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.

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ViewTrick1002 3 hours ago | parent [-]

If they were essentially free all plants would be built with them. Evidently they are not free.

	▲	cyberax 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> 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.