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Danger of Spent Fuel Outweighs Reactor Threat - NYTimes.com
At Daiichi, each assembly has either 64 large fuel rods or 81 slightly smaller fuel rods, depending on the vendor who supplied it.
A modern BWR fuel assembly comprises 74 to 100 fuel rods, and there are up to approximately 800 assemblies in a reactor core, holding up to approximately 140 tons[vague] of uranium. The number of fuel assemblies in a specific reactor is based on considerations of desired reactor power output, reactor core size and reactor power density.
This is a diagram of a single fuel assembly consisting of 96 rods in 4 bundles of 24 with the corner rod of a 5x5 array missing. The cut in the middle is not really there, it's to show certain internal structures of the arrangement.
The fuel rods are 4m+ long and very thin.
There are hundreds or these hundred-rod assemblies in each reactor core. As you can see the assembly has a hole at the top through which a crane's hook could grab the assembly in order to lift it out of place or lower it down into place. So, in what may be my last act of "advising", I'll advise you to cut the jargon. -- My old PhD advisor, to me, 26/2/11
Nuclear Wasteland - IEEE Spectrum
BLUE GLOW OF SUCCESS: Fuel assemblies cool in a water pond at the French nuclear complex at La Hague. The blue light is generated by Cherenkov radiation, which arises from a particle's traveling through a medium faster than the speed of light in that medium
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