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Comment by LatteLazy | Hacker News Reader

With advances in long distance power transmission, I don't know why theyre not being build on desert coasts. Does anyone know?

The Singapore-Australia line is about the se distance as a Western Sahara-UK line would be...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia%E2%80%93ASEAN_Powe...

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I believe that it may be partly due to the workforce required to keep the plant running. It will be very difficult for the workers to provide a good life to their families or education to their children in some remote location on a desert coast.

Sure they do this ok the oil rigs - long periods away from family, all that. I presume you could set up a similar arrangement

I'm guessing you don't just want geological stability, but also political stability where you build nuclear plants. Northern Africa, and occupied territories in general, aren't the greatest of places to put important industry.

> I don't know why they're not being build on desert coast

If we talk about Western Sahara, those coasts are strategic areas for the economy of the planet and many big companies operate there.

My bet is that anybody enough silly to treat the huge fisheries, strategic maritime routes moving oil and raw materials, and the touristic areas adjacent in the Canary Islands, EU just with the purpose to build one nuclear plant would be sued to death and buried in a coffin of law papers. The boycott level would be insane.

Probably for the reason renewable energy plants are not built there [1]: Problems of politics and stability.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desertec

I would assume that transmission adds costs, and nuclear is already economically uncompetitive before you add that extra overhead.

Transmission distance adds capital costs, maintenance costs, and transmission losses; plus, nuclear tail risks aren't narrowly localized, so you don't get much mitigation with distance, especially if the distance simultaneously puts in a less securable, including political stability, location.

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