Resistance against hydro, I still understand. I don't get why putting Nuclear energy in the middle of Mojave desert is problematic. Surely, there must be ways to work around the environmental impact as many developed nations produce nuclear energy
I think most commercial nuclear reactors require craptons of cooling water because they aren't that efficient in fact. (When you use water to regulate fission, the temperature can't get much higher than ~100C.)
So, putting them in the middle of a desert might be problematic.
I wonder if there's any current commercial ones that are more efficient? Theoretically we can greatly improve efficiency by using high-temperature designs, but good luck building an unproven new design of reactor these days...
There is the Israeli nuclear research plant in the Negev desert, but presumably that doesn't require the kind of continuous cooling you need for a normal nuclear power plant.
France has been known to throttle it's nuclear power generation (they have tons) in the summer because the water in the nearby lakes that they use for cooling gets too hot.
