3 ms·

More 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 w

More 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 ago
Refrigeration 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.
Manuel_D 4y ago
It's not an issue of river water levels. It's an issue of permissible river temperatures. They should rethink the impact of heating a river versus increasing fossil fuel emissions that heat the whole world.
- baxuz 4y ago
  Cooling towers don't recirculate the drawn water back to the river as far as I'm aware. They only draw the water in the basin depletes. Looking at the sources, 2% of it is lost to evaporation, the rest condenses back on the bottom.
  - Manuel_D 4y ago
    If they weren't recirculating water downstream the river wouldn't be heating up at all. In France it's due to limits on river temperature: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/warming-rivers-threaten-frances-already-tight-power-supply-2022-07-15/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/warming-rivers-threa... Because apparently letting a river get above 28 degrees for a few kilometers is worth pumping more carbon dioxide into the air.

Schroedingersat 4y ago

Refrigeration 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.

Manuel_D 4y ago

It's not an issue of river water levels. It's an issue of permissible river temperatures. They should rethink the impact of heating a river versus increasing fossil fuel emissions that heat the whole world.

baxuz 4y ago
Cooling towers don't recirculate the drawn water back to the river as far as I'm aware. They only draw the water in the basin depletes. Looking at the sources, 2% of it is lost to evaporation, the rest condenses back on the bottom.
- Manuel_D 4y ago
  If they weren't recirculating water downstream the river wouldn't be heating up at all. In France it's due to limits on river temperature: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/warming-rivers-threaten-frances-already-tight-power-supply-2022-07-15/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/warming-rivers-threa... Because apparently letting a river get above 28 degrees for a few kilometers is worth pumping more carbon dioxide into the air.