I love it ~ you did the perfect job on deriving the correct answer (from the perspective of the hot nukes school of thought).
I'm sure the fella's at Fukushima are going to be so happy to hear it's just their imagination.
So, regarding the "zircalloy" containers ~ when they're all busted up and this stuff is just lying about being fissile, why are you pouring water on it? Like I asked, did anybody ever try this trick out before?
No, I never said that. I very patiently explained the physics of why there was no thermonuclear reaction occurring, which is what you suggested as a heat source.
Sure, it was done after the damage to the TMI-2 core. You need more than randomly distributed fissile material and light water to initiate a fission reaction (other than spontaneous fission, which you're going to get anyway). Read up on reactor theory and the criticality equation and get back to us.
The light water is being used for heat transfer. The goal is to remove the decay heat from the materials in order to develop a plan for, first, inspecting the damaged systems, and, second, to come up with a way of recovering the materials in a way that will allow either restoration or decommissioning of the facility (TBD).