Introduction: ” In this video, Arnie Gundersen talks with international diplomat Akio Matsumura, the former special advisor to the United Nations Development program, the founder and Secretary General of the Global Forum of spiritual and parliamentary leaders for human survival, and the Secretary General of the 1992 Parliamentary Earth Summit Conference in Rio de Janeiro. Arnie and Akio discuss the continuing crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi site, and come to the conclusion that Tokyo Electric must be removed from the clean-up process. Arnie also discusses his 40 years in the nuclear industry, and how the worst day of that career led him to conclude that a nuclear power plant can have ‘Forty Good Years and One Bad Day.’ ”
Starting at 4:20 minutes, Akio and Arnie discuss the necessity of an international independent contracting team to move forward with the Fukushima cleanup. The Japanese government has not been spending enough money to do the job right, Gundersen said. Tokyo Electric has been working on a yearly budget. The Japanese government and TEPCO do not want the Japanese people to know how deeply in debt the Fukushima disaster has put them in — about half a trillion to three-quarters of a trillion in debt to clean up the site and prefecture.
“The Japanese should be fighting this as if it were a war. And you don’t fight a war on a budget,” Gundersen said.
Starting at 9:56 minutes, Gundersen discusses the greatest problems at the Fukushima Daiichi site — radioactive waste stored in hundreds of tanks that are not seismically qualified; the risk of fuel-pool fires in Unit 4; the structural instability of Unit 3; and the contamination of groundwater — 400 tons daily — due to the leaking of nuclear fuel from penetrations in the damaged reactor.
Japan Safety : Nuclear Energy Updates 