Gnu-

It's not certain from the reports I've read and heard that the radiation levels have dropped enough to permit the workers to function back on the Fukushima site. There is a plan to send them back, announced late last night, but everyone knows that it is pointless to send them in if they'll die from radiation exposure within an hour or less.

The Union of Concerned Scientists have an excellent discussion and graphic posted this morning of the spent fuel pool issues at the Fukushima complex: click here for report!

In summary, as I feared, the spent fuel pools contain more fuel rods than existed within any of the reactors on site such as 1, 2, and 3. And if the coolant levels in their pools continue to go down, their zirconium cladding will ignite and we will have a radioactive fuel fire with no protecting containment. That would seem to be the evolving situation in units 4, 5, and 6. No one has mentioned what has happened within the spent fuel pools of reactors 1, 2 and 3; it's possible that the spent fuel temporarily stored there had been removed to the centralized spent fuel pool on site prior to the earthquake and tsunami.

J-Boy and Eddie-

I'm not sure I understand your posts above. Is this some attempt at gallows humor?

Charley Noble