"and the decay heat from these products requires continuous cooling for weeks even after core shutdown. That cooling process also must be human managed and actively powereed."
My understanding is the reactors currently under construction in the US are being built with passive fail-safes that make them much safer than the 1960s/70s reactors. Is this incorrect?
Modern passive heat-removal systems are limited: the ESBWR mentioned on that page -- one of the most "advanced" -- has about 72 hours of heat-absorption capacity. [0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Simplified_Boiling_Wa...
`one of the most "advanced" -- has about 72 hours of heat-absorption capacity.` That is still a pretty decent "oh shit" buffer. I imagine Fukushima or Chernobyl would have benifited from 72 hours extra to get their act together.
Well, I'm not sure. Chernobyl isn't relevant because its issue was one of supercriticality (milliseconds, explosions), not decay heat (hours, gradual melting). In Fukushima, there actually were passive systems, not as sophisticated as ESBWR, and some failed instantly (a steam injector in reactor #1). And IIRC off-site power too a lot longer than 72 hours to restore, but I don't know if the explosions contributed to this. I'm not a nuclear engineer so I can't meaningfully assess this. But there is data here.
As a curiosity, ESBWR is actually a direct descendant of the BWR/3 at Fukushima, from the same designer (GE Nuclear). Not a scare tactic: I'd be pretty happy living next to an ESBWR.
So 72 hours = 3 days would be not enough alone, but I also don't know how the other actions had made the situation better or worse.
The first seconds/minutes are the most critical and after 72 hours the residual heat is down to a level which can be much more easily handled.