Spent Fuel Pools?

Hi!

I´m wondering why there isn´t very much talk about the Spent Fuel Pools! It was said more than once that this may be the greater danger because there is so much material stored in those pools.

Now, when I look at graphics about how the reactors are constructed (like for example on this site: homelandsecuritynewswire.com...) and compare them with the pictures of the exploded reactors, I really have to wonder, if those pools still exist!

The Spent Fuel Pools are located in the upper half of the reactor building. If you look at what´s left of the buildings, IMHO in at least one reactor there´s NOTHING left of the upper half! Besides, the used fuel is outside of the steel vessel and the primary containment. Does that mean that at least one of those pools has already disintegrated and all of its used rods are dispersed around the reactor complex?

This would mean trouble....

No they are below the reactor in fukushima... meltdown = dripping fissile material onto spent rods.

Originally posted by exo87
No they are below the reactor in fukushima... meltdown = dripping fissile material onto spent rods.

why even post? must be very thrilling to spread some BS, it seems....

www.beyondnuclear.org...

there is no way the spent fuel storage could land below the reactor, scattered around the complex, yes, below, not. if you want to scare people you might want to actually do some research, the situation is bad enough all by itself.

reply to post by Long Lance


Sorry, they're right next to the reactor, bigdustup.blogspot.com...

The big pool for spent rods is separate at ground level, the other reactor pools were above the reactors.
There is forty years of spent fuel rods stored on site besides the reactor pools...
IMHO they may be all compromised to some degree at this point....It seams there as lot of leakage being reported.
It is pretty sure bet that there is breach of #2s containment and the rods are sitting on the concrete floor of the reactor containment well.
This may also be the case with the others....
They had low water levels in the storage pools but have not said lately whether the pools are full again or not, so i suspect they are not holding water as well as before.
The contaminated waters they have been using must be removed from the site soon to make room for fresh water.
This stuff is highly radioactive by now i should think, and it hardly seems safe to be contemplating pumping it aboard a waiting ship.
What will they then do with it?
The managment of this disaster looks confused from my out look here in safety on the west coast.
Perhaps there is nothing they can do but pump water for the next few years.....

reply to post by exo87


i don't get how you arrived at your conclusion that core melt could flow onto the spent fuel with that schematic in mind. since when does # flow up and to the side? there's a real issue with block #3 though, namely that the explosion was powerful enough to shatter destroy the pool's walls and disperse these rods.

PS: the nuclear core only occupies a quarter or so of the reactor vessel's volume (in BWRs at least), as you can see on p9 of


www.ansn-jp.org...

so, melted fuel would really have to flow upwards to make your scenario happen.

I see...
2nd