So long as you keep in mind my “knowledge” of this sort of thing is what any “hairy-knuckled” company tech rep has to pick up to do their job........
From my, (admittedly spotty/old/basic) understanding of LW reactors rod exposure doesn’t pose a “greater danger” so long as they are below the cladding’s melt/burn point. Exposure attenuates the slow neutron reacton. Indeed, one cooling solution might just be to inject/spray liquid CO2 on the exposed rods - provided the thermal shock won’t create more problems.
What TECO really needs is to get access to the containment and circ/cooling pumps/valving. With this they could control residual heat via the condensors without any serious environmental penality.
I think whats hard for many - even those in the industry - is the massive amounts of residual heat that has to be dealt with after “scramming” one of these units. >PS
Good points, but it is official now that melting of fuel has occurred. The Japanese officially admitted that on Monday. And with more aftershocks coming, we are way beyond TMI. In fact we have 3 TMI events along with an entire reactor core in #4 laying in a pool of water exposed to the atmosphere. And you wont believe the latest bad news about number 4. The spent fuel pools structural integrity is now questioned and they are backing off on the amount of water they have been dumping into the pool.