Reply #312: a single fire hose

[divvy]

As the pools in Japan heated up due to the loss of fuel pool cooling, evaporation from the pool increased... water level dropped without any makeup water... when the spent fuel was uncovered, temperatures of the cladding rises rapidly boiling off remaining water... fuel and racks fail. It is my belief that a single fire hose adds sufficient water to keep the fuel pool full avoiding any pool boiling and fuel failure. That is what our emergency procedures said anyway... The worst case accident at a storage pool is that the fuel would melt to an extent that the boron in the storage racks would be insufficient to prevent a localized critical chain reaction. This could generate sufficient heat to melt through the pool liner or explode (hydrogen or just rapidly expanding steam bubble). In BWR spent fuel pools, there is no boron in the pool water... only in the racks. It is the excess moderation