Idle speculation from someone who is not a nuclear or a chemical engineer:
I'm suddenly wondering if the pressure relief valves for the primary coolant system could be designed with ignition circuits. The idea would be to burn off any hydrogen in a controlled fashion as it exits the coolant system, rather than giving it a chance to accumulate and later detonate. It would be similar to the way oil rigs burn off unwanted natural gas.
No doubt there's some very good reason for not doing this that I'm just not aware of. :-P
By the point you're producing hydrogen, you're already well beyond your design limits...
Moreover, they've already lost primary, secondary, and tertiary power, so what exactly is going to run those ignition circuits? A gas flame near the reactor is just trading one source of explosion for another. And if they _did_ have power, they'd be running the primary (or secondary) coolant loops, and wouldn't have any hydrogen gas generation.
I'm suddenly wondering if the pressure relief valves for the primary coolant system could be designed with ignition circuits. The idea would be to burn off any hydrogen in a controlled fashion as it exits the coolant system, rather than giving it a chance to accumulate and later detonate. It would be similar to the way oil rigs burn off unwanted natural gas.
No doubt there's some very good reason for not doing this that I'm just not aware of. :-P