Thom Hartmann: Speaking the truths the multinationals would rather you didn’t know all about, frankly, Thom Hartmann here with you. And our green report brought to you by SolarWorld.com. Paul Gunter is on the line with Beyond Nuclear. He is the director of Reactor Oversight, the Reactor Oversight Project, actually at BeyondNuclear.org. And our go-to guy. One of our, one of the very best of our go-to guys. And gals, I guess, or women, for what’s going on with nuclear power around the world. And Paul, welcome back to the program.

Paul Gunter: Thank you Thom.

Thom Hartmann: I have heard two very spooky stories just in the last week that I haven’t, you know I’ve mentioned on the air but we haven’t really gotten into because I wanted to reality check them with you. One is that, and I think this is pretty solid, I’ve seen it in a bust of news places. That reactor one actually has had a core meltdown and they are just freaked. They don’t know what to do quite about that. And two, that reactor number four, that the entire building is leaning, or that the reactor is leaning or that the structural integrity of the building is at risk, that one I can’t say I have read in the mainstream media at all. What’s going on with these two places. And in general, I mean I’m sure you’ve got things to tell us that go way beyond that.

Paul Gunter: Yeah. Well, I was in a US Nuclear Regulatory Commission briefing yesterday in the NRC headquarters down here in Maryland, where they have now identified that, very vaguely, I mean it was more disturbing what they didn’t say as what they did say at this, at the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission meeting. They did identify that there are structural issues under the radiated fuel, the nuclear waste ponds at the nuclear power plant in Fukushima. This has been, it’s been floating around that, you’re right, that the unit 4 is now the leaning nuclear tower of Fukushima. There are hundreds, there are more than a hundred tons of nuclear waste up there in unit 4.

Thom Hartmann: Now this is way up top, up top in the roof, in a swimming pool on the roof.

Paul Gunter: Yeah, six to ten stories up. This building is listing and it’s loaded with hundreds, more than a hundred tons of nuclear waste.

Thom Hartmann: Wow.

Paul Gunter: That if it collapses, it’s, you know, again we are just awed by the scope of catastrophe that lingers with this nuclear sort of Damocles that is hanging over not only Japan but you know, it’s reach is both awesome in terms of distance and time in how far it can reach.

Thom Hartmann: Right. You mean like as in this stuff can reach a quarter million years in the future even though the human race is only 160 thousand years old?

Paul Gunter: Absolutely.

Thom Hartmann: Because of how long the radioactive isotopes…

Paul Gunter: Absolutely. And we’re talking about you know, ocean currents, globally as well as the northern hemisphere in terms of the jet stream. If this stuff gets, as it is getting out, it’s, we’re now going into the 9th week of this accident, still out of control. Unit 1, as you mentioned, Tokyo Electric Power Company has now confirmed, I mean what we’ve known for weeks now, is that there was a core melt accident. And now they are confirming that it has burned through the bottom of the vessel. And it’s probably coming out like hot toothpaste on, and collecting on the concrete floor of the containment. Now what we have to remember here is that the interaction between lava-like nuclear meltdown when it comes in contact with concrete, it has this interaction which generates carbon dioxide and hydrogen gas.

So, and we know that the containments have been essentially compromised for units 1, 2, and 3. So we have this ongoing risk of hydrogen gas explosions which we saw dramatically on our TVs and on our computers. This threat could once again occur. The, as a result of the compromise of the containment and the vessels we now have tremendous amounts of radioactive contaminated water leaking out. Tokyo Electric Power Company is literally drowning in a rising level of contaminated water that is vital to cooling the reactors and the damaged fuel in units 1, 2, 3, and 4. But at the same time they have no way of decontaminating the water or processing it. So right now we’ve got about 90 thousand tons of radioactive contaminated water on site.

Thom Hartmann: How much of that is pouring into the ocean every day?

Paul Gunter: Well we don’t know. I mean in fact the, it’s very likely that not only the ocean is being contaminated by the ground water is being contaminated, as very likely the, you know the earthquake itself caused the reactor site to drop about one foot. And when the reactor site dropped that height it very likely cracked the concrete base mat. And so, you know, we’ve got, we’ve got contamination going into ground water, we’ve got seaweed now determined to be excessively radioactive, 40 miles off the coast of Japan with an ongoing contamination event.

Thom Hartmann: Amazing. Amazing. Radioactive seaweed 40 miles away. Paul Gunter, BeyondNuclear.org, you can get all the details over there. Paul, keep up the great work.

Paul Gunter: Thank you.

Thom Hartmann: And thanks for being with us and sharing it with us, I appreciate it. This is something we can’t forget. We can’t let this thing slide off our radar screen. We’ll be back.

Transcribed by Suzanne Roberts, Portland Psychology Clinic.