"Fukushima Daiichi: It May Be Too Late Unless the Military Steps In"

Japanese diplomat Akio Matsumura has posted a new blog proposing that military intervention be deployed to prevent the worst from happening at Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 (see photo, left). He proposes that the Japan Self-Defense Forces be deployed to Unit 4 to offload high-level radioactive waste, before another, almost inevitable earthquake topples the building and its irradiated nuclear fuel catches fire. Unit 4's pool holds 8 times the radioactive Cesium-137 released by Chernobyl. But a fire in Unit 4's pool would very likely lead to the evacuation of the entire site, risking 85 times Chernobyl's hazardous Cesium-137 escaping if all 7 of Fukushima Daiichi's pools are allowed to boil dry and catch fire (not to mention what more would happen if its three melted down reactor cores are no longer cooled either).

Of course, the U.S. faces potentially catastrophic risks at its 31 GE BWR Mark I and II high-level radioactive waste storage pools, as well.

In fact, U.S. pools hold significantly more waste than their Japanese counterparts. Fukushima Daiichi Unit 4 held 219 metric tons of irradiated nuclear fuel, according to the Japanese Parliament's committee investigating the catastrophe. But as but a couple examples, the Pilgrim, MA and Fermi 2, MI Mark I pools hold more than 600 metric tons of irradiated nuclear fuel, each! In fact, Pilgrim and Fermi 2's pools hold every single irradiated nuclear fuel assembly ever generated by those reactors!