Bob Blick wrote:

> On Wed, 16 Mar 2011 09:46 -0500, "Walter Banks" wrote:
>
> > For whatever reason there is still a lot of concern over neutron
> > production
> > in the reactors in Japan. They are adding borax to the mix they are
> > loading
> > into the reactor for example. It maybe that they know they have melted
> > fuel rods that have an un-moderated fuel mass. If this is so they
> > probably
> > want to slow as much as possible these fuel masses from becoming a
> > neutron source for the unaffected fuel bundles
>
> I saw a news report last night that said of the four reactors at the
> Daiichi site, only two of them were operating at the time, the other two
> were shut down for maintenance. The spent fuel seems to be the problem
> in reactor 4, almost all of it lost water and there was an explosion, I
> don't know in what order that happened.

There is an interesting wikileaks story from 2008 on spent fuel rod
storage being set up with minimum spacing. The implication is that
with minor damage to the storage containment part of the pile of
spent rods could be piled up and turn itself into an uncontrolled
reaction.

The water storage in containment is needed primarily for spent fuel
rods because uranium will burn spontaneously in air which seems to
be what is happening.

I had an email from a Japanese friend who works for a
semiconductor company and lives in Kobe who spent
the last couple days in Tokyo. He said that most of the infrastructure
and industrialized western Japan were coming back to normal.

w..

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