> In addition to the needed nuclear materials for the reactor itself, there were/are at least 89 tons of used rods, "hot" enough that they need to be constantly

> In addition to the needed nuclear materials for the reactor itself, there were/are at least 89 tons of used rods, "hot" enough that they need to be constantly cooled, stored on the Reactor 3 site. There's no need to put "hot" in quotes, it's not a synonym for anything, it means the spent fuel is literally hot as in temperature. It is true that the reason they are hot is because of ongoing heat generation from the fission fragment/decay products in the spent fuel. But that is an issue at literally every other uranium-fueled PWR or BWR reactor. They all need to be cooled until the decay heat finally dissipates. Failing to cool the fuel rods would not turn them any more radioactive than they already are. Rather, the loss of physical fuel integrity once the fuel melts would release the existing radioactivity into the spent fuel pool (which essentially means the nearby air, since the fuel pool would not have water in it by definition in this scenario). Luckily it's the easiest thing in the world to avert this; just keep water on the fuel rods, and there is no problem. You can even avoid circulating the water if you wish, the boiling water will remove heat just fine (but in this case you must still pour more water in to maintain the level). The loss of full containment is certainly unfortunate, but it's nothing more than that. It's certainly better than having the entire reactor core assemblies dumped out straight into the ocean, but even that would not be the disaster implied by many if you run the numbers.