3 ms·
Nuclear plants use water from a local river, or sea, for cooling. Or some plants use air and have cooling towers. Nuclear plants are also tightly regulated by l
by sampo 5y ago
Nuclear plants use water from a local river, or sea, for cooling. Or some plants use air and have cooling towers. Nuclear plants are also tightly regulated by law. So there is a limit on how warm cooling water the plant is allowed, as per environmental regulations, to release into the river, or to the sea.
If weather gets hot, the temperature of the incoming cooling water gets warmer, too. And having to operate within the limits of the maximum allowed temperature for the outgoing cooling water, the plant may have to regulate its power output, or maybe entirely pause operation.
The temperature limit is mostly a legal one: There is concern about the environmental effects of releasing warmer water to the water bodies. From an engineering point of view, the plant would probably be able to operate, and just release warmer water.
- missedthecue 5y agoWhy can't they just refrigerate the water before releasing? Nothing too crazy just a few degrees. Run it through cooling pipes are something to dissipate the heat.
- pfdietz 5y agoThey could evaporate some of the water to cool the rest. This is why many nuclear plants in the US have cooling towers. But cooling towers consume water, and are fairly expensive.
- robertlagrant 5y agoI'm not debating the mechanisms; I'm after a source that hopefully reliably cites the frequency and severity of it. Wind and solar power drop to zero regularly, as we would expect. If nuclear does the same, then the comparison is totally valid. If it's something else then the comparison becomes less valid or invalid.
- ZeroGravitas 5y agoWhy are you so keen to defend one particular power production method on one narrow stat? This isn't a game of Top Trumps where you need to find any one stat that's higher than your opponents to declare victory. Nuclear has to be better than wind and solar and hydro and batteries and everything else (demand response, better insulation, undersea grid connectors etc.) all working together across a wide range of metrics to find a place in a modern grid. It is failing at this. The alternatives are cheaper, better, greener, safer, quicker to build. Narrowly focusing on one tiny aspect does not change this big picture reality.
- robertlagrant 5y agoI'm not keen to defend anything. I know this can seem unusual, but I'm just trying to understand the situation as well as possible. I'm not treating any option as a team to blindly cheer on. The problem with what you're saying is that to supply peak power at all times could require building capacity in each method to supply full power, in case the others all fall to zero power. And even then, you hope that they don't all fall to zero, I guess.
- sampo 5y agohttps://www.google.com/search?q=nuclear+power+warm+summer https://www.google.com/search?q=nuclear+power+warm+summer https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-021-00849-y https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-021-00849-y https://sci-hub.se/https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-021-00849-y https://sci-hub.se/https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-02...