In an article in today's New York Times, reporters William J. Broach and Hiroko Tabuchi
report on the concerns over the pools holding the spent fuel rods.
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Originally Posted by New York Times
By late Tuesday, the water meant to cool spent fuel rods in the No. 4 reactor was boiling, Japan’s nuclear watchdog said. If the water evaporates and the rods run dry, they could overheat and catch fire, potentially spreading radioactive materials in dangerous clouds
Shigekatsu Oomukai, a spokesperson for the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, said the substantial capacity of the pool meant that the water in the pool was unlikely to evaporate soon. But he said workers were having difficulty reaching the pool to cool it, because of the high temperature of the water.
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The article quotes David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists, that
whereas the reactors are in thick walls, that "the spent fuel of Reactors 1 and 3 is out
in the open.”
The article also quotes a worrying 1997 study conducted by the Brookhaven National
Laboratory on Long Island that made some estimates on the hypothetical number
of fatalities that could occur within a given radius if a facilities spent fuel rods are
uncovered in the cooling pool.
The hope is that one way or the other, water will be able to be put into the pools to get them filled
before they boil dry.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by New York Times
Depending on the freshness of the spent fuel, Mr. Lochbaum said, the water in an uncooled pool would start to boil in anywhere from days to a week. The water would boil off to a dangerous level in another week or two.
Once most of the fuel is exposed, he said, it can catch fire.
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Full article here -
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/wo...16fuel.html?hp