Heat Sends U.S. Nuclear Power Production to 9-Year Low

[bananas]

Source: Bloomberg News

Nuclear-power production in the U.S. is at the lowest seasonal levels in nine years as drought and heat force reactors from Ohio to Vermont to slow output.

Generation for the 104 plants in the U.S. fell 0.4 percent from yesterday to 94,171 megawatts, or 93 percent of capacity, the lowest level for this time of year since 2003, according to reports from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and data compiled by Bloomberg. The total is down 2.6 percent from the five-year average for today of 96,725 megawatts.

“We’ve had a fast decay of summer output this month and that corresponds to the high heat and droughts,” Pax Saunders, an analyst at Gelber & Associates in Houston, said. “Plants are not able to operate at the levels they can.”

FirstEnergy Corp. (FE) (FE)’s Perry 1 reactor in Ohio lowered production to 95 percent of capacity today because of above- average temperatures, while Entergy Corp. (ETR) (ETR)’s Vermont Yankee has limited output four times this month. Nuclear plants require sufficient water to cool during operation, and rivers or lakes may get overheated or fall in times of high temperatures and drought, according to the NRC.

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Read more: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-07-26/heat-sends-u-dot-s-dot-nuclear-power-production-to-9-year-low

[patrice]

1. They cool mainly with water, don't they . . . wow. BIG hole in nuclear future, there. nt

[Raster]

2. Oops, guess we didn't see this one coming.

[patrice]

3. Yeaap, just like a few other things we didn't see coming.

[Sirveri]

19. Yes, that thing that covers 71% of the earths surface is so rare...

The issue here is they don't want to overheat the rivers and kill all the fish. Plants are quite capable of cooling with seawater as that's all the Navy uses.

[patrice]

20. 71% doesn't do much good, when it's where it is/isn't & how saline or polluted it is that matters.

[Sirveri]

23. Pollution and salinity are irrelevant to tertiary cooling systems.

All these plants are built near water sources with the exception of Palos Verde. The issue is using the river as a heat sink. This is solved by spending money to build cooling towers, which is obviously something for profit businesses dislike doing.

[patrice]

24. Yeah, but not to drinking water & water to grow food. Perhaps you've heard there's a drought?

[Sirveri]

25. Considering the subject is nuclear power generation and cooling...

That would make your statement a non-sequitor.

[patrice]

26. This is about water. Water used for drinking & for cooling nukes. LOCAL water and the derth thereof.

[Sirveri]

27. That's funny since the thread title is about heat and nuclear power.

Water concerns are an issue, but that's not what the thread is actually about.

[patrice]

28. You're being evasive. Look around, subthreads are okay here, obviously, because otherwise the

thread structures would have been made flat, instead of nested, now wouldn't they.

Besides being manipulative and, hence, disrespectful, deliberate denseness is boring, so sissy "don't play that game".

Have a nice life.

End of "conversation".

[Sirveri]

29. You really love to get the last word in while not saying anything.

I guess I can play that game too.

[patrice]

30. Sometimes, it just may be one's self who is incapable of

recognizing what is being said and that there is at least some probability that the "sayer" is in fact NOT the problem. I can do that; can you? Simply put, sometimes there is a need to ADAPT ONE'S OWN perspective/knowledge/purpose/comprehension FIRST; it's not ALWAYS the other person.

[SunSeeker]

4. Um, it's only going to get hotter. Don't they have a plan for this?

Or is it just like their plan about what they're going to do with nuclear waste, i.e. no plan?

[evirus]

9. They didn't plan for an anemic response to climate change...

but they did plan for doing something with nuclear waste... the only problem is that states didn't like the idea of nuclear casks being shipped through their territory... even though you could basically hit them with a train and lay them in burning jet fuel for hours on end without leaking.

[wordpix]

12. the latter, no plan

[Kablooie]

15. Global warming is a myth. Why would they need a plan?

[NickB79]

17. No one has any plans for global warming

It's all just a few placating words from elected officials about building (insufficient numbers of) wind turbines, driving hybrid cars and using CFL bulbs while global CO2 levels rocket higher every year.

The fact is that we're not doing 1/10 of one percent of what's needed to address global warming, and even if we tried the Tea Party idiots would crap themselves screaming about lost freedoms.

[NickB79]

5. Coal and natural gas plants also use water for cooling. Are there any reports on those?

If nuclear AND coal AND gas are all slowing due to the heat, rolling blackouts could become a definite possibility in the near future.

[wordpix]

13. and fracking uses tons of water in the frack process

[Zoeisright]

6. Well, gee, let's see, can we think of an energy source that would NOT

be affected by drought and heat?

Hmmmm....



Let me think .....





Oh yeah!

Solar and wind.

[kentauros]

11. Also Polywell Fusion

Polywell Fusion

[grahamhgreen]

7. Enough with this dirty dangerous crappy tech from a bygone era, already!

[evirus]

10. It's only dirty and dangerious if you fail to maintain and upgrade.

...

[wordpix]

14. Add these fails: safe disposal of waste, human error, power/water pumps failing, fuel rods stored in

"temporary" pools for decades and added onto for decades, and so on, and you get DIRTY & DANGEROUS

[grahamhgreen]

21. Which of course you do in order to maximize profits!

[wordpix]

22. +10000 of course, indeed

[enough]

8. k&r (nt)

[byeya]

16. So, nukes have to be taxpayer subsidized; miners get lung cancer from the uranium ore; the waste

has no known resting place and remains deadly for centuries; and, they can't be run to capacity in hot weather.
Sounds OK to me. What's the next big corporate giveaway?

[Strelnikov_]

18. No big deal. Really don't need the power during summer heatwaves anyway. n/t