Radiation high at No.3 reactor pool - (Arnie Gundersen's theory) - NHK

Highest Yet: Iodine-131 in No. 3 spent fuel pool at over 1,000,000 times normal — “Generated during nuclear fission” (VIDEO)

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/10_30.html

The operator of the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has detected high levels of radioactive materials in the spent fuel pool of the No.3 reactor at the plant.

Tokyo Electric Power Company examined a water sample from the pool on Sunday. The sample contained 140,000 becquerels of radioactive cesium-134 per cubic centimeter, 150,000 becquerels of cesium-137, and 11,000 becquerels of iodine-131.

None of these substances were detected during an inspection on March 2nd, before the accident triggered by the March 11th disaster.

TEPCO says these substances may have come from damaged fuel rods in the reactor rather than the damaged spent fuel rods in the pool, because it has detected radioactive iodine, which has a short half-life. Radioactive substances such as iodine are generated during nuclear fission inside a reactor.

via enernews:
Normal Iodine-131 level in a spent fuel pool is .01 Becquerel per cubic centimeter or less -Wall Street Journal, April 14, 2011

Iodine-131 can only come from nuclear fission, and because it has a short life, it disappears after about 80 days. In other words, the presence of iodine-131 suggests that the spent fuel has started its own chain reaction without any human intervention. -Arnold Gundersen, speaking about No. 4 spent fuel pool on April 15, 2011

Previous Highs fo Iodine-131:

* No. 2 Spent Fuel Pool: 4,100 becquerels per cubic centimeter -April 19
* No. 4 Spent Fuel Pool: 220 becquerels per cubic centimeter -April 14

give em some credit, jeez