A question about nuclear power

I am a huge fan of The Walking Dead...I don't really believe that there will ever be a "zombie apocalypse"..but if something were to happen to the world, how long can the nuclear power plants go without someone to attend to them. How long before a meltdown..

Can they safely be turned off if people have time to prepare for the "end of the world"...??

reply to post by Neopan100


That depends on the design of the plant, in terms of how long it'll go on its own.
And from what I remember being told about them, they will auto shut down if not actively maintained by people.

Here is an interesting documentary called AFTERMATH : Population Zero, which explores the idea of what would happen to the planet in the unlikely event that we all just vanished It answers your question quite well, basically every nuclear plant would suffer a somewhat Chernobyl-type failure after about 1 week, which would result in a virtual "doomsday shroud" of radiation over large geographic areas.
The part you are interested in begins at about the 25 minute mark.