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Nuclear Power Plant Cooling Tower Replacement

Put them a mile underground, have the steam stack condenser be a mile long.
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This would do two things:

1- Put the nuclear power plant underground to make it less scary (which has been proposed) and

2- Get rid of those scary cooling towers that people have on their "NO NUKES!" protest signs.

The idea is to replace the cooling towers with a steam condenser stack one mile tall entirely underground.

doctorremulac3, Jan 12 2025

Cooling tower mushroom cloud meme. https://images.app....l/1Ver5WamnNXBkw7Z9
One of many. [doctorremulac3, Jan 16 2025]

More deadly cooling towers. https://www.freepik...losion_59804952.htm
[doctorremulac3, Jan 17 2025]

[link]






       You're still going to have to get rid of that heat somehow. Also a mile underground is way too deep but fortunately your steam condenser doesn't have to be a vertical stack.
Voice, Jan 12 2025
  

       True, I'd be pulling air in from above to mix with the steam to cool it off, so it would be a loop. That cool air could be coming down through an inlet some distance away from the outlet.   

       The good news is that what that mile long tube would be lacking in features that a cooling tower has, it would make up for in just massive volume. A mile is a long way to go for something to hold its heat when it's being mixed with ambient air.
doctorremulac3, Jan 12 2025
  

       Geothermal might fight the cooling...
RayfordSteele, Jan 13 2025
  

       Insulate.
doctorremulac3, Jan 13 2025
  

       Do people seriously worry about the cooling towers on nuclear power stations?   

       This seems like a useful way of discovering people who you can totally ignore thenceforth.
Loris, Jan 16 2025
  

       Protest signs have featured a cooling tower with a mushroom cloud coming out of it. Really.
doctorremulac3, Jan 16 2025
  

       Maybe it's just a sort of visual synecdoche.
Loris, Jan 16 2025
  

       I think that the nuclear industry would benefit from a concerted approach to improve it's image - I'm sure they think they've already done this, but if you guys are having this discussion then it's likely that they subcontracted it to the lowest bidder.
normzone, Jan 17 2025
  

       Agreed. I know it's stupid, but cooling towers have been used as fear mongering propaganda for so long, I think it's time to get a bit silly and replace them. They are very tall and scary and they can be replaced with less scary looking methods, albiet, maybe not as effecient, but if these aren't gonna get build because of public opinion maybe it's time the industry turns down the engineering mindset and turns up the salesman and packaging mindset a bit.   

       For instance you could just flatten the things and have it look like a massive warehouse district or something. Lots more money and kind of dumb, but sometimes acting dumb is a smart move.
doctorremulac3, Jan 17 2025
  

       //Maybe it's just a sort of visual synecdoche.//   

       For those like me who don't know what a synecdoche is, I looked it up. A synecdoche is a type of metonymy.   

       You're welcome.
doctorremulac3, Jan 17 2025
  
      
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