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by numpad0 606 days ago
Off topic question. Can a large nuclear reactor be completely air-cooled? I think a full-scale reactor cluster expelling hot jet upwards and providing air conditioning in form of negative static pressure to its surrounding megalopolis would be very cyberpunk.
1 comments

Air doesn't have much thermal mass, so you'd have to move a lot of air through the heat exchangers to make it work. It's probably possible, but there's much more viable alternatives. In particular, you can use wastewater to cool plants where water is scarce: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Verde_Nuclear_Generating_...