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A stunning interview on Fukushima. Here's the transcript:

Host: Do they have control of the situation at the site?

Kaku: No, it’s still a ticking time bomb. Realize that after the big Sumatra tsunami, 90 days after, 3 months after that there was a huge after shock, if they have another aftershock and they’re not in cold shut down yet until next year, the accident can start all over again, it’s like hanging by your fingernails. Yeah, it’s stable but you’re hanging by your fingernails.

HOST: American’s think this crisis is over or that some even think that maybe it’s solved or contained, it’s not. What’s happening right now?

KAKU: In the last 2 weeks everything we knew about that accident has been turned upside down. We were told 3 partial meltdowns, don’t worry about it. Now we know it was 100 % core melt in all 3 reactors; radiation minimal that was released, now we know it was comparable to the radiation at Chernobyl; and as far as evacuation, yeah 12 miles, that’s it, you don’t have to evacuate beyond 12 miles. Now they find hot spots, 4 hot spots outside of the evacuation zone, 34,000 school children now have radiation badges when they go to school…

HOST: Kindergarteners with radiation badges?...

KAKU: Down to 4 years of age, can you image that, kindergarten kids with radiation badges, going to school. So all of the mythology of the accident’s been turned upside down because utility has finally fessed up to how severe this accident really was.

HOST: In your view did they not know how bad it was, or they knew and they didn’t tell or, they just were completely blown away by the scope of the disaster.

KAKU: I’m a physicist and we try to reconstruct the accident in our computers given the feeble amount of information that they gave us. We knew it was much more severe than they were saying because radiation was coming out left and right. So in other words, they lied to us. They knew how much radiation was coming out, they knew the danger, they knew how much core melting was taking place, but they tried to put a happy face on it.

HOST: As a reporter, within hours of the earth quake and tsunami, within hours, not even a day, there were already statements from the company and from the international atomic energy association saying that there had been safe shutdown of all of the reactors and we know of course in the end that that simply wasn’t true. From the very beginning they were trying to tell us, this was a safe situation.

KAKU: Within hours of the accident we now know it was like the keystone cops. People that are clueless, headless just running around crazy not knowing what to do. We can now reconstruct that accident minute by minute, hour by hour, and we can see this chaos that erupted, in the leadership of the utility.

HOST: What’s happening to the people that are working there now?

KAKU: As you know workers are being sent in and they’re getting like a years dose of radiation just within like 10 minutes at a time. At Chernobyl 600,000 workers had to be mobilized each one going in just for a few minutes, each one getting a medal from Gorbachev.

HOST: This will be the 100 year clean up. How long will it take to clean this up in your view?

KAKU: 50 – 100 years

HOST: And we’re not there yet, we’re not to the point of talking about the clean up yet, because they haven’t stopped the reaction it’s still happening.

KAKU: Clean up hasn’t even started yet, they’re not even in cold shut down until next year. Cold shut down is when boiling stops. It’s boiling water right there at the reactor, releasing radiation into the environment and releasing radiation into gigantic vats

HOST: How are they storing and disposing of this stuff?

KAKU: That’s the killer. Because they have all these vats that are filling up now they may have to dump it into the ocean again. At that point the Chinese, the Koreans, the fisherman, they all get up in arms because there’s so much damage that every time you put water in, it leaks right out again highly radioactive and it’s filling up at the site now.

HOST: So what do they do with it?

KAKU: Right now they’re just counting the number of gallons as they pile up, desperately trying to bring more vats in, but once they saturate they’re going to have to dump and at that point it’s another crisis.

HOST: Let's talk about the radiation in the environment, in the atmosphere, we’ve been told that it would be measurable but miniscule amounts on the US west coast, around the world, is that true?

KAKU: It’s still minimal around the world. Most of the damage is concentrated within 20 miles, 50 miles of the reactor accident site, that’s where we have the hot spots, that’s where we have 20 times normal amount of radiation in school yards, outside of the evacuation zone. But in NY City, you can actually see it in the milk. You can actually see that iodine 131 actually spiked a little bit in our milk in NY City, but its very small.

HOST: Just even hearing that though, I mean even hearing that you can detect it, that there’s a catastrophe, that is the worst catastrophe, industrial catastrophe in history, that we can see it in milk in NY is frightening.

KAKU: That’s right. This can be the granddaddy of all industrial accidents. Topping Chernobyl at 200 billion, topping the Gulf oil spill at about 15 billion, topping the Challenger, Columbia, disasters in space at about 10 billion, this could be the world’s record holder for an industrial accident.

Video Keywords: radiation    fallout    fukushima    meltdown    nuclear power    chernobyl    michio kaku    industrial accident   

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