Would it make sense to build a nuclear power plant on the moon to power the first lunar colony?

Answer 1

Yes, it would be a lot cheaper than solar power (which even on earth and without needing battery backup is the most expensive power source, far more expensive than nuclear) and given that it is dark for 14 days out of 28 on the moon and that you'd like to be able to actually do things in the base during the night having a power sources that doesn't require light is a very good idea. Most of the places we'd want to put a lunar base happen to not be in perpetual sunshine.

The battery capacity that you'd need for solar power on the moon (which realistically would be about 10 times what you'd actually need since you want the batteries to last) is going to make a reactor look like a bargain (and you can use local materials on the moon for shielding, just bury the thing under a few metre of regolith).

Nuclear power has proven to be safe and reliable on Earth so I don't see any reason to oppose using it in space.

Oh and on the moon you'd probably use a Helium cooled graphite moderated gas turbine reactor, very efficient and no water needed as well as being impossible to melt down, you'd probably also have a few small reactors instead of one large one.

As for fusion, I wouldn't worry about it (He3 is very much overrated anyway, you'd be better off just working on D+D fusion and replacing the reactor walls every few years) and we aren't likely to have it working in anything but gigantic reactors by the time the first moon base comes on line. It might be a viable solution later on though.

Answer 2

The incident at 3 Mile Island, Chernobyl and probably the movie the China Syndrome made them doubt the safety of nuclear power plants. The United States Navy has been operating nuclear power plants for over 50 years without a single incident, but all they can remember are 3 Mile Island, and Chernobyl.

Answer 3

Assuming you could ship the materials over and would have need of a lunar colony, then i suppose if no other viable forms have power have been developed then yes, however, by the time we are sufficently developed to enable a lunar colony, then its likely fusion will have been discovered, and it will liekly be this form of power that would be used in any subsequent colony, for its greater power output and smaller amount of waste

Answer 4

Yes. And the best news is that it will be cleaner and safer than what we are used to on earth. The moon is loaded with helium 3 (2 protons and a neutron), much rarer on earth, which can be used as a fuel in a nuclear fusion reaction with deuterium (one proton and one neutron) that produces almost no radioactive waste.

Actually, helium 3 is such a good fuel that there are plans to bring it back to earth from the moon.

Read for yourself:

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/helium3_000630.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3

And to all those who say that there is no water on the moon, that is very wrong. Robotic surveyors like Clementine have found large supplies of water ice in the permanently shadowed parts of lunar craters near the moon's poles.

Read for yourself:

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/ice/ice_moon.html

These discoveries, and the discovery of large deposits of titanium on the moon are the reason for the renewed interest in returning to the moon. Check out these titanium deposits:

http://www.lunarrepublic.com/atlas/titan_map.shtml

edit* - I see that this is a very unpopular area. The "no" answers are getting thumbs up, this one, as of now, the opposite. Sorry. We're talking about the holy grail of energy: clean, efficient fusion. To the naysayers, you may like to know that your radiation risk on the moon will not be coming from the nuclear power plants. It will be coming from the sun. The sun's rays as of now are a deadly radiation threat to astronauts away from earth for months or years at a time. Read for yourself:

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/lunarshield_techwed_050112.html

Answer 5

No. Solar panels are way cheaper.

With a solar constant of 1.5kW/m^2 a few hundred square meters of high efficiency cells will be enough to power a station.

And did I mention that you would need a larger area radiator array just to cool your reactor than you would ever need area for solar panels? No?

Well, maybe it is time you think about the thermodynamics of a reactor and why they come with these giant cooling towers or are built next to a river. Ain't no rivers on the moon as far as I know... and no air for cooling towers, either...

:-)

Answer 6

Nahhh. you'd have to loft the fissionable material up there, provide shielding, etc - much easier to put up solar panels. There's no weather to worry about, and if you build your collectors on the lunar poles, you'd have 24 sunlight.

Answer 7

sorta like asking 'should the USA have only one type of power plant?'

hey, why not have solar panels, and a fuel cell for nighttime while we start an experimental nuke plant?

Answer 8

No.

Solar panels are not only cheaper, they are an off-the-shelf item.

No matter how much helium is available on the Moon, the technology does not yet exist to use it. I would love to see this fact change.

Answer 9

Not really since there's no water there you would have to ship it from earth. A solar energy collection field would make more sense.

Answer 10

solar power is the way to go in fact we should be doing that on earth