Is it because the lack of infrastructure that they can’t deal with it on the offset of a nuclear meltdown? Or that the resources needed to maintain the reactor needs to be efficiently sent?
In: Engineering
Some of it is infrastructure, (especially having a lot of nearby emergency services), some of it is that nuclear power plants need to be near large bodies of water for cooling and large cities tend to be near water, and some of it is because long-distance power transmission is inefficient and costly, so having power plants closer to population centers is cheaper and more efficient.
NPP are incredibly safe so building near cities is not an issue.
Power is best used as close as possible due to losses and costs.
Cheaper and more efficient to have the user of power close to the generator. Electricity does not like travelling 1000’s of miles. Long a a high voltage line in your area and see how much land it takes up. Now imagine 10,000 miles of that land.
All of the above. Construction is done where engineers find works best. This will factor in labor, construction costs, available land, regulations, relations with the local government, access to water, and so on.
Most of these things improve near civilization. Often, cities or at least towns also form around major economic engines like a large powerplant.
Because electricity is needed where people live. And transporting electricity over hundreds of miles is actually a total pain in the ass and more expensive.
It’s WAY easier to generate electricity close to the people that will be using it, than to try and transfer it from really far away.
You lose electricity the further you are from the source.
Also, wires to transport electricity are expensive and need maintenance.
So it’s better to have local power generation
You also need a fairly sizable labour force to operate a plant. Not exactly a tonne of qualified people in the middle of nowhere
Why would you want to build a power plant in the middle of nowhere? Just like any other business we want it to be close to the employees and the customers
To start with, nuclear is banned in australia. There’s been a lot of discourse in the past week about lifting the ban and building power plants but it’s a smokescreen to distract from the money our politicians are funnelling to fossil fuels.
As a result of the ban, there aren’t any scientists or engineers in Australia capable of putting a power plant together and keeping it functional. There hasn’t been any training or research or infrastructure towards nuclear power because it’s just not possible in this country under the current laws.
Even if the ban were to be lifted and we miraculously got the right people to get it done, it would take 15+ years to get one functioning at this point.
And as we’re a country rich in fossil fuels, there’s never been any reason to stray from mining and selling, up to and including the climate crisis.
Because there are far more dangerous things to worry about; the last nuclear meltdown was Fukushima Daiichi. One death was directly attributed to the event and that was a worker in the plant. The one before that was Chernobyl which resulted in 78 deaths.
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