1: If the Spent Fuel Pools have Boron built into their structure could the melting of those rods after the water boiled out of them in the first few days have damaged the means by which the boron was held in place? If so, and the Boron was exposed, could the addition of water have washed the boron out of the tank and created those criticality spikes that have been reported?

2: As the news was reported, there were the flood of reports that the Japanese were flooding the reactors with sea water. Initially I did not see any mention of the addition of Boron. I asked about that on this board and had three messages pointed out to me that confirmed that Boron was injected into the reactors in question. One of the news releases said that the Boron was injected AFTER the sea water. That again suggests that by flooding the reactor with sea water they were flushing the boron out of the reactor (Creating a criticality situation and then adding boron). At the very least they were accelerating the melt down via their actions.

(Once the fuel rods melt, it is assumed that the Boron control rods would have melted, too and that the boron would go into solution in the reactor water where it still might scarf up fast neutrons to prevent criticality. Flush that water with sea water, and you dilute the amount of boron in the reactor. Add boric acid after the flush, and you are too late to have undone the damage that you did by adding the sea water.)

I still question how effective boron is when it is in solution and the uranium is in a puddle at the bottom of the reactor. Very little boron is in solution in close proximity to the uranium.

NHK reported planned boron in seawater before the first seawater operation was carried out. I can only confirm that.