Uploaded on Mar 17, 2011
April 13, 2011 Possible Nuclear Explosion at 3 Scientists are investigating... "I believe that the explosion of the No 3 reactor may have also involved criticality but this must await the release of data on measurements of the Xenon isotope ratios," he writes in a statement on Fukushima and Chernobyl.
Reactor 3 - 5-6 Days Before Hot Rods Reach Critical Mass
"How long does it for spent fuel rods to reach dangerous levels? "NRC calculated spent fuel rods in ideal conditions would be at risk of combustion in 140 hours"
As fuel rod temperatures increase, the gas pressure inside the fuel rod increases and eventually can cause the cladding to balloon out? and rupture." Institute for Environmental Research
Experts are predicting Japan has until Saturday to get #3 under control. In experiments the time line of fire and explosion was five to six days after the rods were taken out of the coolant.
Japan has focused all their resources on Reactor 3, because the mixture of plutonium-239 and uranium-235 is the makings for a nuclear weapon.
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Update: Reactor 3 has the components of a nuclear weapon
Quoted from XOF(mirrored):
The fuel rods at all six reactors at the stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi complex contain plutonium — better known as fuel for nuclear weapons. While plutonium is more toxic than uranium, other radioactive elements leaking out are likely to be of greater danger to the general public.
Plutonium is indeed nasty stuff, especially damaging to lungs and kidneys. It is also less stable than uranium and can more easily spark a dangerous nuclear chain reaction.
But plutonium, like uranium, is a heavy element that is not easily dispersed in the air. It is the other byproducts of nuclear power generation, such as radioactive forms of cesium and iodine, that are more prone to spread and cause widespread contamination.
Here's how the uranium in a typical reactor turns into a mixture that includes plutonium:
When the pellets of uranium dioxide inside the thin fuel rods are split to create energy in the reactor, they release neutrons that, in turn, create highly radioactive plutonium-239. This is the same type of plutonium used to make nuclear weapons.
This plutonium also splits, creating even more energy. By the end of a uranium fuel cycle, 40 percent of the energy produced comes from the splitting of plutonium.
The spent fuel rod that remains at the end of the process contains uranium, plutonium, and a cocktail of other poisonous and radioactive byproducts.
The Fukushima Dai-ichi site has a considerable number of fuel rods on hand, according to information provided Thursday by Toyko Electric Power Co., which owns the atomic complex: There are 3,400 tons of fuel in seven spent fuel pools within the six-reactor plant, including one joint pool storing very old fuel from units 3 and 4. There are 877 tons in five of the reactor cores. Officials have said that the fuel in Unit 4's reactor vessel was transferred to its spent fuel pool when the unit was temporarily shut in November.
If plutonium did get out, it wouldn't disappear quickly. Plutonium-239 has a half-life of 25,000 years, meaning it takes that long to lose half of its radioactive potency. Uranium-235 has a half-life of 700 million years. And cesium, which tends to go airborne much more easily, has a half-life of 30 years.
Japan has recently built a facility to remove the byproducts and reprocess the plutonium and uranium into a substance called MOX for reuse in its reactors.
This was done in part to reduce the amount of spent fuel that is kept onsite at nuclear plants.
Japan's reprocessing plant, in Rokkasho, a village 300 miles (500 kilometers) north of Fukushima, is only starting up, and hasn't yet begun full operation.
Japan started to use MOX in some of its reactors to learn how it affects plant operations. In general, MOX fuel runs hotter than uranium oxide while inside the reactor.
The United States does not reprocess fuel and encourages other countries not to do so because of fears that plutonium recovered in the process could be used to make nuclear weapons.