Quote Originally Posted by Andre View Post
Quote Originally Posted by fan johnny View Post
What I don't get is why they don't build the plants underground. It's just earth moving! So it won't really add much to the cost of burying the plant because they are encased in cement anyway. It just seems to me that it would be so much easier to build-in fail safes.
Good point. What about one step further and on the bottom of the ocean so that no end of cooling is right there when required.
I remember reading about a GE design, but it was a standard for a floating island. I did see a concept though. I think the type is the smaller versions rather than the land based ones. i.e. limited to a few hundred MW rather than 1000's, but chained. I think for them to be economical they have to be maintenance free. I'm not so sure about how they handle the waste. For underground facilities, they simply close the plant down after it is spent. I imagine they could in the future do something silly like launch rockets at the sun and have the spent rods just burn up as they are headed to the sun.