NRC: No Water In Spent Fuel Pool Of Japan Plant

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The Associated Press

The chief of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Wednesday that all the water is gone from one of the spent fuel pools at Japan's most troubled nuclear plant, but Japanese officials denied it.

If NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko is correct, this would mean there's nothing to stop the fuel rods from getting hotter and ultimately melting down. The outer shell of the rods could also ignite with enough force to propel the radioactive fuel inside over a wide area.

Jaczko did not say Wednesday how the information was obtained, but the NRC and U.S. Department of Energy both have experts on site at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex of six reactors. He said the spent fuel pool of the complex's Unit 4 reactor has lost water.

Jaczko said officials believe radiation levels are extremely high, and that could affect workers' ability to stop temperatures from escalating.

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Source: Reuters

U.S. deploys more radiation detectors on U.S. islands


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is deploying additional radiation monitors on Hawaii and other U.S. islands even though it does not expect harmful levels of radiation from damaged Japanese nuclear power plants to reach U.S. soil, environmental regulators said.

The Environmental Protection Agency without fanfare posted a notice on its website on Tuesday of plans to "work with its federal partners to deploy additional monitoring capabilities to parts of the western U.S. and U.S. territories."

A Democratic Congressional aide on Wednesday told Reuters that additional monitors will be dispatched to the Aleutian Islands, Guam, a U.S. territory, and the state of Hawaii.

These monitors will augment the more than 100 monitors already in place in all 50 U.S. states, according to the aide, who asked not to be identified.

EPA officials were not immediately available for comment.