As the title says; why can’t we just melt down the old fuel rods?
What would happen if we did melt them down?
Couldn’t we mix/contaminate them with another element to dilute the radioactive effects?
Most reactors work by heating water and turning turbines, why can’t we turn the spent fuel pools into a slow running reactors rather then using energy to keep them cool?
In: Physics
Spent fuel is extraordinarily radioactive. Also it’s not like a single solid material. You have zirconium cladding, which is the shell. Inside is fuel material, the ceramic fuel pellets. But you also have fission products, you have radioactive gasses, and all sorts of nasty stuff as a result of the random process of splitting atoms.
The radioisotope inventory is ridiculously high in the fuel rods. Melting them means breaking the zirconium shell that prevents lethal amounts of radioisotopes from escaping.
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