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Comment by umvi | Hacker News Reader

...why not just have a nuclear reactor to provide an infinite heat source? Submarines at the bottom of ocean have more shower time than south pole stations.

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Did not work out previously.

https://www.wired.com/2011/03/0304antarctic-nuclear-plant-mc...

http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2014/ph241/reid2/

Seems like at the time it was a primitive and poorly executed affair. We could do much better this time.

"why not just use a nuclear reactor" might be the most insane "why not just" I've ever seen in my life. :D

Come on, nuclear is not black magic. There are nuclear reactors in submarines and carriers, so why not at the polar station.

This was less a comment objecting to the idea of a nuclear heat source, and more that "why not just" is a comment that fails to account for all of reasons the experts involved probably considered but decided not to "just" do that.

Why not just a nuclear reactor is a huge version of this, because obviously there are a lot of additional expenses and concerns when you deploy a nuclear reactor anywhere.

And of course the small detail that they had a reactor a McMurdo, got rid of it because it was less reliable than fueled generators, and had a massive cleanup mess to deal with because the damn thing leaked.

Yeah, sure, let's just throw a billion dollar reactor using high enriched uranium which requires tending 24/7 at every single problem.

Why not just use a lithium-water furnace?

Antarctica is a big place, maybe not at the South Pole, especially sitting on a thick ice sheet.

But there must be several areas of geothermal power. The idea is to make no changes, or to mine resources, but if there’s wind turbines set up, near McMurdo, that has concrete footings.

Pole has very little wind and the bedrock is 2 miles below the ice.

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