The oxygen that remains is burned with fuel and water in a chamber modeled after a rocket engine.

FORBES

The plant's operator, Tepco, had intended to cool reactor 1 by filling the containment chamber with water.

BBC: Japan nuclear: Tepco halts Fukushima cooling plan

This works by injecting water into a reaction chamber, where it achieves plasma state through a high-intensity electrical field.

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So Parks borrowed a tool common in the welding of plastic components, which is to gently agitate the hopper so that particles flow like water into a metering chamber.

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The water is combined is an air tight chamber with anaerobic digesters (bacteria) which take out about 70% of the bad stuff out of the water.

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But Tepco said melting fuel rods had created a hole in the chamber, allowing 3, 000 tonnes of contaminated water to leak into the basement of the reactor building.

BBC: Japan nuclear: Tepco halts Fukushima cooling plan