>>507288105>A nuclear meltdown is basically a fire, but the fuel is radioactive material. That shit gets released as radioactive smoke and soot and then gives off radiation into whatever it lands on or washes into for decades. Absolutely not that’s only if there is graphite
The fuel itself doesn’t burn it... MELTS
It’s metallic or ceramic and doesn’t not burn in oxygen
Graphite as I explained does burn because it’s basically coal
And if the coolant is water it can turn into steam (anything next the to fuel becomes radioactive from being hit by radiation)
However a reactor doesn’t have to use either graphite or heavy water, for instance you could just use hafnium carbide and sodium coolant and it wouldn’t release any gas or vapor or smoke during a meltdown
If it’s the case that all commercial reactors use graphite then sure that’s a problem, I don’t keep up and didn’t look up the most widespread designs
Graphite is super cheap and so is water (or even heavy water to a degree) so it wouldn’t surprise me if most used these things
In which case yeah they release smoke and vapor that is radioactive if they melt down
Could be fixed by designing the core to rapidly self disassemble, can’t meltdown if the fuel isn’t tigjtly packed