6d ago

China considers nuclear plant on the Moon

www.bangkokpost.com

14 comments

Just make sure it doesn't turn into another Jamestown situation.
- maybe this is how we establish Lunar Thanksgiving

Do we have reactors that would work properly (or, my bigger worry, whose safety systems will work properly) in such a low-grav environment? I assume they don't mean the type that use heat from decay like old probes
- Every safety system I can think of with nuclear power would work in low gravity environments as you don’t want to risk pieces of equipment getting stuck or going only 9.8 m/s so pressurized fluid, springs, and magnets are used. The concern I see is how you shed waste heat without an atmosphere

🎼We're mutants on the moon...

For fucking what? Lol
Hey, let build an insanely expensive energy plant to build on earth that takes decades to construct and build it on the furthest land mass humans have ever traveled to. Oh and the land mass is like always exposed to direct sunlight, but fuck solar panels. Double oh oh AND the land mass has like zero protection from any fucking flying outerspace debris that could destroy it all.
- It depends where you are on the moon, if you are not on the poles you will have almost 15 days of darkness.
  Sure, solar panels are also a good option, but nuclear makes more sense in space than it does on earth, since costs to transport stuff into space are much higher, probably even higher than the power plant itself. So it makes sense to use the fuel with the highest power density.
  And it's not that big of a deal if it breaks and spreads radioactivity, since you are exposed to lots of radioactivity on the moons surface anyway and the population will be much lower than here on earth.
  That doesn't mean that nuclear on the moon will always make sense, but it is less stupid than you might think. Building new nuclear power plants for power production on earth is stupid though imo.
- Do they need to protect it from anything ? There is no atmosphere on the moon and cosmic radiation is already there.
  
  I honestly don't know how the moon's physics work but it does appear to be covered in giant fuckin craters. So I was assuming there isn't much to stop something from smashing into the nuclear power plant once constructed and causing potential fallout risks.

Actually planning to live on the moon. Still didn't get my hoverboard.
- I guess it's not that different from permanently living in a fallout shelter.

14 comments