在线翻译系列之四，纽约时报科普文－福岛核废料（已翻完 ...

看官有钱赏钱，没钱就大声喧哗啊。

标题：Danger of Spent Fuel Outweighs Reactor Threat　核废料的危害比反应堆更甚
连接：nytimes.com/2011/03/18/world/asia/18spent.html?hp=&pagewanted=all

Years of procrastination in deciding on long-term disposal of highly radioactive fuel rods from nuclear reactors are now coming back to haunt Japanese authorities as they try to control fires and explosions at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.
人无远虑，必有近忧。多年来日本当局在核废料的长期处理问题上举棋不定，如今他们在福岛核电站的抢险中麻烦缠身。

Some countries have tried to limit the number of spent fuel rods that accumulate at nuclear power plants — Germany stores them in costly casks, for example, while Chinese nuclear reactors send them to a desert storage compound in western China’s Gansu province. But Japan, like the United States, has kept ever larger numbers of spent fuel rods in temporary storage pools at the power plants, where they can be guarded with the same security provided for the power plant.
一些国家试图限制存储在核电站的核废料数量－－例如德国把它们封装在昂贵的容器里，tb则将它们发配到位于甘肃的沙漠里。但在日本，和美国一样，核废料大量地积压在电站的存储池里，它们在池子里受到和电站本身同样的保护。

Figures provided by Tokyo Electric Power on Thursday show that most of the dangerous uranium at the power plant is actually in the spent fuel rods, not the reactor cores themselves. The electric utility said that a total of 11,195 spent fuel rod assemblies were stored at the site.
东电公司周四发布的数据表明，福岛核电站内危险的铀大多存于核废料中，而非反应堆内。东电称电站内共有核废料封装１１，１９５块（下文会讲到每个封装内有数十支燃料棒）。

That is in addition to 400 fuel assemblies that had been in active service in reactor No. 1 and 548 in each of reactors No. 2 and 3. In other words, the storage pools hold more than seven times as much radioactive material as the reactor cores.
除此之外，１、２、３号反应堆内分别还有在役燃料封装４００、５４８、５４８块。换句话说，存储池里的放射性物质是反应堆里的七倍多。

Now those temporary pools are proving the power plant’s Achilles heel, as the water in the pools either boils away or leaks out of their containments, and efforts to add more water have gone awry. While spent fuel rods generate significantly less heat than newer ones, there are strong indications that the fuel rods have begun to melt and release extremely high levels of radiation. Japanese authorities struggled Thursday to add more water to the storage pool at reactor No. 3.
现在那些临时池子成了电站的achilles脚跟，在池子渐渐蒸干或漏光的同时，补水的努力也往往不给力。废料棒虽比新棒棒产生的热量少，但有迹象显示废棒子正在熔化并释放出极高的辐射。日本当局周四拼着老命给３号堆内的存储池灌水。

Four helicopters dropped water, only to have it scattered by strong breezes. Water cannons mounted on police trucks — equipment designed to disperse rioters — were deployed in an effort to spray water on the pools. It is unclear if they managed to achieve that.
四架直升机轮番浇水，但水却被大风吹散。警车上的水炮－－本来是用来驱散动乱分子的，现用来向池子喷水，不知道此招灵否 .
Richard T. Lahey Jr., a retired nuclear engineer who oversaw General Electric’s safety research in the early 1970s for the kind of nuclear reactors used in Fukushima, said that the Japanese authorities may not have entirely understood the importance of keeping cool the spent fuel. The zirconium cladding on the fuel rods can burst into flames if exposed to air for hours when a storage pool loses its water, he warned.
r t l, 曾于70年代早期任职于ge、负责类似反应堆安全的某退休男讲：日本当局有可能没有完全搞懂给核废料降温的重要性。当废棒棒的锆制包皮长时间裸露于空气中时（一科普文怎么给我翻得如此不纯洁），棒棒有可能起火爆燃。

When zirconium ignites, it emits extremely hot flames that warm up everything nearby and are very hard to extinguish, added Mr. Lahey, who helped write a classified report for the United States government several years ago on the vulnerabilities of storage pools at American nuclear reactors.
锆燃烧时的火焰极热，会烘烤周围的东西，并且非常难扑灭－－lahey讲－－该男几年前曾参与起草一个为美国政府准备的关于美国反应堆存储池缺陷的机密报告。

Very high levels of radiation above the storage pools suggest that the water has drained in the 39-foot-deep pools to the point that the 13-foot-high fuel rod assemblies have been exposed to air for hours and are starting to melt, said Robert Albrecht, a longtime nuclear engineer who worked as a consultant to the Japanese nuclear reactor manufacturing industry in the 1980s. Spent fuel rod assemblies emit less heat than fresh fuel rod assemblies inside reactor cores, but the spent assemblies still emit enough heat and radioactivity that they must be kept covered with 26 feet of water that is circulated to prevent it from growing too warm.
水池上极高的辐射水平意味着３９尺深的池子正在变干，以至于１３尺高的废料棒裸露于空气达数小时并开始熔化－－r a　讲，此资深男曾于８０年代给日本的核反应堆制造业作顾问。废料棒释放的热能虽比新棒少，但仍需储于循环水池中以免过热。

Gregory Jaczko, the chairman of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, made the startling assertion on Wednesday that there was little or no water left in the storage pool located on top of reactor No. 4, and expressed grave concern about the radioactivity that would be released as a result. The spent fuel rod assemblies there include 548 assemblies that were only removed from the reactor in November and December to prepare the reactor for maintenance, and may be emitting more heat than the older assemblies in other storage pools.
g j－－美国核能管理委员会主席－－周三曾发出惊人的断言：４号堆存储池的水大多已蒸干，他还对因此释放的辐射表示极为担忧。池内还存有５４８块去年１１月和１２月因４号堆检修移出的燃料棒封装，它们比其它老棒更猛。

Even without recirculating water, it should take many days for the water in a storage pool to evaporate, nuclear engineers said. So the rapid evaporation and even boiling of water in the storage pools now is a mystery, raising the question of whether the pools may also be leaking.
一般来讲，即使在缺乏循环水的情况下，池子里的水也须很多天才蒸干。所以目前池子在快速蒸发甚至沸腾的情况让人不得不怀疑池子本身是否在漏水。

Michael Friedlander, a former senior nuclear power plant operator who worked 13 years at three American reactors, said that storage pools typically have a liner of stainless steel that is three-eighths of an inch thick, and they rest on reinforced concrete bases. So even if the liner ruptures, “unless the concrete was torn apart, there’s no place for the water to go,” he said.
m f，某在美国三个反应堆工作了１３年的资深男讲：池子一般由高强混凝土加一厘米左右厚的不锈钢内衬构成，即使在内衬破裂的情况下，除非混凝土结构也毁了，否则不会发生漏水。

At each end of a pool are 16-foot-tall steel gates with rubber seals, used to swing fresh fuel rod assemblies into a reactor and to swing out and store the spent assemblies. The gates are designed to withstand earthquakes, Mr. Friedlander said, but could have sprung leaks given the power of last Friday’s quake, now estimated to have had a magnitude of 9.0.
池子的两端是１６尺高带塑封的钢门，新、老燃料棒由此进出。（翻得好黄）这些门均为抗震设计，m f 讲，但本次地震高达九级，有可能震出缝隙来。

Even if water gushed out of the gates, there would still be about 10 feet of water left on top of the fuel rod assemblies.
但即使钢制门有缝隙，池子里的剩下的水应该还能淹没燃料棒十尺才对。

Mr. Lahey said that much of the water probably just sloshed out during the earthquake last Friday. Much smaller earthquakes in California have produced heavy water losses from sloshing at storage pools there, partly because the pools are located high in reactor buildings to make it easier to move fuel rod assemblies in and out of the reactor themselves.
lahey 讲池水有可能地震中被晃出来，加州一些小得多的地震都曾把池水晃出来过，这和池子大多建于反应堆上部有关，这样的设计考虑到棒棒进出的方便。

"It’s like being at the top of a flagpole, and once you start ground motion, you can easily slosh it," he said.
这就象旗杆顶一样，地面稍有震动，上面就晃得厉害。

When the water in a storage pool disappears, residual heat in the fuel rods’ uranium left over from their time in a nuclear reactor continues to heat the rods’ zirconium cladding. This causes the zirconium to oxidize, or rust, and even catch fire. This breaks the seal of the rods, and pressurized radioactive gases like iodine, which accumulated in the rods while they were in the reactor, suddenly spurt out, Mr. Albrecht said.
池水消失后，废料棒内残留的铀仍持续发出余热，不断加热棒棒的锆包皮，导致锆发生氧化，也就是生锈，甚至会起火。包皮由此破裂（想想都痛）棒内聚集的高压放射性气体则喷涌而出。
Each rod inside the assembly holds a vertical stack of cylindrical uranium oxide pellets. These pellets sometimes become fused together while in the reactor, in which case they may stay standing up even as the cladding burns off. If the pellets stay standing up, then even with the water and zirconium gone, nuclear fission will not take place, Mr. Albrecht said.
废料棒里有竖直叠放的圆柱状氧化铀颗粒。在反应堆里时，这些颗粒有时会融合在一起，如果是这样的话，即使棒棒表皮被烧掉，这些颗粒还是会保持竖直状态。如 果颗粒保持竖直，即使在无水无包皮的情况下，核裂变也不会发生。albrecht 如是说。（lz说明一下：这里就是担心铀颗粒是否会撒成一地，你我紧挨着，从而超过临界，发生核裂变。）

But Tokyo Electric said this week that there was a chance of “recriticality” in the storage pools — that is to say, the uranium in the fuel rods could become critical in nuclear terms and resume the fission that previously took place inside the reactor, spewing out radioactive byproducts.
但东电讲存储池里有可能发生“再次临界“－－换句话讲，铀颗粒或临界、重启原来在堆内发生的裂变反应，释放出放射性副产物。

Mr. Albrecht said this was very unlikely, but could happen if the stacks of pellets slumped over and became jumbled together on the floor of the storage pool. Tokyo Electric has reconfigured the storage racks in its pools in recent years so as to pack more fuel rod assemblies together in limited space.
albrecht 讲，这是不大可能的，除非铀颗粒跳出来撒一地。
东电近两年改变了存储池格局以便在有限空间里储存更多的废料棒。

If recriticality occurs, pouring on pure water could actually cause fission to take place even faster. The authorities would need to add water with lots of boron, as they have been trying to do, because the boron absorbs neutrons and interrupts nuclear chain reactions.
如“再次临界”发生，灌纯水反而促进核裂变的发生。当局得在水里加硼酸，用以吸收中子，从而阻断链式反应。

If recriticality takes place, the uranium starts to warm. If a lot of fission occurs, which may only happen in an extreme case, the uranium would melt through anything underneath it. If it encounters water as it descends, a steam explosion may then scatter the molten uranium.
“再次临界”发生时，铀开始发热。如果大量的裂变发生－－只有在极端情况下才可能－－铀将熔化其下面的任何物质。如果熔出的铀和水会合，产生的蒸汽爆炸会把铀四处抛洒。

At Daiichi, each assembly has either 64 large fuel rods or 81 slightly smaller fuel rods, depending on the vendor who supplied it. A typical fuel rod assembly has a total of roughly 380 pounds of uranium.
在福岛，每个封装里有６４枚大棒或者８１枚小棒。一般来讲每个封装大约有３８０磅铀。

One big worry for Japanese officials is that reactor No. 3, the main target of the helicopters and water cannons on Thursday, uses a new and different fuel. It uses mixed oxides, or mox, which contains a mixture of uranium and plutonium, and can produce a more dangerous radioactive plume if scattered by fire or explosions.
３号堆现在是日本的心病，周四当局使用直升机和水炮重点抢险，该堆使用不同的燃料－－混合氧化物（mox）－－铀钚混合，爆炸时放出的辐射更高。
According to Tokyo Electric, 32 of the 514 fuel rod assemblies in the storage pond at reactor No. 3 contain mox.
东电称，３号堆池内５１４块封装中有３２块是mox

Tokyo Electric has said very little about the biggest repository of spent fuel assemblies at the site: 6,291 assemblies located in a common storage pool immediately inland from reactor No. 4.
东电对站内最大的存储池提及甚少－－紧临４号堆的公用存储池－－存有６，２９１块封装。

Japan had hoped to solve the spent fuel buildup with a large-scale plan to recycle the rods into fuel that would go back into its nuclear program. But even before Friday’s quake, that plan had been hit with massive setbacks.
日本曾希望能够将废料棒回收利用，但即使在地震之前，这一计划就已严重受阻。

Central to Japan’s plans is a $28 billion reprocessing facility in Rokkasho village, north of the quake zone, which would extract uranium and plutonium from the rods for use in making MOX fuel. After countless construction delays, test runs began in 2006, and the plant’s operator, Japan Nuclear Fuel, said operations would begin in 2010. However, in late 2010, its opening was delayed by another two years. A facility for making MOX fuel is also under construction.
日本回收计划的核心是位于rokkasho（震区以北）的耗资２８０亿美元的处理厂。该厂可将铀和钚从旧棒中提取，用以制造新的mox 棒。在经历无数拖延后，２００６年试验正式开始，处理厂运营方日本核燃料曾讲２０１０可以投产。但２０１０年底，工期再延两年。另外一个生产mox 的工厂也在建设中。

To close the nuclear fuel recycle process, Japan also built the Monju, a fast breeder reactor, which started running in full in 1994. But a year later, a fire caused by a sodium leak shut down the plant.
为了核废料回收，日本还造了monju 快堆（不知正确否，求高人科普），该堆１９９４年运行。但一年后因盐泄露引起大火而关闭。

Despite revelations that the operator, the quasi-governmental Japan Atomic Energy Agency, had covered up the seriousness of the accident, Monju again started operating at a reduced capacity, reaching criticality, or sustained nuclear chain reactions within the reactor, in May.
monju 运营方－－带政府性质的日本原子能局曾隐瞒该事故的严重性，后被暴光（好不幸啊！），尽管如此，monju 在裁减规模后再度上马，并于五月达到临界。

Another nuclear reprocessing facility in Tokaimura has been shut down since 1999, when an accident at an experimental fast breeder showered hundreds in the vicinity with radiation, and two workers were killed.
位于日本tokaimura（求高人讲解）的另一座核回收厂自１９９９年来一直处于关闭状态，该厂的试验快堆事故对邻近数百人造成辐射，两名公司身亡。

Many of these facilities were hit by Friday’s massive quake. A spent fuel pool at Rokkasho spilled over, and power at the plant was knocked out, triggering back-up generators, Japan Nuclear Fuel said. According to the Citizens Nuclear Information Center, an anti-nuclear NGO, about 3,000 tons of fuel are stored at Rokkasho. But the plant, built 55 meters (180 feet) above sea level, was spared from the destructive tsunami that followed the quake. Grid power was restored on Monday, the company said.
多家此类工厂在上周的地震中遭到冲击。位于rokkasho的某存储池水溅出，该厂停电，触发备用发电机，日本核燃料称。据核能公民知情中心称－－某反核 非政府组织－－大约有３０００吨燃料存于rokkasho.　但该厂因海拔５５米，得以逃过海啸。厂方称周一时供电已恢复。

本文翻完。

预告贴：米帝潜艇大战巨鲸－－０８年米最高院判决－－在线翻译系列之n
近日投放海军版和畅谈（同时投两版会不会被扣分？想赚点人气，lz 也不容易）

看官有钱赏钱，没钱就大声喧哗啊。

标题：Danger of Spent Fuel Outweighs Reactor Threat　核废料的危害比反应堆更甚
连接：nytimes.com/2011/03/18/world/asia/18spent.html?hp=&pagewanted=all

Years of procrastination in deciding on long-term disposal of highly radioactive fuel rods from nuclear reactors are now coming back to haunt Japanese authorities as they try to control fires and explosions at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station.
人无远虑，必有近忧。多年来日本当局在核废料的长期处理问题上举棋不定，如今他们在福岛核电站的抢险中麻烦缠身。

Some countries have tried to limit the number of spent fuel rods that accumulate at nuclear power plants — Germany stores them in costly casks, for example, while Chinese nuclear reactors send them to a desert storage compound in western China’s Gansu province. But Japan, like the United States, has kept ever larger numbers of spent fuel rods in temporary storage pools at the power plants, where they can be guarded with the same security provided for the power plant.
一些国家试图限制存储在核电站的核废料数量－－例如德国把它们封装在昂贵的容器里，tb则将它们发配到位于甘肃的沙漠里。但在日本，和美国一样，核废料大量地积压在电站的存储池里，它们在池子里受到和电站本身同样的保护。

Figures provided by Tokyo Electric Power on Thursday show that most of the dangerous uranium at the power plant is actually in the spent fuel rods, not the reactor cores themselves. The electric utility said that a total of 11,195 spent fuel rod assemblies were stored at the site.
东电公司周四发布的数据表明，福岛核电站内危险的铀大多存于核废料中，而非反应堆内。东电称电站内共有核废料封装１１，１９５块（下文会讲到每个封装内有数十支燃料棒）。

That is in addition to 400 fuel assemblies that had been in active service in reactor No. 1 and 548 in each of reactors No. 2 and 3. In other words, the storage pools hold more than seven times as much radioactive material as the reactor cores.
除此之外，１、２、３号反应堆内分别还有在役燃料封装４００、５４８、５４８块。换句话说，存储池里的放射性物质是反应堆里的七倍多。

Now those temporary pools are proving the power plant’s Achilles heel, as the water in the pools either boils away or leaks out of their containments, and efforts to add more water have gone awry. While spent fuel rods generate significantly less heat than newer ones, there are strong indications that the fuel rods have begun to melt and release extremely high levels of radiation. Japanese authorities struggled Thursday to add more water to the storage pool at reactor No. 3.
现在那些临时池子成了电站的achilles脚跟，在池子渐渐蒸干或漏光的同时，补水的努力也往往不给力。废料棒虽比新棒棒产生的热量少，但有迹象显示废棒子正在熔化并释放出极高的辐射。日本当局周四拼着老命给３号堆内的存储池灌水。

Four helicopters dropped water, only to have it scattered by strong breezes. Water cannons mounted on police trucks — equipment designed to disperse rioters — were deployed in an effort to spray water on the pools. It is unclear if they managed to achieve that.
四架直升机轮番浇水，但水却被大风吹散。警车上的水炮－－本来是用来驱散动乱分子的，现用来向池子喷水，不知道此招灵否 .
Richard T. Lahey Jr., a retired nuclear engineer who oversaw General Electric’s safety research in the early 1970s for the kind of nuclear reactors used in Fukushima, said that the Japanese authorities may not have entirely understood the importance of keeping cool the spent fuel. The zirconium cladding on the fuel rods can burst into flames if exposed to air for hours when a storage pool loses its water, he warned.
r t l, 曾于70年代早期任职于ge、负责类似反应堆安全的某退休男讲：日本当局有可能没有完全搞懂给核废料降温的重要性。当废棒棒的锆制包皮长时间裸露于空气中时（一科普文怎么给我翻得如此不纯洁），棒棒有可能起火爆燃。

When zirconium ignites, it emits extremely hot flames that warm up everything nearby and are very hard to extinguish, added Mr. Lahey, who helped write a classified report for the United States government several years ago on the vulnerabilities of storage pools at American nuclear reactors.
锆燃烧时的火焰极热，会烘烤周围的东西，并且非常难扑灭－－lahey讲－－该男几年前曾参与起草一个为美国政府准备的关于美国反应堆存储池缺陷的机密报告。

Very high levels of radiation above the storage pools suggest that the water has drained in the 39-foot-deep pools to the point that the 13-foot-high fuel rod assemblies have been exposed to air for hours and are starting to melt, said Robert Albrecht, a longtime nuclear engineer who worked as a consultant to the Japanese nuclear reactor manufacturing industry in the 1980s. Spent fuel rod assemblies emit less heat than fresh fuel rod assemblies inside reactor cores, but the spent assemblies still emit enough heat and radioactivity that they must be kept covered with 26 feet of water that is circulated to prevent it from growing too warm.
水池上极高的辐射水平意味着３９尺深的池子正在变干，以至于１３尺高的废料棒裸露于空气达数小时并开始熔化－－r a　讲，此资深男曾于８０年代给日本的核反应堆制造业作顾问。废料棒释放的热能虽比新棒少，但仍需储于循环水池中以免过热。

Gregory Jaczko, the chairman of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, made the startling assertion on Wednesday that there was little or no water left in the storage pool located on top of reactor No. 4, and expressed grave concern about the radioactivity that would be released as a result. The spent fuel rod assemblies there include 548 assemblies that were only removed from the reactor in November and December to prepare the reactor for maintenance, and may be emitting more heat than the older assemblies in other storage pools.
g j－－美国核能管理委员会主席－－周三曾发出惊人的断言：４号堆存储池的水大多已蒸干，他还对因此释放的辐射表示极为担忧。池内还存有５４８块去年１１月和１２月因４号堆检修移出的燃料棒封装，它们比其它老棒更猛。

Even without recirculating water, it should take many days for the water in a storage pool to evaporate, nuclear engineers said. So the rapid evaporation and even boiling of water in the storage pools now is a mystery, raising the question of whether the pools may also be leaking.
一般来讲，即使在缺乏循环水的情况下，池子里的水也须很多天才蒸干。所以目前池子在快速蒸发甚至沸腾的情况让人不得不怀疑池子本身是否在漏水。

Michael Friedlander, a former senior nuclear power plant operator who worked 13 years at three American reactors, said that storage pools typically have a liner of stainless steel that is three-eighths of an inch thick, and they rest on reinforced concrete bases. So even if the liner ruptures, “unless the concrete was torn apart, there’s no place for the water to go,” he said.
m f，某在美国三个反应堆工作了１３年的资深男讲：池子一般由高强混凝土加一厘米左右厚的不锈钢内衬构成，即使在内衬破裂的情况下，除非混凝土结构也毁了，否则不会发生漏水。

At each end of a pool are 16-foot-tall steel gates with rubber seals, used to swing fresh fuel rod assemblies into a reactor and to swing out and store the spent assemblies. The gates are designed to withstand earthquakes, Mr. Friedlander said, but could have sprung leaks given the power of last Friday’s quake, now estimated to have had a magnitude of 9.0.
池子的两端是１６尺高带塑封的钢门，新、老燃料棒由此进出。（翻得好黄）这些门均为抗震设计，m f 讲，但本次地震高达九级，有可能震出缝隙来。

Even if water gushed out of the gates, there would still be about 10 feet of water left on top of the fuel rod assemblies.
但即使钢制门有缝隙，池子里的剩下的水应该还能淹没燃料棒十尺才对。

Mr. Lahey said that much of the water probably just sloshed out during the earthquake last Friday. Much smaller earthquakes in California have produced heavy water losses from sloshing at storage pools there, partly because the pools are located high in reactor buildings to make it easier to move fuel rod assemblies in and out of the reactor themselves.
lahey 讲池水有可能地震中被晃出来，加州一些小得多的地震都曾把池水晃出来过，这和池子大多建于反应堆上部有关，这样的设计考虑到棒棒进出的方便。

"It’s like being at the top of a flagpole, and once you start ground motion, you can easily slosh it," he said.
这就象旗杆顶一样，地面稍有震动，上面就晃得厉害。

When the water in a storage pool disappears, residual heat in the fuel rods’ uranium left over from their time in a nuclear reactor continues to heat the rods’ zirconium cladding. This causes the zirconium to oxidize, or rust, and even catch fire. This breaks the seal of the rods, and pressurized radioactive gases like iodine, which accumulated in the rods while they were in the reactor, suddenly spurt out, Mr. Albrecht said.
池水消失后，废料棒内残留的铀仍持续发出余热，不断加热棒棒的锆包皮，导致锆发生氧化，也就是生锈，甚至会起火。包皮由此破裂（想想都痛）棒内聚集的高压放射性气体则喷涌而出。
Each rod inside the assembly holds a vertical stack of cylindrical uranium oxide pellets. These pellets sometimes become fused together while in the reactor, in which case they may stay standing up even as the cladding burns off. If the pellets stay standing up, then even with the water and zirconium gone, nuclear fission will not take place, Mr. Albrecht said.
废料棒里有竖直叠放的圆柱状氧化铀颗粒。在反应堆里时，这些颗粒有时会融合在一起，如果是这样的话，即使棒棒表皮被烧掉，这些颗粒还是会保持竖直状态。如 果颗粒保持竖直，即使在无水无包皮的情况下，核裂变也不会发生。albrecht 如是说。（lz说明一下：这里就是担心铀颗粒是否会撒成一地，你我紧挨着，从而超过临界，发生核裂变。）

But Tokyo Electric said this week that there was a chance of “recriticality” in the storage pools — that is to say, the uranium in the fuel rods could become critical in nuclear terms and resume the fission that previously took place inside the reactor, spewing out radioactive byproducts.
但东电讲存储池里有可能发生“再次临界“－－换句话讲，铀颗粒或临界、重启原来在堆内发生的裂变反应，释放出放射性副产物。

Mr. Albrecht said this was very unlikely, but could happen if the stacks of pellets slumped over and became jumbled together on the floor of the storage pool. Tokyo Electric has reconfigured the storage racks in its pools in recent years so as to pack more fuel rod assemblies together in limited space.
albrecht 讲，这是不大可能的，除非铀颗粒跳出来撒一地。
东电近两年改变了存储池格局以便在有限空间里储存更多的废料棒。

If recriticality occurs, pouring on pure water could actually cause fission to take place even faster. The authorities would need to add water with lots of boron, as they have been trying to do, because the boron absorbs neutrons and interrupts nuclear chain reactions.
如“再次临界”发生，灌纯水反而促进核裂变的发生。当局得在水里加硼酸，用以吸收中子，从而阻断链式反应。

If recriticality takes place, the uranium starts to warm. If a lot of fission occurs, which may only happen in an extreme case, the uranium would melt through anything underneath it. If it encounters water as it descends, a steam explosion may then scatter the molten uranium.
“再次临界”发生时，铀开始发热。如果大量的裂变发生－－只有在极端情况下才可能－－铀将熔化其下面的任何物质。如果熔出的铀和水会合，产生的蒸汽爆炸会把铀四处抛洒。

At Daiichi, each assembly has either 64 large fuel rods or 81 slightly smaller fuel rods, depending on the vendor who supplied it. A typical fuel rod assembly has a total of roughly 380 pounds of uranium.
在福岛，每个封装里有６４枚大棒或者８１枚小棒。一般来讲每个封装大约有３８０磅铀。

One big worry for Japanese officials is that reactor No. 3, the main target of the helicopters and water cannons on Thursday, uses a new and different fuel. It uses mixed oxides, or mox, which contains a mixture of uranium and plutonium, and can produce a more dangerous radioactive plume if scattered by fire or explosions.
３号堆现在是日本的心病，周四当局使用直升机和水炮重点抢险，该堆使用不同的燃料－－混合氧化物（mox）－－铀钚混合，爆炸时放出的辐射更高。
According to Tokyo Electric, 32 of the 514 fuel rod assemblies in the storage pond at reactor No. 3 contain mox.
东电称，３号堆池内５１４块封装中有３２块是mox

Tokyo Electric has said very little about the biggest repository of spent fuel assemblies at the site: 6,291 assemblies located in a common storage pool immediately inland from reactor No. 4.
东电对站内最大的存储池提及甚少－－紧临４号堆的公用存储池－－存有６，２９１块封装。

Japan had hoped to solve the spent fuel buildup with a large-scale plan to recycle the rods into fuel that would go back into its nuclear program. But even before Friday’s quake, that plan had been hit with massive setbacks.
日本曾希望能够将废料棒回收利用，但即使在地震之前，这一计划就已严重受阻。

Central to Japan’s plans is a $28 billion reprocessing facility in Rokkasho village, north of the quake zone, which would extract uranium and plutonium from the rods for use in making MOX fuel. After countless construction delays, test runs began in 2006, and the plant’s operator, Japan Nuclear Fuel, said operations would begin in 2010. However, in late 2010, its opening was delayed by another two years. A facility for making MOX fuel is also under construction.
日本回收计划的核心是位于rokkasho（震区以北）的耗资２８０亿美元的处理厂。该厂可将铀和钚从旧棒中提取，用以制造新的mox 棒。在经历无数拖延后，２００６年试验正式开始，处理厂运营方日本核燃料曾讲２０１０可以投产。但２０１０年底，工期再延两年。另外一个生产mox 的工厂也在建设中。

To close the nuclear fuel recycle process, Japan also built the Monju, a fast breeder reactor, which started running in full in 1994. But a year later, a fire caused by a sodium leak shut down the plant.
为了核废料回收，日本还造了monju 快堆（不知正确否，求高人科普），该堆１９９４年运行。但一年后因盐泄露引起大火而关闭。

Despite revelations that the operator, the quasi-governmental Japan Atomic Energy Agency, had covered up the seriousness of the accident, Monju again started operating at a reduced capacity, reaching criticality, or sustained nuclear chain reactions within the reactor, in May.
monju 运营方－－带政府性质的日本原子能局曾隐瞒该事故的严重性，后被暴光（好不幸啊！），尽管如此，monju 在裁减规模后再度上马，并于五月达到临界。

Another nuclear reprocessing facility in Tokaimura has been shut down since 1999, when an accident at an experimental fast breeder showered hundreds in the vicinity with radiation, and two workers were killed.
位于日本tokaimura（求高人讲解）的另一座核回收厂自１９９９年来一直处于关闭状态，该厂的试验快堆事故对邻近数百人造成辐射，两名公司身亡。

Many of these facilities were hit by Friday’s massive quake. A spent fuel pool at Rokkasho spilled over, and power at the plant was knocked out, triggering back-up generators, Japan Nuclear Fuel said. According to the Citizens Nuclear Information Center, an anti-nuclear NGO, about 3,000 tons of fuel are stored at Rokkasho. But the plant, built 55 meters (180 feet) above sea level, was spared from the destructive tsunami that followed the quake. Grid power was restored on Monday, the company said.
多家此类工厂在上周的地震中遭到冲击。位于rokkasho的某存储池水溅出，该厂停电，触发备用发电机，日本核燃料称。据核能公民知情中心称－－某反核 非政府组织－－大约有３０００吨燃料存于rokkasho.　但该厂因海拔５５米，得以逃过海啸。厂方称周一时供电已恢复。

本文翻完。

预告贴：米帝潜艇大战巨鲸－－０８年米最高院判决－－在线翻译系列之n
近日投放海军版和畅谈（同时投两版会不会被扣分？想赚点人气，lz 也不容易）