[PapaBear3625]

they aren’t trying to save the plants, they sacrificed them when they started dousing them with sea water. They don’t know what to do. If it were as simple as pouring concrete on them, it would already be done.

You CAN'T pour concrete on them yet. You have to cool them off first. Concrete is a thermal insulator. If you put concrete around it, the inside will get hotter and hotter.

[RC one]

This is going to end badly I think. I hope I’m wrong. It seems pretty hopeless though. Abandon hope all ye who enter here.

[CharlesWayneCT]

Even Chernobyl wasn’t “encased” in concrete, there are boreholes into the core, and they have filtering and cooling; and that one had already blown up.

[maine-iac7]

When I suggested they just dump concrete on ‘em, like Chernobyl - you said “You CAN’T pour concrete on them yet. You have to cool them off first. Concrete is a thermal insulator. If you put concrete around it, the inside will get hotter and hotter. “

You’d better tell them quick - ;o)

“TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese engineers conceded on Friday that burying a crippled nuclear plant in sand and concrete may be a last resort to prevent a catastrophic radiation release, the method used to seal huge leakages from Chernobyl in 1986.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/18/japan-nuclear-plant-_n_837596.html