[patmorgan23]

> > If there is not enough of a flow of cooling water, the rods can overheat, and the entire facility is at risk for a nuclear meltdown.

> This is not true. Water is the moderator in a light-water reactor. Without water the reaction will stop. Water is both the coolant and the moderator, unlike the Chernobyl reactors, which used graphite as the moderator.

If what you're saying is true then the Fukushima reactors would not have melted down. It's important to remember that there's not just one nuclear reaction going on there's the initial fission of the uranium fuel, and then there's several following radioactive decays that generate heat as well.

Even spent fuel rods that have been removed from reactors for years still have to be kept in a chilled storage pool.