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What Hesla said
Also, the rods are going to be hot for the next 3 million years, but At least by emerging them in coolant (and now sea water), it allows the heat to be dissapated safely.
Theoretically, the only way to safely stop a the fuel rods from over heating is if you can break them up into smaller pieces (like the green rod size from the opening of the simpsons) so that the individual pieces produce managable levels of heat. However, you can't do that with today's technology without exposing people to lethal amounts of radiation
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