> Why can't we create a nuclear power plant in the middle of the desert

In principle we can. Dry cooling is more expensive and less efficient than using water, but technically doable.

But the plant requires personnel. Said personnel has kids, spouses etc. You end up with a small town to run the plant. And that town requires fresh water which might be hard to come by in the middle of the desert.

> Could we safely store the energy somehow and transport it or make some sort of long-distance hookup to our grids?

We could store the energy in nuclear fuel, at the amazing energy density of 80 TJ/kg. Hard to beat that, except with fusion or antimatter. :)

Anyway, long distance electricity transmission is technically doable; HVDC losses are < 3%/1000 km. But again, it costs money.

> Also anyone know why the nuclear site in San Onofre by San Diego failed?

They detected premature wear on new steam generators. In the face of stiff opposition by local state politicians, rather than fixing it they decided to decommission the entire plant.

> But the plant requires personnel.

So all we need is to build the plant and then automate the entire operations.

Because nuclear power is still just thermal power. You need access to coolant. Ever wondered why a tsunami prone island like Japan decided to place a nuclear plant near the ocean? Doesn't that sound like a very stupid decision? Well, the reality is that this a necessary requirement for monolithic nuclear power plants. Rivers vary in their flow rates depending on the season. If the flow rate is too low there is less cooling capacity and subsequently you will have to turn the nuclear plant off, which will seriously hurt the economics of the plant. The only reliable cooling source is the ocean. Of course, if you have smaller plants you can live with less cooling.

So what if we build it in the middle of the ocean?