I just got my bottle of Potassium Iodide tablets on Saturday, and I'm in the USA (near Chicago). It's for my daughter, just in case. It replaces the old bottle

I just got my bottle of Potassium Iodide tablets on Saturday, and I'm in the USA (near Chicago). It's for my daughter, just in case. It replaces the old bottle I bought just after Fukushima. I see it as insurance to help her live a long and happy life. I hope it gets old and expires unused, like the last bottle. 8) The issue is keeping spent fuel and powered down reactors cool, which is a non-trivial issue. According to Wikipedia "About 1 hour after shutdown, the decay heat will be about 1.5% of the previous core power. After a day, the decay heat falls to 0.4%, and after a week it will be 0.2%. The decay heat production rate will continue to slowly decrease over time." So, if the plant was producing 57,000 Megawatts (full output), that's still 114 megawatts of heat trying to melt things after a week.