# Problems at the Japanese nuke plants: Why hydrogen explosions?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/problems-at-the-japanese-nuke-plants-why-hydrogen-explosions/574680>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 14, 2011, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/problems-at-the-japanese-nuke-plants-why-hydrogen-explosions/574680 "2011-03-14T18:08:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\
**Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/problems-at-the-japanese-nuke-plants-why-hydrogen-explosions/574680/1 "2011-03-14T18:08:30Z")

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As I’m sure most of us are aware by now, there have been a couple of hydrogen explosion at the [Fukushima plant](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42056237/ns/world_news-asia-pacific/).

But why hydrogen? It takes a great deal of energy to split water molecules to obtain elemental hydrogen, so where is this hydrogen coming from? Does this have anything to do with the sea water with which they’ve been trying to cool the reactor cores, and with the salt content of that water? Or do the neutrons crash into the water molecules and break them up?

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**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\
**Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/problems-at-the-japanese-nuke-plants-why-hydrogen-explosions/574680/2 "2011-03-14T18:10:08Z")

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[http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13569042&postcount=53](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13569042&postcount=53)

Saw this explaination in a sister thread.

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**Author:** ![AndrewL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@AndrewL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AndrewL)\
**Post date:** [March 14, 2011, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/problems-at-the-japanese-nuke-plants-why-hydrogen-explosions/574680/3 "2011-03-14T18:10:15Z")

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Most likely the hydrogen is being produced when water reacts with overheated zirconium fuel rod cladding. The oxygen reacts with the zirconium to make zirconium oxide, and the excess hydrogen is released.

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**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\
**Post date:** [March 15, 2011, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/problems-at-the-japanese-nuke-plants-why-hydrogen-explosions/574680/4 "2011-03-15T23:57:25Z")

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Thanks for responding; I forgot to come back here until now.

As a matter of fact I did read that yesterday, after I posted, in a newspaper article about the incident.