Spent fuel rods may have burned in blaze at nuclear plant (It's not panic time)

cnn ^ | 3/15/2011 | cnn

[dynoman]

I’ve read all the tepco press releases and never saw anything about fuel rods completely uncovered for any length of time let alone 2.5 hours. So I wonder where the secondary souces got that information.

[dynoman]

“Let’s just say that this is an example of “just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it cannot happen”. “

The same holds true for secondary source extrapolation, just because some don’t think secondary sources like the MSM aren’t exaggerating doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. Seems pretty clear there have been exaggerations, and probably with the secondary source report of fuel rods “burning”.

[Rational Thought]

Here’s what the Media thinks;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBl-w4J0Xtk

[meyer]

In one reactor the rods were completely out of water for 2 1/2 hours due to a rapid fall in water level. Not exactly sure which # that was.

That was #2. It was the most stable of the 3 that had been on line prior to the earthquake, so the plant folks concentrated their efforts on 1 and 3. As far as I know, all 3 units are getting a healthy injection of sea water now. Last night, #2 still had about 1/2 the length of the rods exposed, but they were still flooding the wessel.

[janetjanet998]

TEPCO says the holes in the wall of the outer building at reactor 4 have left the spent nuclear fuel pool exposed to the outside air”

[janetjanet998]

TEPCO says the holes in the wall of the outer building at reactor 4 have left the spent nuclear fuel pool exposed to the outside air”

Radiation levels at the reactor have become too high for normal work in the control room. Workers cannot stay in the room long and so are going in and out alongside monitoring from a different room.

[dangerdoc]

Bingo!

Although a full melt down in the middle of Iran would interesting.

[backwoods-engineer]

There’s got to be more to this, I can’t see how basically metal fuel rods burn, and if they did how they could be extinguished so easily. Many metals burn. Magnesium, aluminum, iron, steel (too bad Rosie O), lead, copper, etc. Uranium and plutonium also burn. Radioactive decay, without a means to remove the heat, can easily elevate the temperature of the rods high enough to burn.

[janetjanet998]

BREAKING NEWS: TEPCO unable to pour water into No. 4 reactor’s storage pool for spent fuel

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

Yes, but at the risk of having all words descend into complete meaninglessness, the presence of cesium and iodine is absolute proof positive of some kind of containment failure.

Likewise, the behavior of fuel from a just-shut-off reactor is well known. It continues to emit heat, lots of it, much more than air can dissipate. That the operators were able to shut off *fission* and are now dealing with decay heat, and having a hard time of it given the generator & pump situation(s), blowing the top off three buildings so far with hydrogen accumulation.....all stuff you’d think they’d like to avoid even if the reactors were 2-3 weeks away from decommissioning....means they are having very well known problems with very well known consequences. And those consequences are seriously not good. They are talking about drilling through a multi-inch thick containment vessel to relieve pressure. That sounds like a way to die, for someone.

I consider that a lot different than firing off Iodine sirens all up and down the US West Coast and starting to project excess cancers for Washington, Oregon, and California.

The former is a predictable outcome of problems that are acknowledged both tacitly and by inference by the surrepetitious behavior of TEPCO brass.

The latter is what I call “exaggeration”.

[dynoman]

I know metals can burn, I've shut off the acetylene on a cutting torch and know it still cuts. Did these fuel rods actually burn or is it a secondary cource exaggeration?? I wonder because I haven’t found evidence of the fuel rods burning with flames in any primary sources.

[raybbr]

Years ago I worked in a steel mill. One thing we did to cut steel spills was to use an 1/8" steel tube attached to an oxygen line. We'd heat the tube to the melting point and release some oxygen into the tube. It would literally catch on "fire" and start to burn. We'd take that burning tube, apply it to the steel spill and start cutting. No acetylene or other flammable gas.

It would cut a lot faster than acetylene torches. Could burn through a foot thick slab of steel in less than a minute under full oxygen cutting.

[dynoman]

I know metals can burn, I've shut off the acetylene on a cutting torch and know it still cuts. Did these fuel rods actually burn or is it a secondary source exaggeration?? I wonder because I haven’t found evidence of the fuel rods burning with flames in any primary sources.

[tiger63]

Everyone is missing the point! Who do you expect to come clean this mess up? The Russians kept their problem under raps for days and days.

The Commies in charge sent common folk and military to die in the attempt to correct the problem.

No true account from anywhere in Japan will be issued in order to prevent panic and withdraw of any help. On site help is a sentence of death.

[winoneforthegipper]

Bout a half hour ago, nuke engineer on NHK suggested that it is possible that reactor 5 and reactor 6 both have their rods stored like reactor 4.

[Fido969]

e glad I’m not the insurance company on the hook for this mess.

Oh, they'll get you on the hook for it somehow.

[cookcounty]

I heard that even uncovered spent fuel rods would melt down in 72 hours maximum if not cooled.

accurate or not?

[winoneforthegipper]

NHK just reported officials are stating that reactor 5 and reactor 6 spent fuel rod pool temps are rising.

[EBH]

With only 50 people on site...they have decided to let the whole thing go. Those 50 can’t run a facility without power. They are just there to monitor, observe, and report.

[Errant]