Why can't nuclear power plant be built underground or in mountain cave to stave off safety concerns?

Answer 1

You probably could and it would help to reduce some of the safety concerns but there are some limits to that solution.

1) It would be much more expensive and take much more energy to build such a plant. If it takes too much energy to build it there really would be no point.

2) There are not mountains everywhere you might want to put a nuclear power plant.

3) Most areas of the country get some of their water supply from underground wells and if you were to have a nuclear accident in an underground plant you would have a pretty good chance of ruining the water supply. It can take some nuclear materials up to 10,000 years to decay to a safe level of radiation so you might ruin the water supply for 10,000 years.

4) Many of the byproducts of a nuclear accident are gasses and the gasses could escape from even an underground plant and contaminate nearby areas.

Answer 2

Because some people believe that nuclear power is not safe, NO MATTER WHAT. Such people do not care if the reactor is in a mountain, they will still oppose it. The new designs, and even many older designs, are quite safe, even when built on the surface. But the anti nuclear crown will just not accept that, instead assuming than any reactor has a chance of blowing up just like the poorly designed and operated Chernobyl reactor. And even if you can convince them the reactors are safe, they will say that there are still unacceptable dangers from radioactive waste, terrorist sabotage, increased availability of material that could be used to make a bomb, and so on.

Answer 3

It would cost an incredible amount of money to create one in such a place. It would be slightly safer as it would be distanced from cities but in the case of an accident, explosion, etc. the mountain would not prevent radioactive particles from spreading into the atmosphere.

Answer 4

Even if it is built away from site the danger from an explosion and/or other saftey risks still exists so by building it undergroud or in a cave they would be spending more money for no reduction in risk.

Answer 5

They can its juts too expensive. An dteh risk analysis tells us that teh extra money spent to avoid teh tiny ris k of a major catastrophy would be better spent on otehr social problems

Answer 6

You need to be near a massive source of water. It is the boiling of this water that produces the energy and not the reaction.

Answer 7

This is a very good proposal..Anyway this way I feel very unsafe with nuclear stations even if my country,Greece rejected nuclear energy.

Answer 8

most of the actual reactors are underground, however they need lots of water to cool and this is some where some of the unwarranted fears are based (water contamination).