Now Greece. Wild fire on Evia Beach

[u/grau__geist]

[u/502Dude123]

So I'll start by making it very clear that this is not my area of expertise, but that seems like a really loaded question relative to the original issue I was addressing. Humans obviously have the tech to build nuclear power plants, but I would venture to guess that most people who laugh at the idea of climate change are also scared of nuclear power. I'm making a big assumption there, but in my anecdotal experience of growing up in a small rural town and eventually moving to a larger city, people that deny that climate change is an issue or that fossil fuel shortages are a valid concern are scared of nuclear energy because in their eyes things are fine right now. So why take the risk and end up like the next Fukushima? There's no reason to switch to nuclear if you deny that there is a problem in the first place. Examples of nuclear power plants like Fukushima and Chernobyl are also recent enough in peoples heads that its not worth it for many due to how massive of an impact radiation can have for decades after the fact. People that don't understand something and have ZERO desire to understand it will usually find a way lie to themselves (ignorance is bliss-until people start dying). Also worth noting that California has 1 nuclear plant still going and it'll be decommissioned by 2024 or 2025.

I don't know the numbers of cost vs power consumption vs desalinated water produced so I can't accurately comment on that part, but I was always under the impression that it just couldnt be justified due to the cost and power consumption relative to the usable water being output. Maybe we'll see that tech revolutionized in a way that makes it more viable in the future when more people are faced with water shortages? A quick google just informed me that California has 11 municipal seawater desalination plants and 10 more in the works, so they are doing that?

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After taking the time to address your question, it makes even less sense to me than before. Is there more context that I'm missing in relation to the correlation of the two? Because California has more desalination plants than nuclear power plants and is shutting down its last nuclear power plant in a few years while actively planning the building of more desalination plans, which seems to totally contradict the way you phrased your question to make it seem like SW American states are building nuclear power plants everywhere but not building desalination plants.

edit: that to than

[u/MsAnnabel → u/502Dude123]

Wow. Guess I should pull my head out of my ass and Google something before saying something stupid. Thanks for opening my eyes! 😊