How Much Spent Nuclear Fuel Is At the Fukushima Daiichi Reactors?

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As of 10 p.m. local time on Thursday in Japan, the JAIFl listed the following status of the six Fukushima reactors: 

•    Buildings around Reactors No. 1, No. 3 and No. 4 were “severely damaged”; the building housing Reactor No. 2 was “slightly damaged”;
•    Cooling was not working for Reactors No. 1, No. 2 or No. 3;
•    Water levels were covering more than half of the fuel in Reactor No. 2; Reactors No. 1 and No. 3 water levels were covering only about half of the fuel. 
•    Structural integrity of the spent fuel pools was unknown for Reactors No. 1 and No. 2; 
•    Reactors No. 3 and No. 4 had low water levels; pool temperature was continuing to rise for Reactors No. 5 and No. 6. 

The spent fuel pools are of significant concern, Marvin Resnikoff, a radioactive waste management consultant, said in a Wednesday press briefing organized by the nonprofit organization Physicians for Social Responsibility. Resnikoff noted that the fuel pools are thought to have contained the following amounts of fuel, according toThe Mainichi Daily News: 

•    Reactor No. 1 fuel pool: 50 tons of nuclear fuel
•    Reactor No. 2 fuel pool: 81 tons
•    Reactor No. 3 fuel pool: 88 tons
•    Reactor No. 4 fuel pool: 135 tons
•    Reactor No. 5 fuel pool: 142 tons
•    Reactor No. 6 fuel pool: 151 tons
•    Also, a separate facility fuel pool on ground level contains 1,097 tons of nuclear fuel; and some 70 tons of nuclear materials are kept on the grounds in dry storage. 

The reactor cores themselves contain less than 100 tons of fuel, Resnikoff noted. 

The fuel had been moved from Reactor No. 4’s core to its spent fuel pool recently, so “that fuel is relatively fresh and hotter, thermally,” Resnikoff explained. “So it’s not surprising that when the water [was] no longer circulating that the water was actually boiled off in a zirconium exothermic reaction, that the zirconium burned” (which occurs at about 1,800 degrees C). 

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In 1995 At Maui High Performance Computing Center The Maui Scientific Analysis & Visualization of the Environment Program was first incubated. I was the principal investigator of this independant research project which was a joint development between MHPCC, Silicon Graphics Computers (SGI) & NKO.ORG. Using SGI Cosmo Worlds software, we pioneered the development of Internet based 3D virtual reality GIS based interactive worlds. In 1996 with a network of seven high performance SGI workstations we pioneered development of live streaming MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, Real Video and QuickTime Streaming Server utilizing Kassenna MediaBase software. In Maui 2002 we pioneered and tested the first wireless live streaming video using laptop computers and Maui Sky Fiber's portable 3G wireless device. In Maui we pioneered live streaming video using usb modems from AT&T , Verizon as well as live streaming from iPhone 3 over 3G wireless networks. Today The Maui S.A.V.E. Program has diversified into storm tracking including visualization and analysis of large, memory-intensive gridded data sets such as the National Hurricane Center's wind speed probabilities. I volunteer my services to numerous Disaster Services Organizations. In June 2013 I returned from Hurricane Sandy deployment as a computer operations service associate with the Disaster Services Technology Group assisting as The American Red Cross migrated from a Disaster Response Operation to Long Term Recovery Operations. Pioneering the production/editing and Internet distribution of HD video to sites like Youtube.com and Vimeo.com we are shining the light towards environmental and peace efforts of humans across the globe. Since 1992 I have held the vision of establishing Maui, Hawaii as the environmental sciences center of the world. After His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet came to Maui This vision has expanded to establishing Maui as the environmental & peace center of the world.

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