Is it still your assessment that that cooling pond with the spent fuel rods is now empty?
However, one of its permanently-closed reactors on Long Island Sound did, and spent fuel rods remain on site.
What is more, Dr Filippone's results suggest that the spent fuel rods will continue to generate energy for 10-14 years.
But the dry casks holding spent fuel rods across the United States have not evolved along with their increasingly radioactive contents.
FORBES: Fancy New Lids for Nuclear Waste Casks, As Contents Get Hotter
That could have led to a loss of water and eventually to the exposure of the spent fuel rods to air, releasing radiation.
Spent fuel rods pose a potentially larger threat given that there are far more of them in pools at Fukushima than there are inside of the reactors themselves.
FORBES: What the Japanese Government/Media Doesn't Want You to Know About the Nuclear Crisis
The fuel, called MOX, takes uranium from spent fuel rods and mixes it with plutonium, creating a less stable fuel, one that is potentially far more dangerous in a meltdown.
FORBES: Update on US Nukes Planning to Use Plutonium-Mixture Fuel
An alarm at reactor number three earlier revealed the system had stopped at one of the pools containing spent, but highly radioactive, fuel rods.
In early April, the cooling system at one of the pools containing spent - but highly radioactive - fuel rods in reactor number three broke down for about three hours.
The system cooling water which contained spent - but still highly radioactive - nuclear fuel rods failed and it took engineers some 30 hours to repair the damage.
All of the rods from the fuel core were put into the spent fuel pool above the reactor at that time.
FORBES: New Video From Fukushima Shows Containment Vessel Dome Amid Debris
应用推荐