2010/11/24-Comment (3) of Aladar Stolmar on FR Doc # 2010-27164

See attached file(s) Consideration of the zirconium-steam reaction and the ignition and intense firestorm in nuclear reactor fuel rods is well overdue. Reevaluating the evidence provided by the TMI-2 reactor accident, Chernobyl-4 reactor accident, and Paks Unit 2 fuel washing incident, with consideration of this intense fiery process, will bring us closer to an ultimately safe nuclear power plant design. For a brief look into the benefits provided by such an effort I am providing two quotes: 1) ( http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/commission/secys/2004/secy2004-0224/2004-0224scy.pdf ) The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission stated: "Because the Paks incident resulted in conditions more severe than a traditionally analyzed loss-of-coolant accident, yet the fuel remained well below any melting temperature (i.e., it was coolable), this project appears to have the potential to provide significant insights to fuel behavior under accident conditions." 2) ( http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/TDL-002_web.pdf ) The OECD-IAEA Paks Fuel Project Final Report describes the final state of the fuel rods ... It is a much overdue duty of NRC and IAEA to evaluate the evidence provided by the TMI-2 accident, Chernobyl-4 accident, Paks-2 incident, and related experiments. Evaluating this evidence, one can see that the ignition of the zirconium fire in the steam occurs at a local temperature of the fuel cladding of around 1000-1200°C, [[and that a self-feeding with steam due to the precipitation of eroded fuel pellets and zirconia reaction product from the hydrogen stream into the water pool, causes intense evaporation.]] There are insignificant differences in the progression of the firestorms that occurred in the TMI-2 reactor severe accident, Paks washing vessel incident, and Chernobyl-4 reactor accident; the later defined onl