Would having underground nuclear power plants, those that are beneath the earth's surface, be safer?

Question

Would having underground nuclear power plants, those that are beneath the earth's surface, be safer for us in case of nuclear fallout or other complications? Because I am writing a paper on possible energy alternatives and I know that they supposedly test nuclear weapons underground because it is safer to do it that way?

Answer 1

no because if there was a reactor blow it would make the ground shake and might cause an earthquake and because of the nucular waste.

Answer 2

no no no!the guy above talked about the storage of old fuel.god he is so wrong. they store the old fuel in concrete buildings with no doors for years. on plant sites. i know i work for one.

Answer 3

Pretty much yes, but if the meltdown or release radioactive material it could contaminate underground water supplies.  

Contaminated groundwater is just as bad as fallout, since it poses a risk of internal radiation exposure.  When radioactive material is one stuff and outside of the body, the skin does a pretty good job protecting the body.

Answer 4

Good grief.   Everyone just assumes nuclear is dangerous or is somehow related to bombs.  Not even close.

The major negatives of nuclear power (even if it is considered a negative) is what to do with the spent fuel rods.  Currently in the Unites States, we have no ability to deal with them so they sit in underground water pools on the reactor sites.  is that really safe?  Hmm, I would argue not really.  During the 1970's, President Carter did away with anything that had to do with spent fuel reprocessing because he did not want any more Plutonium production (a by-product of processing spent Uranium fuel rods). Of course, there is Yucca mountain in NV that is slated to hold spent fuel but I doubt that will ever open.  Too much politics and fear mongering involved.  France and Great Britain are *way* advanced compared to the US when it comes to nuclear power.  They currently have state-of-the art reprocessing facilities where the spent fuel rodes are processed and recycled, so to speak, into different waste types that are more manageable.  I personally think nuclear power is the way to go in the future. Oil is limited, expensive and is creating major pollution problems including global warming.  Our European colleagues have demonstrated that nuclear power can be operated safely and efficiently.  The technology is there, we just need to implement it.  Problem is-you have lay people, lawyers, etc. in congress making technical decisions where they don't understand the science and engineering behind their decisions.

I'm off my soapbox now.

Answer 5

In case of a all out nuclear explosion, yes.

But this would an unprecedented disaster: there has been no such explosion ever and it is unlikely there will ever be one given there are considerable safety measures in place at nuclear power plants. Also, a nuclear reactor is not a bomb: it may overheat but it is not designed to explode like an Atomic bomb.

The famous Chernobyl accident involved an explosive release of overheated steam from the reactor cooling system, not an explosion of the nuclear fuel itself.

One of the main problems of nuclear power is disposing of the spent nuclear fuel, which is no longer radioactive enough to efficiently produce power, but is still dangerous.

All the longterm solutions that I know of being proposed or under construction involve storing this waste underground.

If it were that simple, the problem would be solved by now. The containers must survive without leaking for thousands of years, the site must be extremely low risk for eathquakes and there can be no underground water systems which could become contaminated.

Only half a dozen known places in the world meet all of the above requirements.