Drought Could Force Nuke-Plant Shutdowns

[NHSparky]

Drought Could Force Nuke-Plant Shutdowns

Wednesday January 23, 12:21 pm ET
By Mitch Weiss, Associated Press Writer

EXCERPT

LAKE NORMAN, N.C. (AP) -- Nuclear reactors across the Southeast could be forced to throttle back or temporarily shut down later this year because drought is drying up the rivers and lakes that supply power plants with the awesome amounts of cooling water they need to operate.

Utility officials say such shutdowns probably wouldn't result in blackouts. But they could lead to shockingly higher electric bills for millions of Southerners, because the region's utilities could be forced to buy expensive replacement power from other energy companies.

Already, there has been one brief, drought-related shutdown, at a reactor in Alabama over the summer.

"Water is the nuclear industry's Achilles' heel," said Jim Warren, executive director of N.C. Waste Awareness and Reduction Network, an environmental group critical of nuclear power. "You need a lot of water to operate nuclear plants." He added: "This is becoming a crisis."

An Associated Press analysis of the nation's 104 nuclear reactors found that 24 are in areas experiencing the most severe levels of drought. All but two are built on the shores of lakes and rivers and rely on submerged intake pipes to draw billions of gallons of water for use in cooling and condensing steam after it has turned the plants' turbines.

===================================================================================

Uh, Jimmy, you asshat?  ALL power plants require a lot of water.  Nuke plants require more because they generate more power.  And part of the problem is the NRC requirements which conventional plants aren't bound to and as such can run much longer with much less cooling water available.

[Crazy Horse]

Well now the primitives on Skins Island have caught wind of this.

Let's see what the all knowing think.

CC  (1000+ posts)       Wed Jan-23-08 04:03 PM
Original message
Drought May Force Some Nuke Plants To Shut Down

With all the problems of nuclear energy this one never crossed my mind. It should have since I know how much water they use and how dependent they are on water since I am less than 10 miles from a plant and hear about the water thing a lot. Add it to the list of why it is not the answer.

tekisui  (1000+ posts)      Wed Jan-23-08 04:04 PM
Response to Original message
1. It is not the answer. It creates more problems than energy.

dbackjon (1000+ posts)      Wed Jan-23-08 04:09 PM
Response to Original message
2. They need to get Palo Verde's system
 Due to its location in the Arizona desert, Palo Verde is the only nuclear generating facility in the world that is not located adjacent to a large body of water. Instead, it uses treated sewage from several nearby municipalities to meet its cooling water needs, recycling 20 billion US gallons (76,000,000 m³) of wastewater each year. At the nuclear plant site, the wastewater is further treated and stored in an 80 acre (324,000 m²) reservoir for use in the plant's cooling towers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Verde_Nuclear_Generat

Pigwidgeon (1000+ posts)      Wed Jan-23-08 04:10 PM
Response to Original message
3. Which problems in particular?   
 The biggest problem is getting them built -- big business' risk-aversion requires enormous up-front capitalization of reactors.

And we could, in fact, build nuclear reactors that don't require water cooling, or use closed-cycle cooling.

As for "the answer", there may be none. I think the problem is that human civilization has exceeded the Earth's carrying capacity, and it will take longer for us to adapt to that than we have time for. Nukes or no, we are in for a rough ride.

There actually is an Answer ... hard work, heavy investment, and world-wide dedication to building a better civilization. Any wagers on that one?

--p!

 
Well probably as you'd expect..............Nuclear bad.......human civilization dead........One actual informative posting

[Chris_]

That's one thing that occurred to me over the summer, but this is the first I've seen any mention of it on the news.  A nuclear reactor is a giant tea kettle.  The fissionable material heats water into steam which moves the turbines that generate electricity.  We have nuclear reactors in my state and we also had a 13-inch rainfall deficit this year. 

A startup company in Australia is attempting what is basically a large thermal chimney that accomplishes the same thing.  They are using a German model, but there have only been a couple of prototypes.  It's built as a large greenhouse with a chimney and a turbine at the top.

http://www.enviromission.com.au/project/project.htm

I'm not saying it would go anywhere, but it's interesting.  There's a "renewable resource" ping list on FR if you like this kind of stuff.