3 ms·

Good point about heat waste disposal. That's why you almost always see nuclear reactors along lakes/rivers/oceans, which is bad for other reasons as we saw wit

Good point about heat waste disposal. That's why you almost always see nuclear reactors along lakes/rivers/oceans, which is bad for other reasons as we saw with Fukushima, and all of that hot water being released wreaks havoc with riparian/marine ecosystems. Nuclear has downsides beyond the most obvious one, that of the risk of fallout. > I think that fission is not a good fit for terrestrial power. Heh, it's even worse off-planet. If you think dumping the waste heat is hard when you have access to an atmosphere/large bodies of water, wait until you try it when you don't!! ;)

coredog64 6y ago
Palo Verde uses cooling ponds filled with grey water. Per Wikipedia, it’s the largest generation plant in the US. It’s not an impossible problem. Around 2008-2010, ORNL published a paper describing how the cheap electricity and waste heat from a nuclear plant could be used to capture carbon from the air and create carbon neutral fuels for transportation. So again, if we were looking at a holistic picture, we could definitely improve the overall climate situation with nuclear.
MockObject 6y ago
How is there "waste heat" in a power plant that is designed to produce heat?
- epistasis 6y ago
  Thermodynamics! > The efficiency of the Rankine cycle is limited on the cold side by the lower practical temperature of the working fluid. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rankine_cycle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rankine_cycle > The efficiency of even the best heat engines is low; usually below 50% and often far below. So the energy lost to the environment by heat engines is a major waste of energy resources. Since a large fraction of the fuels produced worldwide go to powering heat engines, perhaps up to half of the useful energy produced worldwide is wasted in engine inefficiency, although modern cogeneration, combined cycle and energy recycling schemes are beginning to use this heat for other purposes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_efficiency https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_efficiency
- CydeWeys 6y ago
  ... the power plant is designed to produce electricity, not to produce heat. If it was designed to produce heat then it wouldn't need the turbines. The heat is waste. For the same power generation, you want to minimize the amount of waste heat as much as possible.

coredog64 6y ago

Palo Verde uses cooling ponds filled with grey water. Per Wikipedia, it’s the largest generation plant in the US. It’s not an impossible problem. Around 2008-2010, ORNL published a paper describing how the cheap electricity and waste heat from a nuclear plant could be used to capture carbon from the air and create carbon neutral fuels for transportation. So again, if we were looking at a holistic picture, we could definitely improve the overall climate situation with nuclear.

MockObject 6y ago

How is there "waste heat" in a power plant that is designed to produce heat?

epistasis 6y ago
Thermodynamics! > The efficiency of the Rankine cycle is limited on the cold side by the lower practical temperature of the working fluid. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rankine_cycle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rankine_cycle > The efficiency of even the best heat engines is low; usually below 50% and often far below. So the energy lost to the environment by heat engines is a major waste of energy resources. Since a large fraction of the fuels produced worldwide go to powering heat engines, perhaps up to half of the useful energy produced worldwide is wasted in engine inefficiency, although modern cogeneration, combined cycle and energy recycling schemes are beginning to use this heat for other purposes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_efficiency https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_efficiency
CydeWeys 6y ago
... the power plant is designed to produce electricity, not to produce heat. If it was designed to produce heat then it wouldn't need the turbines. The heat is waste. For the same power generation, you want to minimize the amount of waste heat as much as possible.