Reactors being shut down because the river is too hot to cool them
Here’s one I never thought of: nuclear reactors along the Tennessee river are being shut down because the river is too warm to cool them.
The nation’s largest public utility shut down Unit 2 about 5:42 p.m. CDT because water drawn from the Tennessee River was exceeding a 90-degree average over 24 hours, amid a blistering heat wave across the Southeast. “We don’t believe we’ve ever shut down a nuclear unit because of river temperature,” said John Moulton, spokesman for the Knoxville, Tenn.-based utility.
- Houston Chronicle: TVA reactor shut down: cooling water from river too hot
I’m sort of a fan of nuclear power but… what do you do then? Redesign the cooling towers, I guess. “Yes maam, we’ll have those towers redesigned and retrofitted and the reactor back up by next week.” Maybe they could put massive intake fans along the base of the towers. It’s an interesting problem in searching out a reduced-carbon energy infrastructure.
It’s been miserable here, hardly any rain for the last three weeks and ten straight days at/above 100F. July was much nicer, rain fairly regularly and in the 80’s most of the time. The field of corn I drive by every day was bright green in July but is now a yellow/brown mess.
The temps I can deal with, but the lack of rain is crippling. It seems like it will never rain again.
I think nuclear power will have to be in the mix of technologies needed to reduce our carbon emissions, though I think it’s going to be a hard road to convince some people of that.
Oh my gosh that sounds awful. And according to that article, hydro power is down, too because of the drought. People in Illinois have been complaining about temps in the 90’s which broke yesterday. We have it easy.
Drought is a silent disaster. Hope the weather breaks soon. Tonight would be good.
It would appear that global warming denialists didn’t think of that one huh.
When one place is having drought, others are having rain. And here in IL we are getting a little too much of it. At least in this area of IL.
Huh? There have been droughts that affected hydro power before. It only becomes significant in context of trends. Ed’s comment got me looking at heat-related news reports which is my next post.
After several dry weeks I don’t think a few days of rain is too much at all. Couple heavy spells but they didn’t last long and I haven’t seen any serious flooding.
Sorry, I wasn’t claiming Ed to be a denialist, I was referring to how global warming denialists will claim that trying to stop global warming would be too costly so we need to make sure it’s for real. Not thinking about outcomes such as this one.
It was an early morning post for me, so I didn’t write exactly what I was thinking.
It appears we will still have rain for the next 5 days according to the amazingly accurate meteorologists at Weather Channel. In other words your guess on more rain is as good as mine.
FYI: All steam power plants (coal, nuclear) need a large source of cooling water. Fossil plants are less likely to shut down than nuclear because their steam systems have a wider band of operation (in part because the downside of problems isn’t as great) and also because some nuke plants use the cooling water directly for safety system cooling, without passing it through the cooling towers. As you noted, consistent higher cooling source temperatures can be accounted for through building of cooling ponds or tapping other nearby sources, or perhaps even additional cooling towers. Plants on the ocean will generaly not have this problem.
Nature’s checkbook is hard to balance. If you’d like an entertaining look at the real world of nuclear power (which is much different than that portrayed by proponents and opponents alike) see my novel “Rad Decision” – available at no cost to readers at my website, or in paperback. RadDecision.blogspot.com
Thanks for the link James the story looks very interesting.
Most of the self described “conservatives” around here believe that global warming (make that Climate Change!) MAY indeed be for real BUT that it’s probably not human-induced. Which begs the question, if it is happening regardless of us, won’t the huge CO2 and other greenhouse gases we expel with impunity exacerbate the situation? Potentially beyond the point of no return? (At least in terms of centuries or millenia)
Thanks for the rain thoughts, DOF! I guess you could tell from my “tone” how depressing the situation is here in Alabama in the Tennessee Valley. This pattern is just not “normal” over the long haul but each year that goes by it seems to be hotter and drier.