[chimera]

Those were actually very detailed, exhaustive, comprehensive tests that provided a wealth of information previously not known. What you are reading on that link are very abbreviated summaries, almost a bullet point-like list. You'd have to go to the actual technical reports to get a full flavor for the depth of the studies.

I have used the RELAP and RETRAN codes developed as a product of these studies and I can tell you they are very, very comprehensive and robust in their methodology and data base.

There has also been a lot of research lately in fission product release which isn't in the public domain (yet). A lot of it was done post-9/11, but some precedes it when it was thought that either RDD or IND were possibilities for sub-national group use. Some of it was done at Battelle labs and I worked with someone who was involved with that. I can't tell you the details, but, in a general sense, fission product release from damaged fuel is only a fraction of the total inventory. You really need to do a lot to get all those fission products out, things like chemical dissolution, or heating almost to the point of vaporization, which is not within the realm of even a worst-case LWR accident. Cladding damage? Yes, probably. Fuel pellet drop? Maybe some. Fuel pellet melt? Very unlikely. Vaporization? No way.

[Errant]

You really need to do a lot to get all those fission products out, things like chemical dissolution, or heating almost to the point of vaporization, which is not within the realm of even a worst-case LWR accident.

I remain cautiously optimistic that you may be right here.

Cladding damage? Yes, probably. Fuel pellet drop? Maybe some. Fuel pellet melt? Very unlikely. Vaporization? No way.

What happens when you have an entire fuel load sitting in an unconfined, open container, such as the fuel storage pools. If you get enough melting and subsequent reactions going on in these storage areas, couldn't this grow until vaporization begins to occur?