posted on Mar, 16 2011 @ 02:46 PM
This is getting lost and is right in plain site. These reactors store spent fuel rods in containment pools within the reactor containment structure
that were vaporized in explosions.
"Spent fuel rods at Fukushima Daiichi may have burned during the most recent fire at the plant, releasing radiation, Japanese officials reported
Monday. Critics in the U.S. say that too much spent fuel at reactors is packed tightly into onsite pools -- awaiting a permanent storage site --
rather than being moved as quickly as possible into "dry casks," which are less vulnerable to accidents or terrorist attacks.
"Current onsite storage plans place spent fuel in wet pools until the pools are essentially filled and then intermittently transfer spent fuel to dry
casks when needed to free up space for the next discharge from the reactor," David Lochbaum, director of the Union of Concerned Scientists' Nuclear
Safety Project, wrote in a submission to the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future last August. "Responsible onsite storage accelerates
the transfer of spent fuel to dry casks to maintain the inventory within the wet pools near minimal amounts."
Burnell said the NRC believes the current method of spent fuel storage is safe. "The combination of both spent fuel pools and dry-cask storage is an
appropriate and acceptable means of safely and securely storing spent fuel until such time as there is a national destination for that material,"
If this is true these rods would have exploded in previous days. This would have sent these rods into the air. I think this is why they are not
reporting the radiation in the closes states around the plant.
www.huffingtonpost.com...