Reader comments
Too hot for nuke power

Ed, you're just looking for another excuse to fuel your anti-nuke argument.

There are plenty of nuclear power plants in the U.S. that run when temperatures are hot. There are 7 units in South Carolina, 4 in Georgia, 2 in Louisiana, 3 in Alabama, 2 in Texas and the Palo Verde plant in Phoenix where temperatures routinely reach into the 110s and beyond.

Why don't you just write an honest letter that simply states that you are against nuclear power instead of trying to twist facts to promote your agenda.

And it is just impossible to cool water.

Nuclear power is going to be a very necessary part of our overall strategy to move to renewable sources. It is not the boogie man. I would like to see solar on every rooftop and a nuclear base load.
I am a liberal and I am for nuclear power (and I can even pronounce nuclear).

France is 80% dependent on power from 58 nuclear power plants.
In 2003 there was a spike in temp that caused some plants to idle operation. 75F max going in,77F max going out — a 2 degrees difference.

The assumption by the Letter writer says that Utah’s Green River power project would provide 100% of our power needs. It is baseless and is typical “all or nothing thinking”.
In the late 1970s, Flaming Gorge and Lake Powell added water towers to draw warmer water from the surface down to the outlets because the water temperatures in the rivers below the dams was too LOW, harming the environment.
The summer is peak season for WindPower and SolarPower is 50+% more effective from the longer daylight hours. Besides, lakes providing Hydro are also just reaching full capacity.

The letter writer forgets the other 315 days or 86% of the year when Utah is not scorching hot.

I agree, the letter writer has hidden agenda.

The letter is a little confusing. At first it sounds like you can't use water in the plant if it is above a certain temperature, which sounded ridiculous. Then it stated that you can't return the water to the river. That has an easy solution. Hold on to the water until it cools down, or possibly even mix it with the water coming if it's near enough. That water probably 33 degrees fahrenheit, or just water the desert.

One Question - If it is to hot in Frane to have nuclear power plants, how come we can have one in the west Phoenix valley that works just fine?? I have never been to France but I know for a fact that is is a heck of alot hot here in the Phoenix valley then it is in France.

Seems like a bunch of enviromentalist hot air to me.

We could build coal fired power plants since they
do not require cooling water.

Ed, Try thinking outside your pre-conceived box.

River water isn't the only cooling option available. You can use cooling towers that don't raise the temperature of the water source the water was taken from.

Another option... The water comming out of today's dams (Glenn Canyon, Flaming Gorge, etc) comes from the bottom of the reservoir, so it is WAY COLDER than the natural flow would be and that COLD water is changing the ecology downstream from the dams. We could harvest energy twice at these sites. Once using gravity to turn the turbines, then again by using the same water to cool a nearby N-Power plant and then returning the water to the river closer to the natural tempurature it would have been without the Dam being there.

Just something to think about.

Everything isn't an insurmountable problem (unless of course you just want it to be).

Blaine | 9:37 a.m.

Coal/Natural Gas powered power plants don't require cooling water? What do you think they do with all that water they used to make the steam?

I hope you were just being sarcastic.

they could use water that is in the deep underground lake thats spans most of the west, up to canada, the gov knows about because they run into the water every time they drill for oil, it would be enough water for all the west there is no water shortage! they already piped hill air force base into it. but it a control issue they want to tell us don't water your lawn take short showers etc! plus they wanted to build the central utah water project instead with dams, when it would have been cheaper by far just to drill for water. but anyway i suspect water deep in the ground would be plenty coool for nuclear plants.

This article is probably about some environmental regulation in France that the water from the nuclear plant has to be below a certain temperature or it can't be dumped back into the river and nothing to do with plant operation.

If this is the case, dozens of people died in the heat that year but it's OK because the fish had to be comfortable.

AAS,

That's exactly what it is.

Why bother with stone age reactor technology anyhow?
Go for High-Temperature Gas-cooled reactors. Keep 'em
small, modular, efficient, foolproof,,, and easily
de-comissioned when the time comes.

A couple of quick responses to the feedback.

As to the idea of pre-cooling water, I suggest the extra water required (assuming conventional cooling towers are used) would prohibitive. As it stands, depending on the number of reactors ultimately installed and the type of cooling system, the Green River plant will PERMANENTLY remove from 28,492 to 105,202 acre-feet of water from the Colorado River system every year. By comparison, the slightly larger Palo Verde facility uses about 77,000 acre fee/year. Substantially increasing the plant's projected water needs by pre-cooling the water, on a desert river that's already oversubscribed, looks to me like a no-go from the start.

There's a reason only ONE reactor in the U.S. isn't located on a major river (and the Green is not a major river in this case) or near the ocean: water. Take a look at the map on the NRC's web site to see just how empty the West is of nuclear. The one exception, pointed out by a reader, is Palo Verde, which, significantly, is cooled by recycled waste water from Phoenix, NOT river water.

when there is an idiot on the corner shouting his/her message if you go to argue with the idiot after a while others will have a hard time distinguishing who the idiot is...

Natural draft, not "conventional" cooling towers would be used in any nuclear plant built in the dry West. They use no pumps and are much more efficient than in Europe where the humidity of the air is so much higher than in Utah.

Ed,

One misleading spin that the anti-nukes consistantly make is citing past practices and designs to make their point to argue against future endeavors. Like when they say that since the Savannah River waste site has contaminated the environment, that any other site built will do the same thing. What they fail to admit is that that site was constructed many decades ago and the technology has since improved.

Don't base water consumption usage of power plants by those that are now in use. No new plants have been built in this country since 1979. Newer designs are many times more efficient.

It's like saying that you shouldn't buy a car today based on the fact that the 1967 Chevy was an unsafe car without airbags, seatbelts, crumple zones, etc.

I'd like to add one additional response to CaptHowdy, who observes that there are nuclear plants in the U.S. that operate where temperatures are hot. Yes, and No. When temperatures get really warm, as they regularly do in Utah's desert, many American nuclear plants have to either reduce generation or shut down altogether, just as in Europe. We are not somehow magically immune to the effect of high water temperatures. In 2006, for example, significant reductions or shut downs were initiated at the TVA's Brown's Ferry Units 1, 2, and 3, at the Cook reactor in Michigan, at the Quad Cities reactors 1 and 2 in Illinois, to name a few of the affected sites. And we must keep in mind that this kind of problem will only worsen as global warming continues.

My point was not that Utah would necessarily be dangerously dependent on the Green River plant but that given CERTAIN increases in water temperature and likely decreases in water availability due to global warming and drought, a reactor in the Utah desert is prima facie a bad investment, even if we have other sources of power to draw on.

Ed,
Nuclear plants are also located on public and privately held ponds and reservoirs. There is substantial recycling particularly in the lake reactors, so your water usage amounts are suspect. Also, as Phoenix has shown, it's possible to use the local wastewater.

If the Green River is not big enough, the mighty Wolf Creek and overwhelming Neosho River in Kansas must be amazing torrents. FYI. They are a relative trickle.

To Engineer

We don't know at this point what type of cooling is planned for the Green River facility. But regardless, if the cooling involves water it will a) be subject to the effects of high river water temperatures, and b) be a huge drain on an already strained resource.

I draw everyone's attention to this salient fact: Utah is at the bottom of the pecking order when it comes to rights in Green/Colorado river water. So, if we come, as I believe we will sooner than almost anyone would believe possible, to a point like that experienced during the 1999-2005 drought when the river flow is dramatically lower than normal for an extended period of time, the downstream states will exercise their preemptive rights, leaving Utah and its Green/Colorado river water users high and dry. In my view, this means that we will have a gigantic, radioactive white elephant in the middle of our state, a monument to colossal short-sightedness.