How do you make safe, cheap nuclear reactors? Bury them a mile deep

Re:How do you make safe, cheap nuclear reactors? Bury them a... by shagie on Tuesday August 27, 2024 @02:05PM (#41370755)

> the dam doesn't bleed radioactive particles into the atmosphere

I would urge you to look at https://xkcd.com/radiation/ and compare the lines:

    Living within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant for a year (0.09 µSv)
    Living within 50 miles of a coal power plant for a year (0.3 µSv)

https://isnap.nd.edu/assets/255639/radioactivity_lecture_18....

https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/... (which concludes with "Thus, Malaysia needs to consider the possible future study of radiological impact from airborne routine discharges of coal-fired power plant.")

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09698... - "Detailed studies on naturally occuring radionuclide emissions due to a 2420 MW coal-fired power plant in Malaysia."

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I'm personally much less worried about the radioactive materials from a uranium nuclear power plant than I am from coal or bad decisions on how to dispose of radioactive waste products.

We'd likely lower our radioactive footprint by completely switching from coal power to uranium.

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Re:How do you make safe, cheap nuclear reactors? Bury them a... by cesarb on Tuesday August 27, 2024 @02:42PM (#41371214)

The parent comment is not comparing coal and nuclear. The parent comment is comparing hydroelectric dam failures with nuclear power plant failures (on normal operation, neither nuclear power plants nor hydroelectric power plants leak any significant amount of radiation into the atmosphere).

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