Seeing that they need quite a lot of clean water, which is not widely available everywhere during the entire year in big amounts, especially with these droughts due to climate change.
Seeing that they need quite a lot of clean water, which is not widely available everywhere during the entire year in big amounts, especially with these droughts due to climate change.
There’s many different nuclear reactor designs
For the traditional ones that require lots of cooling water, oceans are typically used so they don’t suffer from droughts. If you actually need fresh water you have desalinization available, and nuclear power can power that.
There are more self-contained designs, as you would see on ships.
They’re also some hands-off designs that generate low amounts of power over a long period of time used for remote installations.
Would the hypothetical nuclear fusion power plant require less water? And do you think that when we finally find out how to do it, a fusion based design will become widespread?
You’re asking me to speculate about a hypothetical. Depending on the type of nuclear fusion that actually comes to be … maybe.
Regardless of the fusion process itself, which might require prodigious amounts of heavy water or maybe even normal water I don’t know.
There’s what do you do with the heat, so in a traditional power plant, you generate heat, the heat is used to create steam, and the steam is used then generate electricity or do other types of useful mechanical work. This could be a closed circuit design, but it might be easier to have open circuits if you have available water. But once the water, steam has done the work, you might have to recycle it recapture it, cool it down. IE evaporative towers…
Could you build a nuclear power plant, or even a fusion power plant, that runs in the desert? Yes probably. Would it be more expensive than the equivalent plant near water source? Yes of course…
Ah, that you for your detailed response
Look at Helion. Their tech is kinda great and shows a lot of promise. Their fusion implementation dispenses with the whole “boil water to spin a turbine” method of power generation entirely. They rely on induction and the strong magnetic flux that the fusion process releases to directly convert the fusion process into electricity. Honestly, is is pretty genius. Further reading: Their patants Technology Review article
Fusion designs currently require a ton of water for cooling (first wall and divertor) beyond what is needed for electricity production.