Richard Cranium has a great diary to get you up to speed. The straight of it is there is a danger looming in Fukushima that hasn’t cracked the MSM as of yet, but is every bit as frightening as the stories surrounding the reactors.
I am by no means a trained scientist, or all that good a writer, so I’m going to pray to the Gods of fair use I’m ok here
All block quoted material from here, and please read the entire article
The threat of a fission explosion at the Fukushima power facility emerged today when the roof of the number three reactor exploded and fears that a spent fuel pool, located over the reactor, has been compromised. The pool, designed to allow reactor fuel to cool off for several years, was constructed on top of the Fukushima reactors instead of underground. As of 2010, there were 3450 fuel assemblies in the pool at the number three reactor. The destruction of the number three reactor building has experts concerned about whether the spent fuel storage pool, which sits just below the roof, could have survived intact the hydrogen explosion. The explosion was much more severe than Saturday’s blast at the number one reactor. snip
Donnay said, “If these pools are breached (as could have happened in the explosions, Fukushima #3 looks worse than #1) and can no longer hold water, the spent fuel racked inside them will start to overheat, and eventually melt and burn. And since there is no longer any roof above these pools in reactors 1 and 3, all the radioactivity they contain is directly open to the atmosphere.”
As massive amounts of seawater are pumped by fire trucks into Fukushima’s failing nuclear reactors and cooling ponds, the radioactive waste water, now laden with a variety of radioisotopes, is being flushed into the sea. snip
Oh there goes Japanese seafood. (There some original commentary)
Experts fear the explosion rained debris into the pool that stopped natural cooling of the fuel bundles or knocked the bundles together, damaging them, sending the irradiated fuel chunks to the bottom of the pool where they could reach critical mass. “They got a one-two punch,” said David Lochbaum, nuclear safety engineer of the Union of Concerned Scientists and a consultant to both industry and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Lockbaum told Roger Witherspoon on newjerseynewsroom.com, “If it had just been the earthquake, or just the tsunami, we wouldn’t even be talking about this. But the combination of nature was more than they could handle. It doesn’t seem that they have lost control yet. But they have definitely run out of options. snip
Both United States and Japanese governments have for decades allowed re-racking of the pools to reduce the originally-designed minimum safe distance between the assemblies so that more rods can be stored in each pool. Utilities complained they were running out of storage space on site at the reactors. The problem is if the spent fuel gets too close, they will produce a fission reaction and explode with a force much larger than any fission bomb given the total amount of fuel on the site. All the fuel in all the reactors and all the storage pools at this site (1760 tons of Uranium per slide #4) would be consumed in such a mega-explosion. In comparison, Fat Man and Little Boy weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki contained less than a hundred pounds each of fissile material.
According to a Defense Department source, the cesium detected in the atmosphere around the plant could be coming from the spent fuel pools
I could talk about the drums of low grade radio-active waste that most plants have lying around, but you know what it seems like crying about a hangnail with a portion of your head blown off.
Updated by Adept2u at Mon Mar 14, 2011, 07:23:45 PM
BREAKING NEWS 8AM JST TEPCO PRESS CONF #Fukushima BLAST DETECTED - 4 KM/H NNE WINDS SPREAD RADIATION
It appears number 2 has just exploded perhaps an hour and a half ago. Radiation warnings are going out. Heaven help the Japanese people.
TEPCO Presser live blog
They have bowed and apologized to the Japanese people. They have evacuated the operations staff, They still think there is water in the reactor, They think they explosion occurred near? the containment vessel. They evacuated their staff due to high radiation. They are hearing sounds from number 3 which exploded earlier. The pool has been damaged in #3 from chief cabinet secretary they only confirm pressure is down (frack this dude is spinning the reporter is using harsh tones) he's gotten the TEPCO dude to state that yes cooling pressure is down, but maybe a problem with the gauge. The people working on the other 3 have left the only ones remaining to inject water are staying but don't have to (dead folks) they don't know how many people are still there but like 50 plus or minus. Suppression pool..the radioactive substance is there is no significant change to the way the air is released outside, but the pressure in the pressure vessel is stable, so why did you order evacuation? Decision of onsite manager, so far you've been telling us the pressure vessel is cool, is that true? there are 2 chambers and this time we say there is a chance the supression pool is hurt, we the water injection operation is being continued. the water level was very low but begining to rise, so the latest data we have is 2.7 meters are exposed, so at least half is covered. You are injecting water if there is a crack does it mean if you are still injecting does it still rise? even if there is a crack there is a possibility we can raise the level, doesn't make sense says the reporter, he leaves, number 2 says possible damage to suppression pool, and the Japanese commenter's are sounding mad.
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/...
Sounds like they are getting tired of the brand of BS TEPCO is selling.