Why do fuel rods have to be cooled for so long after being not actively used anymore?
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The moment the reactor is switched off the fuel rods will continue to produce heat at about 6% of full power level. Sounds like not so much but this amount of heat will easily melt up the core in a couple of hours if not cooled away constantly. This residual heat comes from the radioactive decay of the freshly produced isotopes of the spent nuclear fuel, the fission products. There is no known physical process to stop radioactive decay so we need to wait a couple of months to happen this the natural way.
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