sci.energy

On Feb 15, 12:16=A0am, "Antonio Fili" wrote:
> "Angelo Campanella" <...@> ha scritto nel messaggionews:F8=
$@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet....
>
>
>
> > PeterBP wrote:
> >> "Water is the nuclear industry's Achilles' heel," said Jim Warren,
> >> executive director of North Carolina Waste Awareness and Reduction
> >> Network, an environmental group critical of nuclear power. "You need a
> >> lot of water to operate nuclear plants." He added: "This is becoming a
> >> crisis."
>
> > This can become THE biggest Achilles' heel of NP.
>
> This can become the biggest Achille's heel of ANY kind of thermal plants,
> without considering different thermal efficiency (and of course, nuclear h=
as
> the lower one). Anyway, I woudn't say it' s a lot of water, iirc nukes nee=
d
> 1 m^3/s for one GW electric if the evaporative scheme is used
>
> Possible solutions :
> dry cooling, but I suppose it reduces thermal efficiency (doesn' t it?), a=
t
> least in hot periods;
> sea water or large rivers locations with non evaporative schemes, but I
> suppose they are very expensive, in that case they need about 50 m^3/s of
> water per GWe, but the water is only heated up by a few degrees (less tha =
3
> =B0C, iirc), not "consumed";
> to use waste heat for low temperatures thermal applications, like district=

> heating/cooling or seawater desalination

In the it's coal. AP delibertly made this a nuclear story
even though it effects coal and combined cycle plants as much if not
more so. There are a lot engineering ways to deal with this as some of
you mentioend, cooling towers are the most obvious but they actually
do consume a lot of water (but about 1/100000 of the amount of water
*used* in once through river cooling.

The longer term solution is to build all new nuclear plants on the
coasts and Great Lakes and use EHV (Extra High Voltage) 756kv DC lines
to distribute it around the country with almost no line loss.

David