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Greetings from Europe. We have all-time record breaking heat wave and dry summer. Norway has plenty of hydro-power they can sell to the rest of the Europe but
by Nokinside 4y ago
Greetings from Europe. We have all-time record breaking heat wave and dry summer.
Norway has plenty of hydro-power they can sell to the rest of the Europe but their government is setting export controls to maintain water levels.
Normally 70% of electricity generation in France is nuclear. France has been forced shut down nuclear reactors because river water is too warm to cool down nuclear reactors. French government has made exceptions to allow few them to run with hot water in minimum power. Making thins worse is that many reactors are under scheduled or unscheduled maintenance.
Big rivers like Rhine and Danube have water levels so low that it affects logistics. Coal deliveries for example. Road logistics is seeing 5X price hikes. Railways are in full capacity. German government is going to prioritize railway logistics to essential goods first.
- landemva 4y agoThis article says Rhine River is approaching 2018 levels. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62519683 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62519683
- Nokinside 4y agoThe record low level was in 2018 October. It's typical that time for the river dry in October. Now the low level is expected in few weeks. More than month early.
- landemva 4y agoThis could be a good year to see the Hunger Stones near Decin, as the lower graffiti on rocks is typically submerged.
- mitchbob 4y agoHunger Stones in the Elbe are already visible. [1] [1] https://www.npr.org/2018/08/24/641331544/drought-in-central-europe-reveals-cautionary-hunger-stones-in-czech-river https://www.npr.org/2018/08/24/641331544/drought-in-central-...
- landemva 4y agoThere are varying levels. I may visit in October to see the lower graffiti.
- baxuz 4y agoNuclear plant cooling is an interesting point that I've never thought about. Building more plants is a part of the solution to global warming, but we're nowhere near the warming peak and we are already seeing a crucial part of the solution - the cooling - failing. Is this something that can be mitigated by building more cooling towers?
- woweoe 4y agoI wonder how the French got into that problem since nuclear power plants exist in tropical countries where the temperatures can get incredibly high.
- etskinner 4y agoIt seems likely that they simply designed it for a max expected water temp and they're exceeding that max. If you need more water to cool the same amount, you're gonna need some bigger pipes.
- Manuel_D 4y agoIt's not an issue of being unable to cool the plant, it's an issue of the plant being prohibited from heating up the river too much. Apparently this is done for ecological reasons, though seeing as it results in more fossil fuel emissions it might be better to hear the river.
- etskinner 4y agoMore cooling towers would mean more water needed, since they rely on evaporating water. With river levels already low, I bet they're cautious about using more water. I wonder if they're considering refrigeration, or if that's even feasible. Conceivably, you could use the power from the nuclear plant to cool itself, since refrigeration has a higher-than-1 coefficient of performance.
- Schroedingersat 4y agoRefrigeration is pointless if your hot source is 100C. And you'll still need a new cold source to dump the heat into (and now there's 30% more). You could recondense the steam by dumping the heat into the atmosphere, but that's bigger and more expensive. You could also store it in thermochemical batteries and save it for winter. The logistics of moving 1t of NaOH every few seconds sound difficult. You might be able to export it via steam pipe and charge thermochemical batteries on site. That requires logistics that don't exist.