Fort St. Vrain ran the reactor cooling pumps off of process steam, but had lots of problems with steam leaking through the bearings and contaminating the coolan

Fort St. Vrain ran the reactor cooling pumps off of process steam, but had lots of problems with steam leaking through the bearings and contaminating the coolant. Electric pumps don't have that problem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_St._Vrain_Generating_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_St._Vrain_Generating_Stat... Running some kind of heat engine off decay heat should be possible, but it would be very different from the primary turbines, (You probably couldn't use it during normal operating temperatures, but it'd still have to be connected to the coolant circuit) have to be nuclear rated, (expensive!) and only be used in an accident scenario where you lose external power and the diesel generators are then destroyed, or run out of fuel.