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Greater Danger Lies in Spent Fuel Than in Reactors
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Tokyo Electric Power says that a total of 11,125 spent nuclear fuel rod assemblies were stored at the Fukushima nuclear plant. Experts say that this is 4 times as much radioactive material as in the reactor cores combined. Germany and China do not store these spent fuel rods at their nuclear plants for safety reasons. This is the practice in Japan, at Fukushima, and at some U.S. nuclear plants.The storage pools of water needed to keep these fuel rods has leaked because of the earthquake. And there are signs that some fuel rods have begun to melt and release extremely high levels of radiation. Richard Lafey, Jr., is a retired nuclear engineer who supervised General Electric's safety research for the type of reactor used in Fukushima. He says the zirconium cladding of the fuel rods can catch fire if exposed to air for hours, when the storage pool of water is lost. Zirconium, after it catches fire is so hot that its hard to extinguish.
Storage of spent radioactive fuel rods at the Fukushima nuclear plant
03/17/2011
The TEPCO nuclear plant in Fukushima, like nuclear plants in the U.S., stored radioactive spent nuclear fuel rods at the plant. China stores the rods at a remote location in its western Gansu region. Germany stores them at a separate location. These rods contain a greater portion of all the radioactive material, more than the nuclear reactor core. This has become a big part of the problem at Fukushima.
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Greater Danger Lies in Spent Fuel Than in Reactors
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