If the alien nest was under the primary heat exchangers, wouldn't that mean that the aliens needed the heat for the eggs, etc? And in that case, why not just blow them up or turn them off so they freeze?
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I fail to see why people are trying to close this as "opinion-based" when there's a very good in-universe answer– ValorumCommented Jul 6 at 22:34
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A heat exchanger exists to transfer heat from something hot (a nuclear reactor, for example) to something cool (like a turbine). In the film damaging them resulted in the reactors overloading. Turning them off would, presumably result in the same thing happening.
RIPLEY: That's not what I mean. Gorman, if your men have to use their weapons in there, they'll rupture the cooling system.
BURKE (realizing): She's right.
RIPLEY: So...then the fusion containment shuts down.
GORMAN: (impatient) So? So?
BURKE: We're talking thermonuclear explosion.
It's not clear that the marines (donkeys led by bigger donkeys) have the intellectual capacity to safely turn off the reactors, nor that the Xenomorphs actually need the heat.
Ripley's suggestion is that the aliens may have noticed that being under the reactor is a safe place to hide. It's possible that this is because they're led by a super-smart queen or possibly just because they noticed that the colonists refused to use their limited supply of weapons near the reactor systems.
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Of course we know that shutting down a fusion reactor in almost any way, beyond possibly flooding the ignition chamber with fuel (but even then, probably), results in a dissipation of the plasma and little else. The reactor would simply quit producing heat. Fission would blow, fusion would not.– JohnHuntCommented Jul 8 at 1:07