Why don't they just build reactors deep underground?

James Randi - Sun, 21 Oct 2018 09:48:58 EST OuVlsNVB No.79259

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Why don't they just build reactors deep underground?

Maybe this is a dumb question. But I'm going on my annual wikipedia dive on nuclear disasters.

If they built all of these like 500m below the surface and covered in heavy rocks or concrete/steel wouldn't most of the effects of a total melt down be contained by the ground?

It seems like the worst part of a subterainian melt down vs one on the surface is there is probably a mini earth quake in the area.
But in my mind it seems most of the fallout and radiation would be contained, you only have to worry about ejected materials and chuncks i suppose?/
And as long as your reactor isnt near any fault lines i dont see any real danger.

Also after a melt down it seems itwould be much easier to fix the problem if its in a giant hole in the ground vs sitting in the middle of a russian village.

IDK, educate me internet.

>>	James Randi - Sun, 21 Oct 2018 09:50:21 EST OuVlsNVB No.79260 Reply I also realize as i post this from the pics of the chyrnobl reactor it was just below the surface. like a big swimming pool basically. But I mean why not put the entire facility under ground?

George Pinningsodge - Mon, 22 Oct 2018 00:17:38 EST dl9lAnzN No.79261 Reply

>>79259
The answer is threefold
1.) Building nuclear reactors is already a tremendously hard undertaking
2.) Building anything underground significantly increases the difficulty even if it is a normal structure
3.) During the time period when nuclear reactors were conceptualized, popularized, and disseminated, few nuclear accidents had happened, and understanding of the risks was low. If you look at the actual technical details of what caused the chernobyl accident, it was phenomenally stupid, and this tremendous comedy of errors had to combine to allow it to happen.
Combine all those with the fact that nuclear power proliferation was subsidized by governments as cold war proxies and its easy to see how cheap, easy, and fast outweighed safe, secure, and cautious.

In the future, we'll use thorium if we use nuclear reactors at all, so it's moot in general. Now we know better, but it won't do anything for all the reactors currently in the world, which were built when we didn't.

>>	James Randi - Mon, 22 Oct 2018 09:56:08 EST OuVlsNVB No.79262 Reply >>79261 Ok that answers why they don't do it. But if they were to build a normal uranium/plutonium reactor but underground do you think it would increase saftey in a melt down or no?

George Pinningsodge - Mon, 22 Oct 2018 15:23:36 EST dl9lAnzN No.79263 Reply

>>79262
Absolutely, it definitely would, as long as you secured the water table. It would prevent atmospheric release of radiation, which was the main problem in the chernobyl disaster. However, the radiation would still be there, which means clean up after an accident would be basically impossible.

Also, be sure not to do it near any volcanoes or potential volcanoes. While the good news is throwing tons of radioactive stuff into the core of the earth won't hurt it (that's actually where the vast majority of our planet's radioactive isotope reserves are) but radioactive waste can survive the condition of being molten indefinitely, so even if there are nearby hot springs, that radiation could find its way back into the atmosphere in a dramatic way.

Nigel Gocklestidge - Tue, 23 Oct 2018 01:53:27 EST J6LHHhkZ No.79265 Reply

>>79263

>as long as you secured the water table

Is that possible? During a meltdown, underground might be immediately safer for the surrounding pop but a single earthquake might release that radiation at a later date. Perhaps in an area devoid of seismic activity you would find success.

(from https://www.quora.com/Where-in-the-world-are-there-no-earthquakes#)

Continental shields occur on all continents, for example:

The Canadian Shield forms the nucleus of North America and extends from Lake Superior on the south to the Arctic Islands on the north, and from western Canada eastward across to include most of Greenland.
The Amazonian (Brazilian) Shield on the eastern bulge portion of South America. Bordering this is the Guiana Shield to the north, and the Platian Shield to the south.
The Baltic (Fennoscandian) Shield is located in eastern Norway, Finland and Sweden.
The African (Ethiopian) Shield is located in Africa.
The Australian Shield occupies most of the western half of Australia.
The Arabian-Nubian Shield on the western edge of Arabia.
The Antarctic Shield.
In Asia, an area in China and North Korea is sometimes referred to as the China-Korean Shield.
The Angaran Shield, as it is sometimes called, is bounded by the Yenisey River on the west, the Lena River on the east, the Arctic Ocean on the north, and Lake Baikal on the south.
The Indian Shield occupies two-thirds of the southern Indian peninsula.

>>	James Randi - Tue, 23 Oct 2018 10:36:51 EST OuVlsNVB No.79266 Reply Dude, lets find a volanoe and plant a basic breeder reactor on it and then hold the entire world hostage threaten to let it melt down causing a nuclear super volcanoe!!!

>>	pupress - Thu, 25 Oct 2018 15:56:28 EST zIWwxqOY No.79267 Reply >>79266 theres atleast one natural fission reactor. i think the okla reactor is estimated to be 1.7 billion years old

>>	pupress - Thu, 25 Oct 2018 15:57:16 EST zIWwxqOY No.79268 Reply >>79267, i dont speak africanese its oklo

Wesley Drittingman - Thu, 01 Nov 2018 11:32:34 EST Yu1bjA5h No.79271 Reply

Do you think nuclear power companies are going to lobby for more safety regulations or do you think they are going to do everything in their power to cut corners and raise profits?

You think that without the government _requiring_ plants to be built underground that a single plant is going to be built underground?

Wesley Drittingman - Thu, 01 Nov 2018 11:41:02 EST Yu1bjA5h No.79272 Reply

>>79271
Only way this happens is if the government requires it or specifically pays for one to be built underground. They aren't interested enough in the environment to spend extra money on that.

Also the other dude raises a good point that it really should not explode if you implement decent inspections/regulations and keep Homer Simpson out.

Still, they really should be built underground or something because when it does fuck up it's really bad

>>	Molly Blythehall - Mon, 12 Nov 2018 13:49:02 EST gQhNThnz No.79274 Reply >>79261 How true is everything i hear about thorium? Why isn't it used everywhere?

Doris Chittingford - Wed, 14 Nov 2018 00:40:43 EST dl9lAnzN No.79276 Reply

>>79274

>>Why isn't it used everywhere?

It's a more advanced technology that isn't as fully developed, so everything about it costs more. And, even if it were at the same economy of scale, an individual unit of fuel costs more, since it must be transmuted from thorium to uranium first. The only savings are in safety and waste concerns, and those are long term costs which people like to ignore in favor of short term ones.

James Randi - Fri, 30 Nov 2018 07:03:01 EST OuVlsNVB No.79289 Reply

>>79276
This is just my understanding, I could be wrong. It seems mainly because were stuck with the old reactors because they cost so much to build that we more or less have to use the old ones for a long time until they've paid for them selves or outlived their usefullness or economic sustainability.

Then also the whole industry is standardized around the old technology. So to switch to a new one would be like a major format shift that the entire industry would need to adapt to, and it just costs too much money.
Also you would need to train a whole new generation of nuclear power plant operators on a new type of reacor. Where I imagine that most of the work is still on old reactors, why train for the new ones?

Lydia Bunfuck - Thu, 06 Dec 2018 03:29:38 EST 96grgyjN No.79294 Reply

>>79265
Power generation can't occur solely in one specific place. It's decentralized for a reason: power transmission is not an efficient process over massive amounts of distance. It's the same reason the old "why don't we just build massive solar arrays in the Sahara to power the world" trick won't work. It's not enough to generate the power, you have to wire it to the locations that consume power. Resistance, even for highly efficient conductors like copper wire, plays a big role in determining the power grid and its constituents.

>inb4 someone wanks over wireless power transmission/tesla

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