Officials now saying that reactor 4 spent fuel rod fire, burned itself out.  The temperatures had risen to twice the limit. This, along with possible hydrogen explosion, caused the 783 spent fuel rods to catch fire.

Officials admit the spent fuel rod storage areas are not equipped with any type of “back up” systems to prevent overheating and fire caused by natural disaster.  The design of the nuclear plant has the spent fuel rods stored above the reactors. Workers at Fukushima plant 1 (Daiichi) are now focusing on reducing spent fuel rods from overheating. There is now concern with the Spent Fuel Rod storage above reactors 5 & 6, their temperatures are rising.  Officials say they have begun flooding the storage areas with sea water.  Reactors 5 & 6 were down for maintenance when the quake/tsunami hit.

Atsushi Takeda, an official with Japan’s Nuclear Safety Research Association, says that most of the back up systems did not work properly.  The primary concerns are to keep reactors from overheating.  Takeda believes most of the problems with the Fukushima plant happened after the tsunami, not because of the magnitude 9 quake.

Reuters is reporting that the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) has been told that a spent fuel rod pound is on fire.  Spent fuel rods are still highly radioactive, and the pools contain years worth of rods.

At the Fukushima plant 1, the spent fuel pools are on top of reactors. The problem is that reactors 1 & 3 exploded, literally blowing their tops. So where did the spent fuel rods that were on top of the buildings go?

Arnie Gundersen, a nuclear engineer at Fairewinds Associates, said a spent fuel rod fire “…would be like Chernobyl on steroids.” Gundersen is also a member of the public oversight panel for the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant.

Fukushima plant 1 might have as many as 7 spent fuel pools, with 20 years worth of rods.

Gundersen pointed out that the design of the Fukushima nuclear reactors are based on a General Electric plan, and that plan put the spent fuel rod pools on above of the reactors.  Can you say “dumb & dumber”?  What’s GE’s slogan, “We bring good things to life”?  Yeah buddy!

NHK reporting that reactor 2, Fukushima plant 1, exploded when workers tried to open closed valves.  Plant officials say highly possible that fuel rods are melting.

RT reporting that the fire in reactor 4 was a result of an explosion.  Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano says probably caused by hydrogen gas build up.

More reasons for confusing radiation level reporting.  Officials are giving readings for each reactor, not for the whole plant.  The problem is that there are 6 reactors at Fukushima plant 1.  4 reactors are now spewing radiation.

Radiation levels from just one reactor has reached levels that cause immediate and noticeable damage to humans. There are reports of people showing signs of radiation sickness.

Prefectures more than 240km from Fukushima plant 1, have reported increases in radiation readings.

Nuclear plant officials say they were successful in replacing pump motors on other reactors, which is resulting in dropping temperatures.

Japanese government officials say Fukushima plant 1, reactor 4 is on fire.  A hole has been found in reactor 2, which was earlier reported that a loud bang, or explosion sound, heard from inside.

Reactor 4 was being shut down at time of the quake/tsunami.  Exposed rods were spent, but are still radioactive.  Overheating might have caused fire that is currently burning inside the reactor.

Hole in reactor 2 might have been a result of the explosion sound heard from inside reactor.  They speculate there was a hydrogen explosion.

Prime Minister has expanded evacuation area, to 30km.  Japanese asked to stay inside, doors and windows shut, asked not to use air conditioning or any ventilation system.  Japanese government holding emergency meeting to figure out what to to.

Japanese reporters are asking for clarity, because officials seem to be down playing situation, on one hand saying not to worry, but on the other telling everyone to stay inside.  The implication from Japanese reporters is that officials are not telling truth about damage at nuclear reactors.  Officials also say people should stay inside, but, if they can leave to leave.  Reporters pointing out that other sources for radiation readings say radiation readings are “quite high”.  Officials are talking around radiation readings.  Officials now saying that high radiation readings coming from reactor 4, which is on fire.

Officials are reporting that a loud bang was heard from inside reactor 2, at Fukushima nuclear plant 1.

It is believed that it is the “Separation Chamber” cracking (some reports call it “Suppression Pool”, some called it the “Pressure Suppression Room”).  Workers at the plant have been moved to “safer” positions, workers not directly involved with cooling efforts have been evacuated.  An official said this chamber is a last line of defense for preventing higher levels of radiation leaking. He also said this could be the worst case scenario taking place.

It was explained that if the separation chamber is breached then contaminated coolant/water with higher levels of radiation can leak out.  The chamber may have cracked due to the intense heat from the exposed fuel rods.  The fuel rods had been fully exposed, more than once.  Workers have been having trouble maintaining levels of coolant, even with pumping in sea water.  Officials claim that the water levels have been brought back up, but at least 2 meters of the rods are still exposed.

Officials keep saying that radiation readings are safe, there in Japan.  They fail to point out that the winds have been blowing the radiation clouds over the Pacific, towards Hawaii. If the winds shift, and blow the radiation towards Japan, then the radiation levels there would increase greatly. The U.S. Navy has moved their ships further away from Japan after several aircrews, on helicopters, were exposed to radiation.

NBC news reported that the reason the back up generators failed is because the fuel tanks were above ground tanks, and were swept away by the tsunami.

NHK is presenting an official ‘explainer’ of why the nuclear safety and backup systems failed. I’ll try to put it simply.

1: Earthquake triggered automatic shut down procedures, which involves raising/exposing fuel rods. This still requires cooling of the rods.

2: Cooling of raised rods failed because main power supply cut. Back up generators came on, but failed when tsunami hit the plants. They could not be restarted.

3: A third backup cooling system failed. This is a steam reclamation system that collects steam off the hot rods, condenses it to water, then sprays the water on the rods. It failed because coolant levels dropped too much for steam to be created. Officials say coolant levels might have leaked due to structural damage caused by the quake and tsunami. They can not be sure what happened to the coolant, until they can inspect the structures.

The failed safety & back up systems are causing the raised fuel rods to partially melt down.  The report suggests that all the reactors along the coast line hit by the quake/tsunami are in partial melt down. An official now says they obviously didn’t expect such a powerful natural disaster when they planned the safety/back up systems. In Fukushima Prefecture alone, one of the hardest hit areas, there are 10 reactors.

There are a total of 55 plants, with anywhere between 2 and 6 reactors each, in Japan. There are 2 plants under construction, with another 11 planned.  In the United States there are at least 104 commercial nuclear plants.  Most of the plants are east of the Rocky Mountains, in highly populated areas.

The failure of all these systems, in Japan, will give anti-nuclear activists plenty of ammo for the demand to end the use of nuclear power plants.