Nope. These reactors can be placed anywhere. They used air cooled condensers, which is only possible whe nyou have higher temperature heat than conventional light water reactors in use today. It's 350 degrees C versus 600 degrees C. So you can stick these in the desert no problem.

> The nuclear plants need to be built near water, which means they're likely to end up near habitation.

Does it? Article says this new reactor is helium cooled and vents heat. No mention of water cooling.

Conventional nuke plants don't consume a ton of water for cooling. I believe (definitely not an expert) that any water used for cooling is kept in a closed loop system. The vast majority of the water consumed by a nuclear plant (or any thermal power plant) is used by being converted to steam, which is then used to spin a turbine (though some percentage of that water can also be reused by condensing it in cooling towers, as described in the article).

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.

This is correct. See my comment downthread about the Rankine cycle. As well as a source of heat, for efficient electricity generation you also need a source of "coolth".

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.

I think it's fair to say a nuclear power plant "uses" the water that it discharges its waste heat into as it flows out into a river or large body of water. If it didn't use that water, it would have to dump its heat somewhere else.

> it discharges its waste heat into as it flows out into a river or large body of water

They don't all work that way.

> Article says this new reactor is helium cooled

So it's non-functional without a methane industry tuen. Got it.

Water or salt or sodium sounds more sustainable.

>The nuclear plants need to be built near water

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.

For those like me who wondered how it cools: it evaporates municipal sewage.

Hey that's one way of reusing water. Two birds with one stone. Somebody has to deal with that shit.

So it's still near a town/city then?

>> 1. Vast swathes of uninhabited land can absorb some of the risks/fears associated with a nuclear accident

> 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.

Note that in some areas, environmental regulation prevents once-through water cooling because wee-small creatures that go through the plant are killed. The outflow may also be problematic.

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.

Seawater is more expensive to work with, but it does work. You can almost no water too, it's just some more expenses.

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.

> The nuclear plants need to be built near water, which means they're likely to end up near habitation.

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.

> condense the steam

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".

i know what the water is for i'm saying there is no need to release the steam and have to pump additional water for cooling; you can also use radiators to cool water down etc. as i said the additional water and steam stacks are a quick and easy method for cooling when a water source is nearby. there are other options that can be used when water isn't available.

the SMR reactors are designed to be created in a factory, and shipped to the site. Each one will use an identical plan for the local site construction, and should greatly reduce construction costs, and get rid of all the red tape around getting each site design approved.

That sounds great, but it's still very much in the future tense. Australia probably ought to install a lot of solar panels in the six years until that's projected to be ready. I will believe cheap nuclear when I see it.