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Question: Why aren't nuclear reactors built underground?
by 7373737373 4y ago
Question: Why aren't nuclear reactors built underground?
- blue1 4y agoCooling?
- m4rtink 4y agoAlso if you have any kind of groundwater a melted down reactor core might contaminate it.
- aerostable_slug 4y agoWell, you could put the containment completely underground, but you'd need to run your coolant of choice up to the surface (and you'd need air intakes for humans etc). You wouldn't need to with once-through water cooling using a large body of water, a river, or the ocean, but that's not allowed anymore. Note that reactor vessels themselves are sometimes at least partially underground in a reinforced concrete pit in the containment.
- api 4y agoCost and cooling would be my guess. I've always thought deep underwater would make sense, provided the containment was very good. You would never have to worry about a meltdown really since there's an unlimited heat sink readily available and the reactor could be constructed to passively cool itself through convection in a total failure / walk away scenario. Problem is that if you break containment water will carry all that nasty radioactive material everywhere. I'd look at ceramic fuel packaging such as pebble beds or sealed fuel rods that are highly water insoluble, then waste vitrification or encasement in highly water insoluble glass or ceramic materials.
- adgjlsfhk1 4y agoSalt water is awful and underwater construction is really expensive.
- api 4y agoWe know how to build nuclear submarines and run them quite well, and salt water is not worse than hot nuclear fuel. Nuclear power will never be easy on the materials side.
- adgjlsfhk1 4y agoNuclear submarines work well, but they're far from cheap (roughly 5 billion each). lots of that is for stealth and weapons, but it's rather naive to think that underwater nuclear reactors will ever be cost competitive with solar/wind + a battery.
- babypuncher 4y agoNuclear submarines are not expected to turn a profit over 30 years of operation
- petre 4y agoThey definitely turn a profit when your country is not attacked and destroyed by invaders, like it currently happens to Ukraine, a country without nuclear submarines.
- adgjlsfhk1 4y agothat's but relevant. this conversation was about using under water nuclear reactors for power
- aliswe 4y ago> I've always thought deep underwater would make sense, provided the containment was very good. You would never have to worry about a meltdown Until you have to. ;)