How volatile are the spent fuel rods? Do they just burn or can they become more explosive?

....or would all of them combusting simultaneously be like a huge explosion anyway?

They should immediately begin flying in long trains of helicopters loaded with concrete, emptying them over the radioactive zones, and smothering each reactor under concrete 50 feet thick.

could they drop one of these 'mini nuclear bombs' that we keep hearing about on the site?

basically like how they put out a oil fire by creating a bigger boom?

would dropping a nuke just destroy everything there, sure it would be nuclear, but is a bomb more contained than this slow leak?

i have not studied nuclear fission/fusion since college! its amazing how i gotta go back and learn all this all over agin.

What an excellent post OP, well done.

I just read on the BBC news website that they are planning for a "joint op'" with the USA to fly a Global Hawk UAV over the site to take photographs of the insoide of reactor #4 building on Thursday...

Given that the helicopter water dump failed due to radiation levels, and strong winds, and the USA statements about the spent-fuel-rod-storage now being acknowledged as a critical issue, I am seeing a pattern of very many signs that things are in a very bad way there.

What perplexes me further is that we are still receiving so many conflicting and sketchy 'sound bites' of information.

Here in the UK I have heard various 'experts' briefing us and the media in apparently independent interviews, yet in which not one to my knowledge mentioned anything about the spent fuel rod storage being a factor or likely to have been damaged in any of the explosions, or affected by the problems with coolant/plumbing integrity - why? Did they genuinely ALL not understand the construction/arrangement of the plant/building (in a way it has taken ATSers a few days to work out? Is it just me or does something not sit right there?

As this thread makes clear, there are perhaps MORE reasons to be concerned about the integrity of spent-fuel rod storage in the affected buildingS, and that should surely have been clear to the 'experts' from the minute they knew of the first explosion documented on video and camera?

However, all of the discussion was carefully framed around concern for the integrity of the reactor core - yes very, very concerning - but as I understand it if the storage tanks were breached by any of those explosions - or indeed caused them, then the 'experts' should surely have been clarifying, or AT LEAST acknowledging the hazards and concerns there from that point - it could have made a difference to people in Japan, and perhaps sped up the international response?

The Japanese gov, and TEPCO are clearly feeding out positive lines and fractured/sketchy info - like the news about the power cable - sounds positive, but in light of what WE know, it could very well have NO effect if there is already an exploded spent fuel rod tank, partly spread in bits around a building and partly burning in remains that nobody can get near?