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New Threat To Seaside Nuclear Plants, Datacenters: Jellyfish
Nerval's Lobster writes "One of the largest nuclear-power plants in the world was forced to shut down temporarily Sept. 29, after pipes that bring Baltic Sea water in to cool the plant's turbines became clogged with tons of jellyfish. The sudden influx of common moon jellyfish overwhelmed the screens and filters that keep flotsam and most sea life out of the Oskarshamn nuclear plant in southeastern Sweden. The plant was forced to shut down its No. 3 reactor – the largest boiling-water reactor in the world, which generates 1,400 megawatts of electricity when it is jellyfish-free and running at full power. The reactor stayed down until early Oct. 1, after the jellyfish had been cleared out and engineers approved the cooling system as invertebrate-free. It's not easy to overwhelm the cooling system for a nuclear power plant, but Oskarshamn's is unusually resilient. There is a separate intake- and cooling system for each reactor, all of which were designed for the brackish, polluted water in that area of the Baltic Sea. Most datacenters are too far inland to worry about jellyfish in their cooling water, though green-IT-promoters Vertatique estimated that a 5,000-sq.-ft. datacenter would consume almost 9 million gallons of water for cooling. That means ocean-side datacenters that use sea water for cooling (such as Google's datacenter in Hamina, Finland — also on the Baltic Sea) are just as susceptible to jellyfish attacks as nuclear power plants."
Do they have 3 eyes?
Square Pants on the job. He'll collect the #hit out of those jellyfish or they'll follow him home for a fantastic disco jam.
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I guess we'll need a Geiger counter to figure out if they have a natural bioluminescent jellyfish glow, or if they are irradiated.
There's been a huge increase in the jellyfish populations around the world, they've been thriving as the seas warm up - more plankton equals more jellyfish. Fishing boats are catching huge nets of the things when they're supposed to be picking up fish. It's such a problem, there's a Japanese effort to get people to eat jellyfish sushi.
Jellyfish attack?
attack [uh-tak] ...
verb (used with object)
1.
to set upon in a forceful, violent, hostile, or aggressive way, with or without a weapon; begin fighting with: He attacked him with his bare hands.
2.
to begin hostilities against; start an offensive against: to attack the enemy.
Kind of implies a certain amount of forethought and/or planning. If jellyfish attacked the cooling system then I have a newfound respect for the intelligence of jellyfish.
Perhaps they simply infested the cooling system? Editors, they aren't just for breakfast any more.
We have the world's largest jellyfish here in Puget Sound.
Remember, jellyfish are smarter than Congress. Not that that's hard to do.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
A spoonful of slurry will cure what ails ya! http://24.media.tumblr.com/7f88110a482eb102aba76e2cfd0a6995/tumblr_mjzpyrMXZp1s5tlmxo1_500.gif
I remember reading about power plants having this issue back in the '90s.
I'm not saying the CIA was behind this,
but the CIA was behind this.
You never really know how close to the edge you can go until you fall off.
Does it not make more sense to use clean, filtered water to transfer the heat out into the ocean? The heat exchanger can sit in the ocean to facilitate removing heat without the worry of having jellyfish clogging filters. Effective cooling capacity might be reduced without an active water stream going over the heat exchanger, but this can be compensated for by using a larger one.
The only possible problem I can see is the build-up of aquatic life on the head exchanger. They would require periodic cleaning. But unlike filters, you would not have to shut down the cooling system to do so. In addition, you don't have to worry about there being any sudden changes in the cooling capacity of the system so it should be much easier to plan and perform the cleaning.
Ah, jellyfish. This is one of my favourite up-and-coming ocean doomsday scenarios.
Consider:
- No hard parts, so unaffected by ocean acidification
- Perform well in anoxic (low oxygen) environments
- Eat everything
- Have almost no nutritional value of their own
- Can shrink when food resources are low, and simply eat less
- Few natural predators
- Some species are effectively immortal by way of reverting to earlier life stages
To a certain extent, it's a bit of a miracle that the oceans managed to ever keep them in check, but oxygenation of the oceans created whole ecosystems of creatures that could--as a group--effectively compete against jellyfish.
There's no one predator that we can release that will keep the jellyfish contained or under control. It takes whole ecosystems to combat a real jellyfish problem.
Here's a review of a book written by Dr. Lisa Gershwin (composer Gershwin's granddaughter, I believe) http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/sep/26/jellyfish-theyre-taking-over/?pagination=false
Fortunately, humans are adept at obliterating species if they can get a taste for them. Better acquire a taste for them quick.
Just convince the Chinese that they are an aphrodesiac. They'll become an endangered species in no time.
THe issue is the screen before the intake is clogged right?
Okay... what about another screen well away from that one with a much larger surface area...
That fixes the problem right? Right... okay. Do that.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I live 1.3km from salt water. Late in the quiet of the night I hear a distant thrumming, "we're coming we're coming we're coming we're coming......"
Oh c'mon, science is interesting regardless, especially here on slashdot.
This is not a "new threat"; this is extremely common. A quick google comes up with at least 5 similar incidents in 2011 and 2012.
http://www.ibtimes.com/jellyfish-invade-four-nuclear-reactors-japan-israel-scotland-photos-707777
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/04/27/11432974-diablo-canyon-nuclear-plant-in-california-knocked-offline-by-jellyfish-like-creature-called-salp?lite
0x or or snor perron?!
The attacks continue. http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/11/07/10/0234250/millions-of-jellyfish-invade-nuclear-reactors
The new way breach a datacenter.....
It amuses me that the collective noun (you know, like a "pack" of dogs or a "flock" of birds or a "tantrum" of Representatives) for jellyfish is a "smack".
It's like you can just hear them smashing themselves into water intakes. "SMACK!".
We now return this thread to people with more directly relevant things to write.
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Incredible read - thanks for the link.
Not bad for 100 years of service.
Per second?
Who knows.
It will also use 2 liter. Or possibly a library of congress.
Our new radioactive, immortal jellyfish overlords.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Have a giant fan with blender blades in front of the intakes. It might be cruel though, so that may be a bad idea. Doesn't sound very humane or jellyfishane .. i am sure there are other ways to deter jellyfish.
People eat jellyfish. Any Chinese store will have them.
Since we are being pedantic about language, it is jetsam , not flotsam , that is clogging the pipe. Flotsam is floating debris. If the debris is drifting below the surface, it is jetsam. Since nuke intake pipes are always well below the surface, they cannot be clogged by flotsam.
Fish blocked the intakes? Shut the reactors down.
Wait what?! That's exactly what happened!? Well holy mackerel it worked as intended.
This is a FUD piece designed to sway people from nuclear energy. Nothing more. Does it really belong here on /.?
You could even express it in gigawatts. Are they looking to not have to go 88 MPH or something???
Incredible read - thanks for the link.
Seconded. Quite chilling.
Don't you mean "irregardless"?
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
To be fair, this issue could easily affect any sizable power plant, nuclear or fossil. Giant coal-fired boilers also typically use nearby bodies of water to cool their condensers, same as a nuclear plant. The sensationalist "threat to nuclear plant" bit in the title is a bit overmuch.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
problem: water filter overwhelmed by large quantity of jellyfish
willy_me: why not just use filtered water
This was already the subject of a WANO (World Association of Nuclear Operators) Significant Operating Event Report a few years ago - something to do with loss of heat sink. All nuclear stations worldwide will have a credible and audited plan to deal with this by now. Jellyfish does make a good headline, though,
Any reports of a blue glow in the deeps?
--Udo.
(you know, like a "pack" of dogs or a "flock" of birds or a "tantrum" of Representatives)
Correction: a collective of Representatives is known as a "shutdown"
No, since regardless is a proper word. Irregardless is both not a word and redundant.
It was a steamship problem and then a coastal coal fired power station problem.
Now it's decomposer Gershwin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolence
Why not?
Just remove the screens and let em all through; maybe add a macerator. Anyone happen to know offhand the thermal coefficient of jellyfish jelly?
Why do they not reverse the in and out pipes? They could make it suck and blow and it would move the jellyfish off the screen.
Interesting article, YOU READ NOW.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/sep/26/jellyfish-theyre-taking-over/?pagination=false
A horde of jellyfish-like animals has forced the shutdown of a nuclear power plant in California.
The gelatinous creatures, 2 to 3 inches long, are called sea salp.
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/2012/04/24/2041453/diablo-canyon-nuclear-reactor.html
Sea salp can reproduce sexually and asexually, and "you can have millions in a couple of days," e
http://www.newser.com/story/144935/jellyfish-like-creatures-shut-down-nuclear-plant.html
Actually jelly fish took down a California reactor many years ago but 1912 (the above links) is all the shows.
Um, it's a technical issue, and i thought slashdot is about technology, not jsut about new apple products.
In the end, Mnemiopsis was controlled, and then only partially, by the accidental introduction of another comb jelly. Beroe has tooth-like structures that allow it to eat Mnemiopsis. Only a jellyfish, it seems, can halt a jellyfish invasion.
Gotta fight jelly with jelly.
(Hm, that phrasing just doesn't have the same sting as "fight fire with fire".)
A few years back we were sailing on my father-in-law's nice sloop when the wind dropped so we had to start the engine.
At the time we were in the middle of the narrow Drøbakssundet sound which all shipping to/from Oslo has to pass through, so we had to get out of the shipping lanes quickly, right?
After just a minute or so the engine choked up, and with a dead calm we had no other option than to declare an emergency and use the VHF to call for assistance from Sea Rescue.
We got towed into harbour and lifted up, then we found that the cooling water intake had got clogged by jellyfish puree. :-(
Terje
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"
There's so much water in those jellyfish that they can be processed through a mixer / blender to make a jellymilk.
The cooling pumps and tubes could be adapted to this fluid a little bit thicker than water.
Surely this must be fabricated! Nuclear is the ONLY solution to baseload I'm told at every turn and that renewables will NEVER manage to power people's needs because it goes out occasionally if there's no wind over the entire globe or somthing.
Holy fucking cow.
90% of collective nouns are made-up bullshit only ever referenced in quizzes and "Did You Know" observations. No-one uses them in actual conversation, ever.
In my book that not only makes them Useless Knowledge, but also Fictional Knowledge.
According to this Soylent Oceanographic Survey Report, 2015 to 2019 , the seas are dying.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Just license the technology used to produce Lil' Lisa brand Fish Slurry from Mr. Burns. It would be a simple matter of rebranding.
Once again, the fount of all wisdom shows the answer.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
http://goo.gl/d04pmI
As Foghorn Leghorn said "That's a joke, son. A flag waver. You're built too low. The fast ones go over your head. " The point was that the Japanese don't need to be forced to eat the deadly pufferfish or whale (most people think the meat sucks and it's only a small group of nut jobs who actually like it),and if it takes effort to make them eat something, yeah, you don't want to go near it. It was just a joke.
I'm surprised you're the only one saying this. I kind of expected an entire kvetch of slashdotters to make the same complaint.
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
Shouldn't we then see an increase in those species, that eat jellyfish?
Well let's review the list you pointed out:
Some of the most common and important jellyfish predators include tuna,
We eat them. A lot. In fact we fish them so much that we tend to accidentally fish nearby dolphins too.
shark
We eat them. Not only that, but we are at a slaughtering rampage against them, because once in a blue moon a careless human happens to be killed by one.
swordfish
We eat these too.
and at least one species of Pacific salmon
We eat these a lot. They end up in sandwiches almost as frequently as thuna.
as well as sea turtles, also known as leatherback turtle
We occasionally eat sea turtles too, at least the few surviving which haven't yet choked up on plastic bags or similar garbage (which, in the eyes of a sea turtle, looks very similar to the jellyfish they're supposed to feed on).
hum.... Noticed a trend here ? HINT: there's a reason why the jellyfish populations thrives unchecked - climate change is a part of this reason, the other part is that the predators who are supposed to keep the population in check spend more time on our food plates (or getting killed by us for other reasons) than eating jellyfishes.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
We had a meeting and I was appointed "Derider of the Collective Noun". So I'm filling in for the entire kvetch.