Japan to fill leaking nuke reactor with sea water
http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFTKZ00680620110312
(snip)
“We’ve confirmed that the reactor container was not damaged. The explosion didn’t occur inside the reactor container. As such there was no large amount of radiation leakage outside,” he said.
“At this point, there has been no major change to the level of radiation leakage outside (from before and after the explosion), so we’d like everyone to respond calmly,” Edano said.
“We’ve decided to fill the reactor container with sea water. Trade minister Kaieda has instructed us to do so. By doing this, we will use boric acid to prevent criticality.”
Edano said it would take about five to 10 hours to fill the reactor core with sea water and around 10 days to complete the process.
Edano said due to the falling level of cooling water, hydrogen was generated and that leaked to the space between the building and the container and the explosion happened when the hydrogen mixed with oxygen there.
That's good they're tossing in the boron, but the use of sea water indicates the move is a last resort. The chloride in the seawater is really going to cause the H2 generation to jump.