3 ms·

Just use cooling towers... Edit: I'm getting rate-limited, so my answer to the genius observation below, that cooling towers also need water, is the following:

Just use cooling towers... Edit: I'm getting rate-limited, so my answer to the genius observation below, that cooling towers also need water, is the following: Cooling towers evaporate water. Thus the concerns of OP do not apply about overheating the river downstream: >The cooling water comes from the rivers and the plants have limits how hot the water is allowed to get downstream

_Algernon_ 4y ago
Cooling towers require a coolant, which is normally water...
- londons_explore 4y ago
  Cooling towers (evaporative chilling) use far less water than cooling directly with river water and returning hot water to the river. About 20x less for the same energy generation. And the water ends up in the atmosphere so usually will end up in additional rain elsewhere in France. You effectively get to use the same water twice, so instead of being 20x less water, it is infinity x less water.
  - joecool1029 4y ago
    >Cooling towers (evaporative chilling) use far less water than cooling directly with river water and returning hot water to the river. Still uses a shitload. A coalition of states around me had the power generation companies install a reservoir so that in summer and drought they could keep the lower Delaware River navigable since so much was evaporated off in the cooling towers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merrill_Creek_Reservoir https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merrill_Creek_Reservoir
    - londons_explore 4y ago
      a typical old 1 Gigawatt power station (ie. a big one) will produce about 2 gigawatts of waste heat. More modern tech could ~halve that. In an evaporative cooler, thats 800 liters of water evaporated every second. The Amazon river has 209,000,000 liters per second, so it wouldn't be an issue there. But in smaller streams, I could totally imagine there not being enough water even for evaporative cooling.
Gwypaas 4y ago
> Just use cooling towers... Take the already most costly way of generating electricity and make it both less efficient (due to the cold side being warmer) and entail higher initial investment costs.
Rexxar 4y ago
You really think they don't already use cooling towers ?
- aaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago
  If you did any research on the subject, you would have known that they use cooling towers for some of their cooling needs, while others are using the natural waters as coolant. For instance, one of the plants that got a temporary exemption on hot water discharge, the Bugey nuclear power plant: “Some of the cooling comes from direct use of the Rhône water (units 2 and 3) while some is done by the use of cooling towers (units 4 and 5).” [1] Had they used cooling towers for units 2 and 3, they wouldn’t be in trouble with discharging hot water into the Rhône. I suggest next time you do some research before questioning others with offhand comments. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugey_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugey_Nuclear_Power_Plant
  - Rexxar 4y ago
    For information your initial comment is "Just use cooling towers..." (with 3 dots to show disdain) as if there isn't any cooling tower whereas everybody can see cooling towers nearly every nuclear power station (so much that when you ask people to draw a nuclear station, 95% of them draw a cooling tower). So your "If you did any research on the subject" is quite over the top. > I suggest next time you do some research before questioning others with offhand comments. Apply this suggestion to your first comment or at least don't be more exigent with the quality of other comment that you are with your own comments.

_Algernon_ 4y ago

Cooling towers require a coolant, which is normally water...

londons_explore 4y ago
Cooling towers (evaporative chilling) use far less water than cooling directly with river water and returning hot water to the river. About 20x less for the same energy generation. And the water ends up in the atmosphere so usually will end up in additional rain elsewhere in France. You effectively get to use the same water twice, so instead of being 20x less water, it is infinity x less water.
- joecool1029 4y ago
  >Cooling towers (evaporative chilling) use far less water than cooling directly with river water and returning hot water to the river. Still uses a shitload. A coalition of states around me had the power generation companies install a reservoir so that in summer and drought they could keep the lower Delaware River navigable since so much was evaporated off in the cooling towers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merrill_Creek_Reservoir https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merrill_Creek_Reservoir
  - londons_explore 4y ago
    a typical old 1 Gigawatt power station (ie. a big one) will produce about 2 gigawatts of waste heat. More modern tech could ~halve that. In an evaporative cooler, thats 800 liters of water evaporated every second. The Amazon river has 209,000,000 liters per second, so it wouldn't be an issue there. But in smaller streams, I could totally imagine there not being enough water even for evaporative cooling.

Gwypaas 4y ago

> Just use cooling towers... Take the already most costly way of generating electricity and make it both less efficient (due to the cold side being warmer) and entail higher initial investment costs.

Rexxar 4y ago

You really think they don't already use cooling towers ?

aaaaaaaaaaab 4y ago
If you did any research on the subject, you would have known that they use cooling towers for some of their cooling needs, while others are using the natural waters as coolant. For instance, one of the plants that got a temporary exemption on hot water discharge, the Bugey nuclear power plant: “Some of the cooling comes from direct use of the Rhône water (units 2 and 3) while some is done by the use of cooling towers (units 4 and 5).” [1] Had they used cooling towers for units 2 and 3, they wouldn’t be in trouble with discharging hot water into the Rhône. I suggest next time you do some research before questioning others with offhand comments. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugey_Nuclear_Power_Plant https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugey_Nuclear_Power_Plant
- Rexxar 4y ago
  For information your initial comment is "Just use cooling towers..." (with 3 dots to show disdain) as if there isn't any cooling tower whereas everybody can see cooling towers nearly every nuclear power station (so much that when you ask people to draw a nuclear station, 95% of them draw a cooling tower). So your "If you did any research on the subject" is quite over the top. > I suggest next time you do some research before questioning others with offhand comments. Apply this suggestion to your first comment or at least don't be more exigent with the quality of other comment that you are with your own comments.