The Japanese Nuclear Plant #4 meltdown explained

[kap]

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2...cnn?hpt=C2

[deckeda]

All I see is the video about the gal who escaped by bike.

[kap]

Sorry about that. For some reason I am having a hard time posting that link. Well, it's one of the CNN video listed here http://www.cnn.com/video/, which features "CNN's Tom Foreman gives an in-depth look at what is happening at the Japanese nuclear reactors."

[OWC Jamie]

PBS had a translator and Japanese news show on last night with spokespersons and scale models of the area and generators. I wished I could have watched more of it.

[Lux Interior]

Plant number 4 was defueled at the time of the quake.

[OWC Jamie]

Lux Interior wrote:
Plant number 4 was defueled at the time of the quake.

Spent rods stored on site.
Supposedly what caught on fire.
After the containment water was drained, either by accident or by some combination of events.

Not privey to CNN here.

[Paul F.]

I suspect what Lux is saying is that without being actively "fissioning", which they can NOT be all by themselves, the fuel rods in the pool, even dry, cannot "melt down". They can generate decay heat, and heat up and split and crumble, but they can't melt. They can't generate the 5000°F necessary to melt.

Oh, and last I read, it was oil from a lube pump that caught fire... not the spent fuel pool.

[OWC Jamie]

regardless, the spent fuel pool was on fire and they are dumping boric acid on the pool because there is a radioactivity level associated with it.


"Japanese authorities also today informed the IAEA at 04:50 CET that the spent fuel storage pond at the Unit 4 reactor of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is on fire and radioactivity is being released directly into the atmosphere.

Dose rates of up to 400 millisievert per hour have been reported at the site. Japanese authorities are saying that there is a possibility that the fire was caused by a hydrogen explosion."

http://www.iaea.org/press/?p=1248

[Lux Interior]

Oops. Forgot to hit post last night!

Paul F. wrote:
They can generate decay heat, and heat up and split and crumble, but they can't melt. They can't generate the 5000°F necessary to melt.

They can still melt. But they are producing less heat than the plants that were operation when everything hit the fan. So it will take them a lot longer to melt, and it is much easier to add water to a pool at atmospheric pressure than to the reactor core.

I suspect that the water being dropped on the site by helicopter is meant for the pools or to put out fires, if there are still any burning.

As long as they are kept covered with water, they will be fine.