It would certainly help if the water reservoirs weren't so empty because they could serve as giant batteries. But maybe a water source or desalination could hel

It would certainly help if the water reservoirs weren't so empty because they could serve as giant batteries. But maybe a water source or desalination could help. The "engineering calculations" are so extremely simplified that I would call them wrong. You need a lot of water for nuclear plants btw. to conduct away the heat. And especially in that dry regions with insane amounts of space solar energy would outcompete nuclear on every possible metric and it isn't close.