Heat Wave Shuts Down Alabama Reactor

mdsolar writes "In a first for the US, one of three nuclear reactors at the Browns Ferry nuclear plant in Alabama has been shut down because the Tennessee River is too hot to provide adequate cooling for the waste heat produced by the reactor. This is happening as the TVA faces its highest demand for power ever, reports the Houston Chronicle. This effect has been seen in Europe in the past, forcing reduced generation, but the US has until now been immune to the problem. The TVA will buy power elsewhere and impose higher rates, blaming reduced river flow as a result of drought."

Comments

This is actually really good news

[Anonymous Coward]

As for a while, they were planning to use one engineer's idea of cooling it with ice cold beer.

Re:This is actually really good news

[__aaclcg7560]

Nah... They need to build another nuclear reactor to run the chiller for both the reactors AND the beer.

In Soviet Russia

[davidwr]

In Soviet Russia, overheating nuclear reactor shuts down YOU!

Re:In Soviet Russia

[Oktober Sunset]

Actually, it's to distinguish it from Russia now. The original joke just said Russia, it was only after the collapse of the USSR that it changed.
There's not really much worry about people think the jokes are about Tsarist Russia is there?

(After writing this bit, it bacame clear to me that subconciously, I envision 1st Dude to be Brian Griffin, and 2nd Dude to be Stewie.)
1st Dude: "In Russia overheating reactor shuts down YOU."
2nd Dude: "Oh yea, thats funny, I get it, cos like, they just used uranium for yellow pottery glave back in Tsarist times right? Thats funny. No wait, Don't get that, that makes no sense"
1st Dude: "No, like I mean the Soviet era, like Chernobyl blowing up"
2nd Dude: "oh right, like why didn't you say"
1nd Dude: "I dunno, I figured it was obvious"
2nd Dude: "wasn't umm wasn't Chernobyl in the Ukraine"
1st Dude: "What am I like, a geography teacher now?"
2nd Dude: "that's like pretty poor taste man, a lot of people died"
2nd Dude: "That's not really funny at all"
1st Dude: "In Soviet Russia, taste poors YOU! heh heh"
2nd Dude: "that one wasn't even a sentence"

River too hot?

[MMC Monster]

Why not just run the river through a refrigerator to cool it down? After all, you can generate the electricity for the refrigerator in the plant.

(I'd patent the idea, but the patent office has a silly rule regarding perpetual motion machines that gets in the way...)

Re:What "waste heat"?

[Wonko the Sane]

In practice this is an engineering problem

You misspelled "fundamental limit of thermodynamics"

Re:Waste heat?

[xxMSAxx]

Why not just pump it into a giant tower and we can all have hot water despite the jackass taking a 2hr shower!!!!

Re:paddle wheels in the heat stream

[Quadraginta]

Sure. Now if only someone in Alabama living close to the power plant needed to heat his house in the middle of a heat wave...

Re:not immune

[johnpaul191]

i'm immune to zombie attacks.

Re:not immune

[Oktober Sunset]

so, you have no brain? No juicy juicy brain?