A frequent commenter has useful information on the Japanese nukes.
...the spent fuel pool was not the fire at Unit 4 - it was from leaking oil from a pump. We have a guy on site there that confirmed.
Units 1 and 3 are now as stable as they can be and are being cooled with sea water. Every hour that gets better since the fuel rods don't start reacting and reheating without a kick start...
Unit 2 seems to be the problem child. If you look at the cutaway graphic on the NEI site... the "donut" at the bottom is the Torus - the pipes coming from the reactor in the middle are the toroidal steam pipes. If the torus or steam pipe was damaged, it is still inside the concrete/steel containment structure. If water levels are rising in the reactor and radiation levels are falling per the most recent NEI update, that indicates that the concrete/steel containment wasn't breached.
Units 1, 2, and 3 are dead. The sea water finalized that.
It's noteworthy that the nukes did exactly what they were supposed to do: went into immediate shutdown when the quake hit. The subsequent diesel-gen problems were a result of the tsunami, not of the plant.
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The U.S. nuclear industry is voluntarily responding ahead of the NRC to the Japanese crisis. INPO (a non-governmental group) issued an INPO Event Report with requirements for verification of many nuke plant capabilities that are due beginning March 23. The Event Report is not authorized for public disclosure, so I am not providing any details.
For those in the industry, we've been doing this too long. Better than 90% of the INPO requirements were tossed around at dinner last night.
Dad - I have a .pdf with some updates from this morning (its been busy) if you have an email I can shoot it to.
NeoMom,
Email address will appear a little later on....again.
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