What you're describing is substantially different than, say, attempting to build a dam in a flat place with no rivers.

"It can function here, but people choose not to" is a very different kind of geographic restrictions than "it is physically impossible for it to work here"

Nuclear power is definitely more geographically independent than solar. There's easily a factor of 3 or 4 difference in output between a solar panel in Australia vs Northern Europe: https://www.altestore.com/pages/solar-insolation-map-for-the...

The only thing a nuclear plant - any thermal plant for that matter - requires is cooling. But that doesn't need to be freshwater. It can be seawater or waste-water, like the Palo Verde plant.