4 ms·
All designs that take water from rivers and return it there. There usually is a regulation for the maximum water temperature in the rivers, so during the summer
by b3orn 5y ago
All designs that take water from rivers and return it there. There usually is a regulation for the maximum water temperature in the rivers, so during the summer they can't heat up the water as much, leading to lowered energy output to the point where they have to shutdown some or all reactors of a plant.
- throwaway894345 5y agoThat doesn’t imply that nuclear plants regularly get close to this threshold nor that it’s common for all nuclear plants of this type (consider 2 identical plants positioned on differently-sized rivers: the larger river will be able to absorb more heat than the smaller river, ergo reliability of this sort varies).
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- mikeyouse 5y agoIt's not just the river's ability to absorb the heat, it's also the plant's design criteria. The river water is the coolant in the secondary loop, warm water obviously has less capacity to absorb heat, so the plant will either get hotter (not great!) or will have to slow down the reaction to produce less heat (also not great during the summer when demand is the highest!). This isn't just an environmental concern but a design problem.