EVEN if you lose coolant to spent fuel pools, the heat generated is much easier to contain than a reactor with fresh fuel.

Proving that the quoted party has absolutely not the slightest understanding of nuclear reactions and cannot be taken seriously. New fuel rod assemblies are only mildly radioactive and throw off negligible amounts of heat before being placed in a reactor. Exposure to the neutron flux of the chain reaction transforms this relatively harmless mixture of a few different compounds into a witches' brew of unnatural radioisotopes of varying half life. That's how it turns into what they call HIGH LEVEL NUCLEAR WASTE.

Apparently your education in nuclear physics and thermodynamics as provided by Fox News, your business or law school, or your own imagination had a few holes in it. People with no understanding of science are unqualified to make life or death decisions regarding its use.

If you lose the coolant in a spent fuel pool, the fuel elements melt, drop to the bottom of the pool, and coalesce into globs that can reach critical mass, known as prompt criticality. As opposed to prompt stupidity. In other words, intermittent nuclear chain reactions resume in the dry fuel pool , which is now exposed to the open air. As is happening right now at Fukushima.

You can't argue with facts. If it's such a huge risk....then why aren't there more incidents? If it's SUCH a huge risk, then why can't you quote anything other than Chernobyl (which happened 3 decades ago), 3 Mile and Fukushima? If it's SUCH a huge risk......then as I said. What exactly is your solution for ridding us of this evil/harmful energy sector?

After having all of your "facts" demolished, simply shift the argument to whatever you want to argue about and make me responsible for stating alternatives to a disastrous and failed energy policy that seems to be making home grown catastrophes inevitable as the Energy Department rubber stamps license extensions of plants that have exceeded their calculated design life.

You lose.

The AP reviewed tens of thousands of pages of government and industry studies, alongside interviews and inspection reports that go back to the 1970s. As a result of the analysis, the AP says that are led to believe that the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has regularly lessened restrictions as the NRC repeatedly argues that “safety margins could be eased without peril.” The AP responds that not only is the safety of much of America in danger, however, but the investigation also says that billions of dollars are at stake—as well as around one-fifth of America’s electricity supply.
Many of the problems that the AP identified could eventually lead to a nuclear disaster of epic proportions. Their report says that “thousands” of problems linked to aging were uncovered, including many instrumental components of facilities in less-than-stellar condition. In one example, it notes that leakage seeping through busted valves can today exceed up to 20 times the original limit. And as problems abound, the AP notes that no single official body in government or industry has studied the frequency in breakdowns in recent years while all the while NRC has extended licenses on dozens of reactors. The report says that 82 of America’s operating reactors are more than 25 years old, with 66 units having been re-licensed for an additional two decades. The report argues, though, that many of these facilities were built with the intention of new, updated facilities replacing them long before they would reach this condition.