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Originally Posted by reno911
Dumb question, not a Physicist, can these type of things lead to a nuclear explosion?
Just came to mind. Anyone care to shed some light?
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YES, but not likely. Under the wrong circumstances there could be an explosion just like the one at the Chernobyl Nuclear plant in 1986. I am not exatly sure what caused that one to blow up, but it showed just how bad things can get in these reactors if things do not go as planned. When that one blew it litterally threw radioactive material out in a circular arc up to a mile away. The clean up was incredibly dangerous and took weeks and months to gather up as much of the debris as possible and throw it back into the reactor building before covering it up with concrete slabs, and just leaving it to die in what the scientists claim will be 150 to 250 years.
The problem I see with the reactor issues in Japan is that if left un-cooled the nuclear material just keeps heating up and giving off higher and higher levels of radiation that will contaminate the surrounding area for many, many, many years even if it is burried and sealed in concrete. The one thing that is not known is how big of an affected area that will be if they burry it now. It will all depend on how strong the power of the remaining rods still is at this point. Just like a battery it looses its power over time as it is used. If not used it can generate great amounts of heat (radioactivity) for hundreds of years.