Underground Reactor Advantages

Underground Reactor Advantages

Underground sited. This scale was chosen so that the physical size allowed it to be factory manufactured and transported to the site,which is a significant potential cost reducer. . . .

- John Rawls, Chief Scientist at General Atomics

From the dawn of the Nuclear era, Edward Teller was deeply concerned about reactor safety. Teller favored underground placement of civilian nuclear power plants primarily for safety reasons. Indeed in his last paper Teller advocated underground placement of Molten Salt Reactors, although arguably MSRs could be designed to be safe enough to make further safety measures unnecessary. A further justification of underground placement of MSRs, would be that it would be consistent with low manufacturing costs and rapid reactor deployment.