Coal plants need a lot of water, also. Both coal and nuclear make power the same way--boil water, use the steam to run a powerplant. Nuke is set a bit cooler

Coal plants need a lot of water, also. Both coal and nuclear make power the same way--boil water, use the steam to run a powerplant. Nuke is set a bit cooler for safety reasons and thus uses a bit more water. And note that the safety numbers (coal roughly 1000x as dangerous) are based on current standards, it used to be much worse. As for PV + battery--get back to us when we have the batteries and the safety numbers involved. We don't, the comparison can't even be made. The closest we can come is solar + wind backed up with gas--something for which I have never seen the safety numbers. Note that the need for multiple generators makes this option a lot more expensive than straight gas.