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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database
Houston Geological Society Bulletin
Abstract
Abstract: Gulf Coast Salt Domes: A Potential Underground
Space Resource for the
Nuclear
Renaissance?
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By mid-century, 200 or more new nuclear
power plants could
be deployed in the U.S. to meet the growing demand for
electricity. The conventional approach would be to site these new
reactors at the earth's surface. An alternate approach would be to
site them underground. Past studies of underground siting indicated
a number of safety and security advantages, and no insurmountable
engineering problems, but an
almost certain cost increase resulting
from underground construction.
However, a new concept for underground
reactor siting—the underground
nuclear
park—has the potential to actually reduce
cost relative to surface siting. Massive salt
deposits, both bedded and domal, are a
potentially favorable rock type for hosting
underground
nuclear
parks. The shallow
piercement salt domes in the Gulf
Coast sedimentary basin should be examined
for this application. The idea would
be to site an array of
nuclear
reactors,
each within its own sealed and isolated
chamber, hundreds of feet deep inside
one or more salt domes.
Nuclear
waste management facilities
supporting the reactors would be collocated nearby and connected
to the reactors by tunnels. Energy conversion equipment
could be either underground or at the earth's surface. The heat
transfer fluids that move through the reactor cores would be isolated
from the earth's surface using heat exchangers. If underground
nuclear
parks in Gulf Coast salt domes should prove
feasible, then they could be used to supply baseload and peaking
electricity, and possibly hydrogen, to the region and nation analogous
to oil and gas today.
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