@ Anon 411:
Shutting down a nuclear reactor is a standard, well-rehearsed process. The problem is the spent fuel cooling tanks. If they dry out then zirconium fires could result. The problem is minimized by the fact that most of the spent fuel in the tank is cool enough to be pulled out to dry storage. The “hot” fuel can then be re-distributed in the water so there’s no real need to circulate the water through a cooling unit. Hot fuel also cools down fairly quickly. From people I’ve talked to, and others have posted, it’ll be a problem solved for the most part. Just pull the cold rods, which are the vast majority, and lay them on whatever horizontal concrete surface is available once all the dry casks are used up. The entire plant will become a dead zone but not the surrounding area.
Remember that the technicians and operators of a power plant live near that plant. They don’t want their communities destroyed by a zirconium fire, so action will be taken to prevent it and damn the regulations. This can be done with resources on hand and fairly quickly.
However, there is always the chance of human error. A few plants are bound to go bad, but not enough to wipe out life in general. The radiation plumes from those few plants are what I’m talking about. If you’re still cautious, take a look at a map of reactor locations and simply choose to be west of the Mississippi river in the US.
Civilization will come back, as humans are a very inventive lot, and a lot of libraries are going to be intact because people like you will take special efforts to preserve that knowledge. It’ll take a couple of generations after the die-off before “points of light” capable of manufacturing critical things such as batteries, solar panels, greenhouse glass, and rubber tires emerge and distribution networks start to form again. The only reason this will be sustainable will be the substantially reduced population. Migrations toward the poles will have to take place because the warming pulse is baked into the cake at this point.