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Does anyone else get irked when articles use photos of nuclear power plants when talking about pollution or climate change? I'm certainly no expert, but my unde
by toxican 9y ago
Does anyone else get irked when articles use photos of nuclear power plants when talking about pollution or climate change? I'm certainly no expert, but my understand was that the 'exhaust' from nuclear plants is just water vapor and with the exception of finding a place to store spent rods, it's an incredibly green source of energy and has little to no bearing on climate change?
- roenxi 9y agoAre you sure that is a nuclear plant? It looks like coal to me. The big thick columns are water vapour - you are right there, but the tall thin exhausts are for carbon. They don't look like they are being used, but they are (they often don't produce anything visible even when they are running at a fair clip).
- logfromblammo 9y agoI was under the impression that any power plant that uses a source of high temperatures to operate would also benefit from a water cooling system with a hyperbolic cooling tower. It improves the efficiency for whatever it is you're doing on the hot end. They're just iconic for nuclear power plants for some reason, to the point where some people mistake the cooling tower for a building containing a nuclear reactor. And this discourages their construction at other types of power plant, because people freak out about nuclear plants in their backyard. And obviously they aren't used where water cooling would be prohibitively expensive.
- bluGill 9y agoNot any. I used to live near nuclear and coal power plants (two different plants about 15 miles away from each other). Both were located right on the Mississippi river to take advantage of the river water for cooling. Most neighbors when asked where the nuclear plant was would point to the smoke stacks on the coal plant even though the nuclear plant was only a mile away and the coal plant was 15 miles away.
- UncleMeat 9y agoThe Simpsons is the generally agreed upon origin for this connection between these towers and nuclear plants.
- rory096 9y agoThat's a coal plant. And not just any - the largest greenhouse gas emitter in the country. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_Scherer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_Scherer
- NegativeLatency 9y agoDon't forget about the drinking water contamination.
- toxican 9y agooh, fair enough! I didn't realize that style of stack was used for anything but nuclear.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]