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“Ten years after removal of spent fuel from a reactor, the radiation dose 1 meter away from a typical spent fuel assembly exceeds 20,000 rems per hour. A dose of 5,000 rems would be expected to cause immediate incapacitation and death within one week.” (NRC, p. 7, 2002).
“The loss of cooling initiating event may be caused by the failure of pumps or valves, by piping failures, by an ineffective heat sink….Only three events exceeded 24 hours: the longest was 32 hours. In four events the temperature increase exceeded 20o F, the largest increase being 50o F.” (NRC, Hubbard, p. 12).
Hubbard, Collins. Technical Study of Spent Fuel Pool Accident Risk at Decommissioning Nuclear Power Plants. NRC. 2001.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission. NUREG/BR-0216, Rev. 2. May 2002.
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Judith Willothewisp Profoundly deaf, partly sighted, mother of four, PhD
The pools cooling system can fail, the water evaporate, the uncooled fuel rods then heat and as they melt they can catch fire. The exact chain of events varies with the types of fuel rods stored and exactly how they are engineered. Regardless, cooling pools can be a bigger source of potential catastrophe than the reactor core.
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Matt Osborne
Nuclear Engineer & Operator in the Navy & Commercial power
Spent fuel pools don't stop cooling the fuel, ever. If fuel is in the pool, it receives cooling. There are active cooling systems that provide cooling to the pool water, and these can fail. In this instance, the pool water does warm up, but the fuel is still being cooled by natural convection. If left completely unattended, eventually the pool will reach 212°F and begin boiling. No further temperature rises occurs while the water is boiling. Once the water boils away, only then does temperature rises further and create a risk of fuel melt.
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Stephen Ellis
Former Senior Manager at Luminant (company) (1982–2009)
Depends on how recent the last core change occurred, but the pool will heat up, and eventually boil down over weeks to months. As long as it is kept filled (a fire hose will do) not much. Letting the water level drop significantly will cause the radiation levels to rise significantly.