Reactor 4 contains 10 times more Cesium-137 than Chernobyl did. Scientists have warned that another nuclear disaster could be the beginning of an ultimate catastrophe for the planet. The mid-November fuel removal operation will be just the first step in a decommissioning process that is expected to take decades.
Scientists Warn of Extreme Risk November 8, 2013 by WashingtonsBlog Wahington"... the greatest short-term threat to humanity is from the fuel pools at Fukushima." Experts around the world have warned … that the fuel pool is in a precarious state – vulnerable to collapsing in another big earthquake. Yale University professor Charles Perrow wrote about the number 4 fuel pool this year in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. “This has me very scared,” he told the ABC. “Tokyo would have to be evacuated because [the] caesium and other poisons that are there will spread very rapidly.
BBC 8 Nov 2013: Rupert Wingfield-Hayes reports from inside Reactor Building 4 at Fukushima..... It comes down to what is, in the next few weeks, going to start happening inside one building at the destroyed nuclear plant. ... So what can I report? Mainly that I feel somewhat reassured by what I have seen. The preparations for the fuel removal appear meticulous.
Posibilities: 1) 89 tonnes of MOX in the spent fuel storage pond would melt down becoz of water loss; 2) the reactor 'corium' has reached groundwater; 3) rainwater on hot fragments
Beginning on Monday December 30, 2013, the Internet has been flooded with conjecture claiming that Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3 is ready to explode. Fairewinds Energy Education has been inundated with questions about the very visible steam emanating from Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3. Our research, and discussions with other scientists, confirms that what we are seeing is a phenomenon that has been occurring at the Daiichi site since the March 2011 accident.
RT.com 4.1.14: "As TEPCO began preparations for the cleaning of the drainage system with tons of leaked radioactive water at the Fukushima power plant,a former employee reveals the reason for so many leaks was cost cutting measures such as using duct tape,Asahi reported."