can anyone explain to me why cooling water is an issue for nuke plants? In areas with less water, can’t a coolant fluid be used with a compressor and fans powered by the reactor to cool the system down?
It would reduce energy yields but my intuition says the energy cost for cooling would be negligible compared to production.
Also, can’t coastal water be used for plants near oceans?
I just don’t understand how cooling is an issue.
Away from the coast you can do dry cooling with almost no water, going straight to air. It's just more expensive so it's not done often.
from this article:
https://monarchpartnership.co.uk/nuclear-power-water-consump...
In retrospect, bad planning.
You could build air-cooled power plants, but it's more expensive.
https://www.powermag.com/air-cooled-condensers-eliminate-pla...
You could build water-cooled systems with extra capacity, so that when the water in the river gets warm in the hot summer months, it would not cause problems for the for the cooling system. But it's more expensive than a capacity that is designed to be just-so.