of March 11. The document also cites the possibility of explosions inside the containment structures due to the release of hydrogen and oxygen from seawater pumped into the reactors, and offers new details on how semimolten fuel rods and salt buildup are impeding the flow of fresh water meant to cool the nuclear cores.


Today, TEPCO will be injecting Nitrogen into the containment of reactor 1 in hopes of heading off yet another hydrogen explosion.
http://climatecrocks.com/2011/04/06/tepco-hydrogen-bubb... /

This accident is far from over, at least according to the NRC. In the meantime, Gunderson's explanations have been clear,
understandable, logical, and as we now see, consistent with the US's highest authorities.

[wtmusic]

4. He hasn't analyzed anything

As you can see, he's not qualified. He's not there, he knows nothing about what's going on besides what you or I do. As you say, he's provided explanations which are for the most part clear, understandable, logical - with the expertise of a science teacher.

When he does attempt analysis, he's just plain wrong. For him to say these reactors built in the seventies aren't safe is pandering fear - what he should be saying is 9.0 earthquakes aren't safe. Arnie Gundersen is on because the real experts just provide boring old accuracy.

In TV journalism the cream rises to the bottom.

[flamingdem]

7. How about the credentials of Gundersen's attacker Rod Adams?

Does he have a college degree? He sells himself as a nuclear expert apparently.

Rod Adams is a pro-nuclear blogger and writer who for (15) years has been writing and teaching others through his websites and articles

[wtmusic]

8. Ah, attack the messenger.

You don't need to be an expert at anything to recognize misrepresentation.

[bananas]

19. Senate testimony by NRC Chairman: "Everything Mr. Gundersen said was absolutely right"

Arnie Gundersen has an excellent reputation.

In a 1993 congressional hearing,
in response to a question by Committee Chairman Senator John Glenn,
NRC Chairman Ivan Selin testified:
"Everything Mr. Gundersen said was absolutely right; he performed quite a service"

I posted this last year: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

[bananas]

21. What a crock - you started this subthread in an attempt to attack the messenger.

[FBaggins]

9. Is a concern over lack of credentials overcome...

...by asking if the person who points out that lack is himself credentialed?

Do you have to be an NFL offensive coordinator to point out that the armchair quarterback is not an actual offensive coordinator? Or can the ball boy point that out.

[bananas]

20. Senate testimony by NRC Chairman: "Everything Mr. Gundersen said was absolutely right"

Arnie Gundersen has an excellent reputation.

In a 1993 congressional hearing,
in response to a question by Committee Chairman Senator John Glenn,
NRC Chairman Ivan Selin testified:
"Everything Mr. Gundersen said was absolutely right; he performed quite a service"

I posted this last year: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

[FBaggins]

23. So he said somthing right in 1993...

...and that means anything else he ever says is right?

Can you provide what he said in 1993 and see whether it's even RELATED to what he's saying now?

[bananas]

24. No, it wasn't "he said something right", it's "EVERYTHING Mr. Gundersen said was ABSOLUTELY right"

And that is evidence of Mr. Gundersens credibility and expertise and experience.

Some of you are learning what many in Vermont did:

"What Arnie Gundersen Says About Yankee Eventually Becomes Truth About Yankee"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

"Batting 1,000 on Yankee"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...
"Turns out he was right the whole time. There was a dramatic shift in the couple's recent appearances before legislative committees. Even pro-nuclear Republicans now look at the couple knowing they know what they are talking about."

[flamingdem]

5. atomicinsights is very biased and you need to do your own research, imo

Here is more information from fairewinds: about Gundersen:

He is a whistleblower:
In 1990 Arnold Gundersen discovered radioactive material in an accounting safe at Nuclear Energy Services in Danbury, the consulting firm where he held a $120,000-a-year job as senior vice president.<4> Three weeks after he notified the company president of what he believed to be radiation safety violations, Gundersen was fired. For three years, Arnold Gundersen received harassing phone calls in the middle of the night and he became concerned about his family's safety. He was blacklisted, harassed, and fired for doing what he thought was right.<4>

The New York Times reports that Gundersen's case is not uncommon, especially in the nuclear industry. Even though nuclear workers are encouraged to report potential safety hazards, those who do risk demotion and dismissal. Instead of correcting the problems, whistle-blowers say, industry management and government agencies attack them as the cause of the problem. Driven out of their jobs and shunned by neighbors and co-workers, whistle-blowers often turn to each other for support.<4>



Arnie is an energy advisor with 39-years of nuclear power engineering experience. A former nuclear industry senior vice president, he earned his Bachelor's and Master's Degrees in nuclear engineering, holds a nuclear safety patent, and was a licensed reactor operator. During his nuclear industry career, Arnie managed and coordinated projects at 70-nuclear power plants around the country. He currently speaks on television, radio, and at public meetings on the need for a new paradigm in energy production. An independent nuclear engineering and safety expert, Arnie provides testimony on nuclear operations, reliability, safety, and radiation issues to the NRC, Congressional and State Legislatures, and Government Agencies and Officials throughout the US, Canada, and internationally. In 2008, he was appointed by the Vermont Senate President to be the first Chair of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant Oversight Panel.


He has testified in numerous cases and before many different legislative bodies including the Czech Republic Senate. Using knowledge from his Masters Thesis on Cooling Towers, Arnie analyzed and predicted problems with Vermont Yankee’s cooling towers three years prior to their 2007 collapse. His Environmental Court testimony concerned available and economically viable alternatives to cooling towers in order to reduce consumptive water use and the ecological damage caused by cooling tower drift and heated effluents. As the former vice president in an engineering organization, Arnie led the team of engineers who developed the plans for decommissioning Shippingport, the first major nuclear power plant in the US to be fully dismantled. He was also an invited author on the first DOE Decommissioning Handbook. Source term reconstruction is a method of forensic engineering used to calculate radiation releases from various nuclear facilities after nuclear incidents or accidents. Arnie is frequently called upon by public officials, attorneys, and intervenors, to perform source term reconstructions. His source term reconstruction efforts vary. Arnie has calculated exposures to oil workers, who received radiation exposure while working on wells. He has also calculated radiation releases to children with health concerns, who live near a nuclear facility, like the one that carted radioactive sewage off-site and spread it on farmers' fields. Finally, he has performed an accurate source term construction of the radiation releases from the Three Mile Island nuclear accident. Also involved in his local community, Arnie has been a part-time math professor at Community College of Vermont (CCV) since 2007. He also taught high school physics and mathematics for 13 years and was an instructor at RPI's college reactor lab.

[wtmusic]

6. A reference to Arnie's own PR sheet is not "research".

That's what pays Arnie's bills - (over)selling himself as a consultant.

If Arnie reported his radiation find to the DOE he would be a whistleblower - based on this report it looks like he just reported it to president of NES. Apparently his need to do what was right was tempered by his need to maintain his job prospects.

[bananas]

10. Senate testimony by NRC Chairman: "Everything Mr. Gundersen said was absolutely right"

In a 1993 congressional hearing,
in response to a question by Committee Chairman Senator John Glenn,
NRC Chairman Ivan Selin testified:
"Everything Mr. Gundersen said was absolutely right; he performed quite a service"

I posted this before: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

[abqmufc]

18. nice (n/t).

[bananas]

11. Gundersen became a math teacher because he was a whistleblower

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/02/12/nyregion/paying-the-p...

Paying The Price For Blowing The Whistle
By Julie Miller
Published: February 12, 1995

FOR three years, Arnold Gundersen was awakened by harassing phone calls in the middle of the night. He became so concerned about his family's safety that he bought a large dog for protection. The problem? He was a whistle-blower, one of those who take on the dismally unpopular role of exposing what they find to be unsafe or unlawful practices in the workplace, especially the nuclear workplace.

<snip>

Mr. Gundersen, who lives in Warren, told of the day in 1990 when he discovered radioactive material in an accounting safe at Nuclear Energy Services in Danbury, the consulting firm where he held a $120,000-a-year job as senior vice president. Three weeks after he notified the company president of what he believed to be radiation safety violations, Mr. Gundersen said, he was fired.

He is fighting a $1.5 million lawsuit filed against him by his former employer for continuing to discuss the alleged safety violations publicly after agreeing to an out-of-court settlement. Mr. Gundersen said he believes he was blacklisted, citing an April 22, 1991, letter concerning him that the company sent to 78 people. He also says he was harassed and fired for doing what he thought was right.

Mr. Gundersen's case, according to a number of whistle-blowers and others interviewed, is not uncommon, especially in the nuclear industry. Even though nuclear workers are encouraged to report potential safety hazards, those who decide to do so say that they risk demotion and dismissal. Instead of correcting the problems, whistle-blowers and their supporters say, industry management and government forces attack them as the cause of the problem.

<snip>

[flamingdem]

12. +137 Too bad the atomicsecrets guy has a vendetta against this outstanding citizen nt

[wtmusic]

13. If I could show you a reputable source that has this "outstanding citizen"

saying the Mark 1 is "tried and true" and "inherently safe", you'd have to renounce him. Is that correct?

[Wilms]

15. Pssst.

Stick a fork in it.

[wtmusic]

16. Waiting. nt

[Wilms]

17. Japan reactor design caused GE engineer to quit

(Reuters) - A General Electric Co engineer said he resigned 35 years ago over concern about the safety of a nuclear reactor design used in the now crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan.

Dale Bridenbaugh said the "Mark 1" design had "not yet been designed to withstand the loads" that could be experienced in a large-scale accident.

"At the time, I didn't think the utilities were taking things seriously enough," Bridenbaugh, now retired, said in a phone interview. "I felt some of the plants should have been shut down while the analysis was completed, and GE and the utilities didn't want to do that, so I left."

snip

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/15/us-japan-quak...

........

Experts Had Long Criticized Potential Weakness in Design of Stricken Reactor

snip

In 1972, Stephen H. Hanauer, then a safety official with the Atomic Energy Commission, recommended that the Mark 1 system be discontinued because it presented unacceptable safety risks. Among the concerns cited was the smaller containment design, which was more susceptible to explosion and rupture from a buildup in hydrogen — a situation that may have unfolded at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. Later that same year, Joseph Hendrie, who would later become chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, a successor agency to the atomic commission, said the idea of a ban on such systems was attractive. But the technology had been so widely accepted by the industry and regulatory officials, he said, that “reversal of this hallowed policy, particularly at this time, could well be the end of nuclear power.”

snip

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/world/asia/16contain....

[bananas]

14. Over at ConservativeCrackpots.com, nuclear shills attack whistleblowers.

They paste stuff from conservative crackpot blogs into discussion forums on liberal progressive websites.

[wtmusic]

22. Very interesting.

You'd stand by a thoroughly discredited man because you've got too much invested in him to admit you were wrong.

That should bother you. Of course Arnie never said those things, but it's plain now that you only quote him because he tells you what you want to hear.