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Hungary nuclear plant cuts output because of warm Danube waters
- manwithaplan 3y ago> the temperature of the Danube, whose water is used to cool the plant, reached 29.72 degrees Celsius
- Filligree 3y agoStill works for cooling, right? It's not that there's any technical issues; it's that there's ecological issues. Though there's going to be much larger ecological issues if we have to replace it with coal.
- b3orn 3y agoCoal power plants have more or less the same cooling problem.
- Natuerich 3y ago[dead]
- pajko 3y agoWorks for cooling, but kills everything in the water. Besides last time I was there 3 years ago, the temperature was not uniform and there were waves of 34 °C water. Seems like nothing has changed since then: https://atlatszo.hu/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/kagylokpaks.jpg https://atlatszo.hu/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/kagylokpaks.j... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=932FlhRynTA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=932FlhRynTA
- dgellow 3y agoI get your point, but it's a bit more nuanced. High water temp doesn't just impact the ecosystem, but also the plant's cooling efficiency. Also, those ecological rules aren't just guidelines, they're legally binding. As for coal, absolutely agree - we don't want to go backwards, but this does show how climate change throws a wrench in the works even for clean energy.
- tekla 3y ago"Nuclear plant does what it is designed to do"
- sp332 3y agoClimate change starts hurting one of our best chances of avoiding climate change.
- dgellow 3y agoI think at this point we should stop saying „climate change starts …“. It’s already happening since a while. Climate change does indeed hurts one of our best chances of reducing C02 levels.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- explorer83 3y agoA bit of an exaggeration. It's the middle of summer. It's not like this water source won't cool down again.
- mstipetic 3y agoEverything is fine. Carry on.
- explorer83 3y agoNot what I said.
- andsoitis 3y agoThe news here, and thus the interesting and probably unexpected thing to note, is that if we depend on natural sources for water to cool nuclear plants and due to climate change the temperature of waters rise, we need to adjust where we build plants and/or spend extra energy to cool down the water to in turn cool down the plants.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- boomboomsubban 3y agoFor other Americans, 29 C is 85 F.
- domenkozar 3y agoNote that warm waters is a typical strawman argument against nuclear power. These are rare anomalies and there's dry-cooling of nuclear power plants (although it's less efficient and costs more).
- DarkNova6 3y agoPlus, most reactors were built in the 70s/80s when waterflow of rivers was more plentiful and less warm on average. Ironically, nuclear contributed to none of that.
- hutzlibu 3y ago"Ironically, nuclear contributed to none of that." Only when you think building them, maintaining them, mining Uran, shipping Uran and shipping and storing the radioactive waste has no CO2 footprint. Now sure, we still might have been better off, if we would have replaced all the coal plants with nuclear by now. But we did not and now we have to work with what we have.
- unglaublich 3y agoPlus, it's a design parameter in a performance/cost trade-off. It's _designed_ to not work at full power at this heat, because that was thought to be the ideal trade-off. Maybe it still is, maybe they underestimated the occurrence of high water temperature incidents, but in any case it's a consciously designed safe state.
- Retric 3y agoSure, but such mitigation strategies mean even higher costs for nuclear power which is by far its largest problem. It’s clearly possible to make a great deal of nuclear power safely, just not as cheaply as similarly environmentally friendly alternatives. Electric utilities prefer to spend less on battery backed Solar etc because of all the little details that aren’t obvious until you really study what’s involved.
- xattt 3y ago
- taylodl 3y agoNuclear power plants and coal-fired power plants work off the same principle: Use the heat to boil water to create steam, run the stream through a steam turbine, and condense the steam back to water. This water is continually recycled throughout the system. The river water is used to condense the steam back to water and then the water is discharged back to the river - warmer than it came in. If the water coming in from the river is too warm then the condensation rate increases until you get to the point it's out of spec. You can't condense the water fast enough. You need to reduce the plant's output, i.e. reduce the heat. On the other end the discharge water is always warmer than the intake water. As the intake water warms then the discharge water will also warm - all other things being equal. You'll get to the point the discharge water will raise the water temperature to the point where aquatic life is negatively impacted. There are also laws mandating the maximum temperature for the discharge water. So, you have to reduce output. That's just how these plants work. That's the nice thing about natural gas plants - the gas turbines are essentially jet engines - they're fueled directly, no steam or cooling required. This is something rarely talked about in the solar and wind discussion. People love to point out that the wind and the sun provide intermittent power, while ignoring more and more traditional power plants are curtailing output as water temperatures rise or water levels lower (water intake pipes would be exposed).
- jeffbee 3y agoLarge gas power plants are combined cycle steam plants. Only the smallest ones are simple cycle as you describe. Large gas power stations are as complicated as any other thermal power station.
- unglaublich 3y agoWe don't talk about it, because we want to get _away_ from igniting huge amounts of underground carbon-based material and putting it straight in the atmosphere. We want to move to methods of power generation that do _not_ significantly upset the delicate balance of a livable planet. Continuing adding more carbon to the atmosphere is only worsening the situation.
- jacquesm 3y ago
- senectus1 3y agonuclear power plants are not environmentally friendly. sure they're carbon friendly and "green" in other ways, but the mining of uranium is horrendously dirty, the long term storage of the waste is dirty as hell and this waterways heating issue is just another problem. green renewable should be our goals, we're bathed in power every day it just needs to be bottled. nuclear plants have their place, but its few and far between and i would argue less than desirable in general.
- pif 3y ago> green renewable should be our goals Comfortable life for everyone is my goal. > we're bathed in power every day it just needs to be bottled That word "just" proves that you don't know what you are talking about.
- croes 3y agoIt's the same "just" as in we need just more nuclear power plants. But he is right about the botteling. Storing energy is the most important issue, because we have plenty of energy sources but still depend on production on demand.
- troupo 3y agoThe thing is, we can produce nuclear power plants reasonably fast [1] The problem with storage is that we don't have it. Not now, not for forseeable future. Australia has had some headways into the problems though, and has been midly successful with storage at scale. [1] And unbearably slow. There are examples of both.
- titzer 3y agoA typical large scale nuclear plant produces 3 cubic meters of waste fuel which is (in the US at least) stored onsite in cooling pools. It is not "dirty as hell". > green renewable should be our goals, we're bathed in power every day it just needs to be bottled. There is a lot to unpack in this vague statement, but generally speaking, utility-scale power generation from nuclear has the lowest ecological footprint, not just in land area, but all-told. A solar farm is a big, complex, thing with a huge footprint.
- fnord77 3y agoso is there no way to convert radiation to electricity directly without heating large amounts of water? some Seebeck thing?
- no_wizard 3y agowhat if you just pooled the water until it cooled down naturally under shade before discharging back into the Danube?
- hansthehorse 3y agoTurkey Point plant in SE Florida uses miles and miles of man made switchback canals to cool the discharge before it returns to the plant.
- freeone3000 3y agoThe water, coming from uphill, is already cooler than it would be if it sat still at the current altitude. Streams and springs average the temperature out over months, not simply a few hours.