Earlier quote on this thread: "Gregory Jaczko, the chairman of the commission, said in Congressional testimony that the commission believed that all the water in the spent fuel pool at the No. 4 reactor of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station had boiled dry, leaving fuel rods stored there completely exposed. As a result, he said, “We believe that radiation levels are extremely high, which could possibly impact the ability to take corrective measures.”

There has to be a good reason why they are saying this. I really seriously doubt that the chairman of the NRC would say something like this - without having some hard data. Such data might come from careful studies of satellite photo's, for example. But notice that they are still only saying that a safe exclusion zone is about 50 miles around the reactor.

I also saw a report this afternoon that implied that thre is a small group of nuclear planty engineers in Japan who may have received radiation doses that are much higher than most of the other workers. But no firm confirmation yet.

UPDATE: With these latest comments from US officials ...

"The water served to both cool the uranium fuel and shield it. But once the uranium fuel was no longer covered by water, its zirconium cladding that encases the fuel rods heated, generating hydrogen, said Robert Alvarez, senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies and a former official with the Department of Energy. That caught fire, resulting in a situation that is "very, very serious," he told CNN. He said the next solution may involve nuclear plant workers having to take heroic acts. Asked to be more specific, he said, "This is a situation where people may be called in to sacrifice their lives. ... It's very difficult for me to contemplate that but it's, it may have reached that point."

Which gets to the point of what I was saying earlier.
In odrer to fix this situation - it could involve a suicide mission.
I bet there's some earnest and heartfelt pondering going on with those power plant workers now.



other Pete