I must begin by saying that this is perhaps the most concentrated pack of exaggerations, worst-case overestimations, and outright lies that Gundersen has foisted on the world, to date. It would literally take a collegiate dissertation to address all of the specific points of misinformation and deceit. Below are the few I think are the most egregious of the lies…
Early-on, A.G. says that there have been five major nuclear accidents: TMI, Chernobyl and three at F. Daiichi. He then says that five accidents in 35 years means we should expect one every seven years. Actually, there have been three such accidents since TMI, which (by A.G.’s skewed arithmetic) would be one every 11.7 years. (Verdict – Lie)
At 6:30, Gundersen speaks of TMI, and says, “Lots of radioactive gasses were released and people did die.” He uses Steven Wing’s speculative paper on TMI cancers as evidence. However, A.G. misrepresents what Wing postulated. Wing talked about cancer incidence, not human cancer deaths. Wing mentions that some pets may have died or had symptoms of radiation exposure, but there is no mention of anyone dying. (Verdict – Lie)
Soon after, A.G. shows the infamous “elephant’s foot” at Chernobyl, he says it is “Chernobyl’s core…what’s left of it,” and asserts that it is “about 100 tons of nuclear material.” The “foot” actually weighs about 2 tons and is a mixture of Uranium along with the other core materials that melted into what is technically called “corium”. (Verdict – lie)
He immediately turns to F. Daiichi and says, “Where is the core at Fukushima Daiichi? No-one knows.” He then tells us his wildly speculative personal opinion, which he asserts as unmitigated fact, “We do know they are in direct contact with groundwater.” Not only does he contradict himself, but there is no evidence whatsoever that any of the three cores have breached any of their containments. Actually, no-one knows if any of the cores actually breached their reactor pressure vessels! (Verdict – lie)
At 9:40, A.G. shows the slow-motion evolution of the unit #3 hydrogen explosion, calling the first frame of the sequence evidence of a “detonation shock wave”. He then says it was but one of six explosions at F. Daiichi. He never explains himself. There were surely three hydrogen explosions at F. Daiichi. Also, he never says what a “detonation shock wave” means, but clearly implies a small nuclear detonation by letting the frames evolve and show what looks like a mushroom cloud evolve above the damaged structure. (Verdict – two lies for the price of one)
After two minutes of A.G. promoting his “hot particle” myth, he says, “then there’s the ocean.” (@ (13.28) He begins by reiterating that all the cores at F. Daiichi melted through their base-mats and “are in direct contact with the groundwater…(and) it will continue to bleed for centuries to come” and continually contaminate the Pacific Ocean. IMHO, this may be most severe fabrication of the lot. The base-mats are firmly imbedded in the site’s underlying bedrock! Groundwater does not flow through bedrock! It’s just too darned dense. A.G. has previously alleged that the bedrock is actually an aquifer, but he doesn’t mention this in the video. Regardless… (Verdict – lie)
At 14:45, he begins a diatribe on the “lies” fomented by the NRC about no-one dying from TMI (citing Wing), the IAEA saying “28-100” died due to Chernobyl (citing the internationally-condemned work of Alexey Yablokov claiming a million deaths), and that “experts” at Fairewinds Associates (i.e. himself) say there will be a million cancer deaths due to Fukushima. Since when does a fringe opinion (Wing), a completely ridiculous conclusion (Yablokov) and a preposterous prognostication by Gundersen himself, have more value than The NRC, IAEA, UNSCEAR, WHO, and SARI? (Verdict – lie)
Finally, beginning at 17:50, Gundersen says that luck was the only reason there were not 14 meltdowns along the Tohoku coast line after the quake and tsunami of 3/11/11. The natural calamity struck at ~3:20 pm on March 11. This was during the day shift with maybe a thousand people at each of the four nuke stations; Onagawa (3 units), F. Daiichi (six units), Fukushima Daini (four units) and Tokai (one unit). A. G. says, “If the earthquake and tsunami had happened in the evening, there would have been only 100 [at each station]…a 12 hour difference would have resulted in the destruction of Japan.” Absolute, utter balderdash! Only the three operating units at F. Daiichi had accidents, but there was no possibility of meltdowns with the other three because they had been shut down for months. Onagawa’s protective measures, with a several meters greater tsunami than at F. Daiichi, prevented an accident like F. Daiichi…and there was literally no need of human intervention in the process. F. Daini was hit by a several meters smaller tsunami than F. Daiichi, and the actions taken by the operating staff (less than 100 people, I might add) kept a core-damaging accident from happening. Tokai experienced automatic reactor shutdown due to the earthquake, but the tsunami’s impact was thwarted similar to F. Daini by its operating staff of a few dozen individuals. While there may have been thousands on shift at all four stations, less than 10% were actual operators. The rest were support staff and office workers. Regardless, there is no way that having that tsunami hit at 3 am on March 12 would have made the slightest bit of difference. Further, the “destruction of Japan” conception is nothing more than a favorite fantasy of A.G. and former P.M. Naoto Kan (who A.G. cites as his evidence). (Verdict – all lies)
A.G. closes his mendacious presentation with the following quotation made by…himself (!), “Sooner or later in any foolproof system, the fools are going to exceed the proofs.” What? That makes no sense whatsoever! But, A.G. isn’t concerned with making sense. His concern is all about lining his pockets with the fees he gets from making public presentations like this. He is a cowardly rhetorical predator who has no qualms about scaring the bejeebers out of the naïve and fearful. Cowardly? Would he ever make a presentation for the Health Physics Society or American Nuclear Society? Would he agree to debate the issues with people like Rod Adams, Will Davis, or myself? Of course not! Cowardly!
P. S. I would love to have been there for the Q&A session that always follows presentations of this sort. It is conspicuously missing. I wonder why?