Type of G.E. Mark I "MOX" type reactors may have stored spent fuel rods in exploded reactors.

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...

reply to post by tsloan



yes the spent fuel is the real problem here I think..
you should take a look at a thread I started on this very topic

www.abovetopsecret.com

I agree OP.

When reactor 3 blew, there were thousands of spent fuel rods right above the reactor, in the same building.

You can clearly see where the rods are stored in some cutaway diagram floating around the net, and then when you see the pictures of the building after the blast it is obvious that there are thousands of fuel rods are either exposed, or laying all over the place in billions of pieces, and dust. It looks like the level with the spent rod pools is completely destroyed.