Belgarion wrote on Jun 24
th, 2024 at 11:23am:
SadKangaroo wrote on Jun 24
th, 2024 at 10:53am:
philperth2010 wrote on Jun 24
th, 2024 at 10:47am:
The amount of water needed for a Nuclear Power Plant could be an issue for Australia....There is also an issue with conrtamination???
Quote:Nuclear power and water consumption
In nuclear power stations, water cools the radioactive cores, and the water becomes contaminated with radionuclides.
Figures from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) show that 45% of nuclear plants use the sea for once-through cooling, and 25% use cooling towers (from water mains). 15% use lakes, and 14% use rivers (dictated by which is nearest).
The Nuclear Energy Institute estimates that one nuclear reactor requires between 1,514L and 2,725L litres of water per MWh. It equates to billions of gallons of water per year, and all this water requires filtering somehow.
BWR (Boiling Water Reactor) and PWR (Pressurised Water Reactor) nuclear plants need lots of water. In BWRs, the water from cooling is mildly radioactive but kept in the plant, recirculated in a loop to cool the reactor cores. The water is treated with demineralisation, filtration, and distillation.
https://smartwatermagazine.com/news/membracon/nuclear-power-and-water-consumptio... It can be treated, but that costs money.
The volume of contaminated water is also never included in the claim of only a "coke can" size waste generated per person per year from reactor use.
The 'coke can' comparison is over one persons lifetime, not per year, and the water required for nuclear power plants is comparable with that needed by coal plants.
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Moreover, relative to methods of electricity generation, nuclear consumes relatively similar quantities of water or less. Coal, on average, consumes roughly the same amount of water per kilowatt-hour as nuclear.........
http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2017/ph241/styles2/ It's interesting you bring up water.
Only one of those sites has access to seawater, the rest require dams to provide water to the existing power stations.
We've seen in France the issues with water temperature from inland sources, rivers and dams, that require reduced generation or total shutdown.
Once the water exceeds 25 degrees they have to reduce output, and once they exceed 28 degrees they have to shutdown.
In terms of water levels, there are documented instances where the coal plants that currently exist on these sites have had to shut down because supply was too low, let alone because of temperature concerns.
Like I said, the more you start looking at the details, the more you realise that other than consulting lawyers, they've had very little expert consultation that went into their mining policy.
They appear to have started with the goal of, "how can we keep the Nats happy by continuing to deny climate change behind closed door, whil attacking renewables, while keeping the Teal voters open to coming back into the fold by pretending we care about climate change, all while pushing more Gas powered generation to keep our mining benefactors happy" and worked backwards from there.
They didn't start out with, "what will our energy needs be in 30 years. How do we meet those needs while being able to supply reliable baseload power while keeping to our emissions targets".
We already know they want to abandon those targets and push more Gas generation and are using nuclear to legitimise it.
It's going to be a massive payday for the current owners of those coal power plants.
I'd be getting ready to gouge the taxpayer, get the sale, then right against Nuclear and pivot to investing that windfall into renewables.