204 new fuel rods turned out to be in the “spent” fuel pool at reactor 4.

Tepco has announced that there are 1,331 spent fuel rods in the pool of reactor 4.

However, 10/14/2011, Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency announced that the pool contained 204 units of new fuel rods as well.

They assumed that once aftershock hits the pool and it’s damaged, the fuel rods get to 900 C, melting out of the zirconium cover in 2.3 hours later. As the zirconium alloy cover (Zircaloy) is destroyed, it emits hydrogen, which is likely to cause hydrogen explosion.

The melted fuel rods are estimated to have reached 2,800 C and started to melt down some 7.7 hours later.

Currently Tepco is reinforcing the fuel pool, which is now exposed to outside because it lost the wall from the explosion.

Today Hokkaido University stated that there is a possibility that another M9.0 hits north Japan again (soon? imminent?).

They say they caught the same earthquake echo of 89.9MHz as what they caught before 311.

According to their report, another M9.0 may hit from December to January, the epicenter may be from South Miyagi prefecture offshore to Ibaraki offshore, which is beside Fukushima plant.

Even apart from this report, it is rational to assume another major aftershock hits Fukushima plants anytime.

Fukushima is still on the edge.

(Source)

About this site

This website updates the latest news about the Fukushima nuclear plant and also archives the past news from 2011. Because it's always updated and added live, articles, categories and the tags are not necessarily fitted in the latest format.
I am the writer of this website. About page remains in 2014. This is because my memory about 311 was clearer than now, 2023, and I think it can have a historical value. Now I'm living in Romania with 3 cats as an independent data scientist.
Actually, nothing has progressed in the plant since 2011. We still don't even know what is going on inside. They must keep cooling the crippled reactors by water, but additionally groundwater keeps flowing into the reactor buildings from the broken parts. This is why highly contaminated water is always produced more than it can circulate. Tepco is planning to officially discharge this water to the Pacific but Tritium is still remaining in it. They dilute this with seawater so that it is legally safe, but scientifically the same amount of radioactive tritium is contained. They say it is safe to discharge, but none of them have drunk it.

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