Comment by koakuma-chan

Would environmental damage be a big deal if the reactor exploded? It seems odd that people care very much about nuclear power plants, but relatively little about nuclear submarines, which are just smaller power plants.

The USS Thresher was lost at sea when it sunk below its test depth and imploded. I wonder if there was any damage whatsoever from the fallout. https://youtu.be/g-uJ1do3yV8?si=CLFS80oo564PKouo

Also the USS Scorpion if I remember correctly.

If the environmental effects don’t matter, then I’m surprised it’s ever been a big deal in the first place. Also slightly surprising that we don’t have nuclear sub-sized power plants powering neighborhoods or cities.

I guess one big difference is that any nuclear sub accident would be located far from populated areas. But has there been any studies of how bad the fallout from one of these smaller reactors could be? If it’s 1/100th the size of Chernobyl, it seems like the maximum damage could be 1/100th of Chernobyl, which may or may not be a sufficient buffer.

Someone downthread joked about using nuclear powered submarines to transmit electricity back to the mainland, but it seems plausible to build a nuclear sub sized reactor offshore (just the reactor, no sub) while enjoying the safety benefits that this class of nuclear reactor apparently has.