Comment by cyberax
1 day ago
They don't materially affect the cost of a nuclear power plant. Cooling towers or evaporating ponds are not expensive. Coal and gas power plants also use them.
You just can't easily retrofit them onto an _existing_ power plant.
If they were essentially free all plants would be built with them. Evidently they are not free.
> If they were essentially free all plants would be built with them.
Pretty much all the new thermal power plants are (including biomass-burning plants), except in places where cool water is not scarce.
It's weird to glomp onto that idea, as if it's some kind of a fatal flaw of nuclear power.