That could be the worst news yet due to atmospheric carryover of radioactive dust from a fire getting it into the atmosphere nice and high....

And surely it would effect the ability of onsite staff to work on the other reactors, assuming it's bad.

Anyway, let's wait for better information. Hopefully it can be quickly controlled, or even better, it's inaccurate.

Here is a German site, showing the radiation ALREADY hitting the west coast.

Take it for what it's worth.

http://www.zamg.ac.at/aktuell/index....3-15GMT08%3A26

JFC. In all seriousness can they not just use electric pumps hooked up to gasoline powered generators? You'd think the entire nation of Japan, along with US Navy help, could put enough euiqpment on the ground within five DAYS to move a helluva lot of water from the ocean that is RIGHT THERE.

I'm absolutely sure that I know jack shit about this, and that people 1,000 times smarter than me are working on this, but if it's just a question of moving water... Moving it and letting it boil off is better than all these fires/explosions...

right, the plume spreading radiation far and wide is the worst case scenario. That MUST be avoided. Hopefully they put it out quick.

I agree with you but I gotta believe that the cooling water system internal to the containment is fubar. And any of the explosions that opened up the outer containment probably screwed any external connectivity. Otherwise, I would think you'd be spot on with what to do and I'm sure they would have done so already.

CNN Blog confirming fire at Reactor 4

[6 p.m. ET Tuesday, 5 a.m. Wednesday in Tokyo] Fire has been discovered in the northeastern corner of the building of reactor No. 4 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in northeastern Japan, the power company says.

****

Then isn't this all delaying the inevitable?

If that cooling system is ****ed and the mechanics of simply building a new one seem prohibitive, it's not like they're going to be able to keep a bucket brigade running for the next 4 years.

How can this have any other possible conclusion but a melt-down?

Yikes. I heard there's been a run on Potassium Iodide.

No.

If the reactors SCRAMed successfully and the fission was stopped, the decay heat generated rather quickly decreases. But, unless you have water constantly surrounding the core AND being circulated AND being replaced with cool water, there is no where for the heat to go.

The issue, as far as I can tell, is that there is the potential for SEVEN meltdowns. My assumption is that some reactors are in better/worse shape than others, and the spent fuel pool is in yet another category of good/bad.

And the game is to minimize the number of meltdowns and the amount of fallout.

Because walking away isn't really an option.

There has......

http://www.naturalnews.com/031708_iodine_radiation.html

Do you work in nuclear power? If so, as an engineer?

I wish I had a better idea of what the temperature of the spent fuel was in the reactors and the pool.

0.2% of what I understood the operating reactor temperature to be would not be a significant number.

I guess it's enough to know "too hot", and therefore enough to achieve a meltdown, or partial meltdown, to create steam and potentially so much steam that explosions may occur if pressure isn't released or the material isn't otherwise cooled.