Like renewables, much of the cost of nuclear is in construction - unlike renewables, this has gone up not down over the years.
> Of course the coal companies won't like that.
This is a fairly important reason why it's not going to happen in Australia.
Does it? Article says this new reactor is helium cooled and vents heat. No mention of water cooling.
The system described in the article punts the "how do we use the heat this system outputs" to some other facility/plant. It could use the heat directly in a variety of industrial processes, or it could be used to boil water for a steam turbine.
They don't all work that way.
The reactor is helium cooled. Their own collateral (https://usnc.com/mmr-energy-system/ ; annoying scrolljacking) shows shipping the heat to e.g. industrial process use or electricity generation - but for generation, you'll need a standard steam turbine + condenser setup. Which consumes water for cooling the condenser.
Also from their web page:
> FCM® fuel cannot be re-processed using currently available reprocessing schemes.
They list this as a nonproliferation benefit, but it has downsides.
So it's non-functional without a methane industry tuen. Got it.
Water or salt or sodium sounds more sustainable.
Not always. The Palo Verde nuclear plant in my state is in the middle of the desert far from any body of water, and also the largest in the country in terms of net generation.
> The nuclear plants need to be built near water, which means they're likely to end up near habitation.
Would seawater work? Does Australia have any "vast swathes of uninhabited land" near the sea?
> Like renewables, much of the cost of nuclear is in construction - unlike renewables, this has gone up not down over the years.
IIRC, a big reason why nuclear plants cost so much to construct nowadays is that most reactors designs aren't produced in quantity, like they used to be.
The thing is that nuclear is expensive by itself, anything you increase makes it less desirable.
Anyway, AFAIK, nearly all of the uninhabited land on Australia is inside the continent. It's much easier to deploy solar and wind there than anything else.
Local (to me) example: Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant killed all the abalone in its discharge cove during its first hot run due to the increased water temperature. There were so many that before the plant the spot was known to locals as "abalone cove". You could rock pick to your heart's content and not even need a wetsuit. On the other hand, they do have rather fascinating sea life in that cove due to the higher temps there vs. the cold Pacific just a few feet away (they used to have a show-and-tell marine biology lab onsite for visitors to check out). Anyway, to relicense DCPP, the plant would likely need to switch to cooling using the signature big towers people associate with nuclear plants, which is obviously a titanic effort.
personally I feel this is untrue. its done out of convenience; but from an engineering/infrastructure standpoint there isn't a reason we can't condense the steam that gets pumped out of the towers.
That's what the water is for!
Turbine systems follow the Rankine cycle, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rankine_cycle , which includes a condenser. The water circulating is a closed loop. The steam you see coming off cooling towers is the external water which has been used to condense the circulating steam.
The water is a source of "coolth".