March 26, 2011

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

Posted by Evelyn Mervine

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 [email protected] 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!

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