The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

[ElwoodBlues1]

You need to update your knowledge base, water isn't part of the cooling system of modern nuclear because at high temperature and velocity water becomes hyper corrosive.

Old archaic designs fundamentally spend a huge chunk of there time managing and disposing of sacrificial anodes / cathodes to prevent the cooling water eroding critical components, coal and gas have the very same issue. For reference hot fast flowing water is even more corrosive than the molten salts being used.

But of course you must know this, because if your claims that modern thermal power generation needs lots of water were true then Solar Thermal would also be dead and buried here is Oz, but because it fundamentally uses the same molten salt technology harness heat energy as modern thorium or modular nuclear reactor designs it is viable.

Modern modular reactors are self contained and fully enclosed, they are referred to as nuclear batteries and are water free, much like the devices on aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines, space probes, etc., etc., the a standalone unit that can be swapped in and out of service with a standard crane. There are several projects running right now to improve the weight and mobility, so they can be dropped by helicopter or heavy lift aircraft into disaster zones restoring power in hours or days instead of weeks or months. The only difference between that emergency operation and suburban energy is scale, like a single battery versus a bank of batteries.

re: New Less water reactors....They are smaller lightweight reactors that produce less power so you need more of them, they also use different heat transfer mediums like Liquid metal, Helium and Molten Salt so you need to allow for supply of those items to your reactor as well as the supply of water you need to create your steam. They are really designed to be produced in factories modular style and then transported for 3rd world countries/remote areas who lack water and money...
Australia would be building them around the coast  near water supply and building them in safe areas to offset rising sea levels. You would expect Desalination and probably Hydrogen Production to also feature as part of any new builds and the latter of course feeds into greener energy solutions.
I'm in favour of nuclear energy providing its done right, not on the cheap and is Fully Australian owned, once foreign ownership is involved you will have issues with safety, maintenance and rising costs.
As Krud points out our population density is concentrated so I see no reason why we cant have a successful Nuclear energy setup other than lack of finances and finding a  Government willing to take the plunge and risk the backlash of protest votes that come with it..