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Rising Sea Level Could Put East Coast Nuclear Plants At Risk
mdsolar (1045926) writes with news that global warming may make it more difficult to use modern power sources that rely upon being near large bodies of water for cooling. From the article: "During the 1970s and 1980s, when many nuclear reactors were first built, most operators estimated that seas would rise at a slow, constant rate. ... But the seas are now rising much faster than they did in the past ... Sea levels rose an average of 8 inches between 1880 and 2009, or about 0.06 inches per year. But in the last 20 years, sea levels have risen an average of 0.13 inches per year... NOAA) has laid out four different projections for estimated sea level rise by 2100. Even the agency's best-case scenario assumes that sea levels will rise at least 8.4 inches by the end of this century. NOAA's worst-case scenario, meanwhile, predicts that the oceans will rise nearly 7 feet in the next 86 years. But most nuclear power facilities were built well before scientists understood just how high sea levels might rise in the future. And for power plants, the most serious threat is likely to come from surges during storms. Higher sea levels mean that flooding will travel farther inland, creating potential hazards in areas that may have previously been considered safe."
The article has charts comparing the current elevation of various plants with their estimated elevations under the various NOAA sea level rise estimates.
water also expands as it warms.
If you think about it a seven-foot rise in water is not very reasonable to predict - it has to come from somewhere and there is just not that much water locked up in ice anymore.
Really?! Are you even fucking trying anymore?
If all land ice melted, sea level would rise approximately 70 meters (230 feet) worldwide.
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
The sun will rise tomorrow. I have no data for that. So by your logic, that's proof the sun will never rise again.
Learn to love Alaska
It's mostly glacier/ice sheets. There are lots of theories that small rises in temp will greatly affect average ice depth. What evidence do you have that all of those predictions are wrong?
Learn to love Alaska
We're looking at an increase overall of 2-4c for the atmosphere. Since the water temperature can't increase beyond ambient, how do you get multiple feet of water level rise out of just a few C difference in water temperature? To see any visible change in a flask of water requires a far larger swing in temperature.
Also remember that underground volcanic action is already dumping a lot of heat into the ocean here and there, so you probably would not even get the total atmospheric rise embodied in ocean temperatures that are already moderating much greater heat.
And also that greater heat means faster evaporation, which in turns means natural cooling...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Why do I get reminded of the dead parrot sketch?
A: The sea levels are rising. ... a canal.
B: No, that's just the tide.
A: Look, I know a flood when I see one and I'm looking at one right now!
B: No, no, the levels ain't rising, it's just the tide. Isn't the sea so incredibly blue today...
B: Blue or not, it's rising!
A: No, I told you, it's the tide.
B: Allright, so if it's the tide, the water should be gone in 6 hours!
(waiting, A builds up walls of sandbags to keep the water at bay)
A: There, it's gone.
B: No it's not, you just built a wall!
A: I never!
B: Yes you did!
A: I never, never did anything.
B: (tears down wall of sandbags, water floods the floor)
B: Now that's what I call a flood!
A: No, it's just
B: A CANAL?
A: Yes, you dug a canal through the bags.
B: Yeah, you dug a canal just as the water was retreating.
(and so on, you know the routine)
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The idea that these nuclear power plants are still relevant in 86 years should scare people more than any sea level rise. All those nuclear power plants are completely obsolete. If they need to be torn down and rebuilt elsewhere with new, safer, more efficient technology, we're all better off.
Not by half.
Not by half of what? The oceans are thousands of feet deep and cover 2/3 of the planet.
I am a fan of both Anthony Watts' site Watts Up With That *AND* John Cook's Skeptical Science... both are run by real people who go the extra distance find the best links to their sources (not some blog chain) and both are considerate of the reader.
Here's a small research journey: Direct CO2 rise causes temperature rise (CO2drivesT)? YES or NO?
There has been a demonstrated correlation between CO2 and temperature shown by Antarctic ice core data (within ~800-1000y). If a rise of CO2 in this data should consistently lag behind rises in temperature then CO2drivesT is not ruled out (both may be responding to some other factor but at different rates) BUT CO2drivesT has fallen down a notch... it now requires more extraordinary proof.
Even though human-driven global CO2 has risen 'terrifyingly fast' to 400ppm -- empirically speaking I am not terrified -- because the temperature rise that should accompany such a SHOCK by any reasonable interpretation of CO2drivesT, and to any reasonable extent, has not arisen. The effects of this 'causation' are missing.
Which is to say the historical correlation is broken.
That is not necessarily a bad thing. It's a thing,
Something we should be concerned about.
The rise to 400ppm is definitely humans' fault. It is 'massive'.
Temperature has not risen.
So such a causation, if any may exist, is unlikely to be significant.
We'd see it by now.
For example, head for Skeptical Science [SS] [SS] CO2 lags temperature - what does it mean which acknowledges that CO2 lags behind temperature but introduces 'CO2 amplification' which asserts a feedback where "the increased CO2 in the atmosphere amplifies the original warming.". This in itself is another extraordinary claim. While such a feedback might certainly exist I cannot just swallow it as a flat-fact when pursuing a simple answer to the CO2drivesT question. Where are the computer models incorporating this feedback that match observed temperature?
There is a stir these days among CO2drivesT proponents that some mechanism must exist that is hiding or delaying the warming that the models predict. Immature 'skeptics' jeer at this, implying that it is all about protecting the sacred forced-feedback hypothesis at any cost. Immature CO2drivesT proponents accuse them of attempting to derail the scientific method. There is a germ of truth in both. I think everyone should grow up a little.
Aside from the modern lack of warming, one thing seemed odd about amplification. In the Vostok ice core CO2+T graph clearly at ~75,000YA there is a massive injection of CO2 (~225-230ppm) that I think is Toba era volcanism. If such amplification exists and is significant, that would have been a fine time for CO2 feedback to jump in and 'save the day' with a slowing or a plateau of the declining temperature trend. Or even a rise? But 6,000 years after its onset -- on the Vostok graph at ~220ppm temperature and CO2 are once again in lock-step, both in steep decline. After some six millennia of 'higher' CO2 and 'lower' temperature. Plenty of time for particulates to settle and 'amplification' to occur. If it does. Did it?
But never mind, it's all changed, that [SS] Lag, what does it mean? page also said something astounding: "In fact, about 90% of the global warming followed the CO2 increase." 90%... is that a fact.
Since when?
Which led me to the next step where the game-changer is supposed to be [SS] Shakun et al. Clarify th
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
The US areas that are in trouble are mostly the Gulf coast, especially the Mississippi River flood plain and Florida. Florida is just barely above sea level now, and is very flat.
Slight rises in sea level cause problems all along the Mississippi. Hurricane and storm driven flooding are already getting worse.
The West Coast isn't so bad off, because there are cliffs along most of it. SF, LA and San Diego do have low spots, but they're a few miles long, and seawalls could be built. It might be necessary to dam the SF bay, with something like the Thames Barrage at the Golden Gate.
you can start here http://news.slashdot.org/story...
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
do your research for the formula. don't keep the attitude that because you don't know it, its not true or possible
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Or Princess Bride...
But if there can be no arrangement, then we are at an impasse.
I'm afraid so -- I can't compete with your solar and ocean causation. And you're no match for my atmosphere.
You're that effective?
Let me put it this way: have you ever heard of Venus?
Yes.
Forcing at it's finest.
Really? In that case, I challenge you to a battle of wits.
For the Climate Treaty?
Yes.
To the death?
I accept.
Good. Then pour the biosphere.
Inhale this, but do not touch.
I smell nothing.
What you do not smell is called carbon dioxide. It is odorless, dissolves instantly in liquid, and is among the more deadlier poisons known to man.
Hmm.
All right: where is the poison? The battle of wits has begun. It ends when you decide and we both drink, and find out who is right and who is dead.
But it's so simple. All I have to do is divine from what we know of paleoclimate, is this the kind of planet that would be driven by CO2, or merely show indications of varying levels as a consequence of other factors.... now, a clever planet would have evolved several effective 'coping mechanisms' for runaway warming such as a smooth atmospheric gradient and Tropopause water vapor, to dampen and oscillate between extremes. It would not put all its eggs in a trace gas basket or its fate would have been more likely to have been that of one of the dumber planets.
Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.
I'm just getting started!
[... much later...]
You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is "Never get involved in a land war in Asia." But only slightly less well known is this: "Never go in against a SCIENTIST when DEATH is on the line."...
[...thump....]
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
Your sources are biased pro-sun activists. They sent emails to someone once, and got paid for it. It's a scandal. A scandal related to pro-sun zealots is proof that they've always been lying.
Learn to love Alaska
No, I'd never seen that. It was just coincidence that I picked a problem that's been looked at but not solved before. That's considered an unsolved problem. The answer is "1" but it can't be proven. It's obvious from the data, and questioning the data won't change the outcome. But it makes for a "controversy". A fake one invented by the mega-rich trying to confuse the issue.
Learn to love Alaska
No, most lay people are not smart (or educated in the subject) enough to correctly analyse the data. And the people are capable of analysing the data, are also capable of finding the data. It's not that well hidden, actually.
You must have missed the Cryosat data, then. Antarctic sea ice is pretty much irrelevant in the discussion. It is mostly seasonal, and it has negligible impact on sea level. What we care about is the the grounded ice, and we care about the volume, not the area.
It doesn't have to thaw in place, it just has to slide into the ocean.
The total collapse of the vulnerable parts of West Antarctica’s ice sheets would raise sea levels by at least 3 metres . The possibility of this happening has now moved from the hypothetical to an unfortunate reality. The ends of many of the glaciers that drain these ice sheets are already significantly below sea level, and the ice sheets are not hemmed in by mountains, as Greenland’s ice sheets are.
Without an anchor on land, the ice sheets' collapse is inevitable and cannot be slowed. We can now only watch as West Antarctica’s ice sheets collapse. The best we can now hope for is that this collapse will be slow and stately, and take centuries to unfold.
If this is the case, then civilizations can probably adapt to the havoc this will cause to coastal communities. However, we have evidence from prehistoric warm periods that this could occur over decades. At this point we don’t know long it will take, but we do know that the climate forcing today is much stronger than at any time in over 50 million years.
Given we have made so little progress on limiting our global carbon emissions, the odds are that ice-sheet collapse will only accelerate. Once this sort of collapse begins, it will not stop. Satellite measurements compiled by UK researchers have shown that Antarctica is losing 160 billion tonnes of ice per year, mainly through thinning of West Antarctica’s ice sheets. The ground beneath the ice is being held down like a massive spring, and as the ice gets lighter the ground will rise quicker leading to more accelerated thinning.
Another way of putting it is that we appear to have crossed a tipping point. There are many other fuses that could be lit, and probably will be, if the collapse markedly accelerates - and these would add to the rate and magnitude of the sea level rise. One of those potential fuses is the Totten Glacier, on the margin of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. In this area, a rift in the Antarctic crust allows sea water to extend hundreds of kilometres under the ice, literally undermining the ice.
I find it very enjoyable, yet irritating, to see people take every single effect/cause independently, somehow analyse them (while actually having no clue at all what they are doing) and come to the conclusion they are too small to be related to a trend, while missing the obvious point that independent effect can be cumulativ. Worse, different effect can promote other and accelerate the trend. And they cook up a counter arguments (again while having no clue, even of the oders of magnitude) and propagate their ignorance to others ready to believe their pseudo scientific facts.
I really have to stand on the side of other posts I read here, stating that most people are simply not open minded or bright enough to understand the data and analyse it. A large part of this is to blame on education, but when basic logic and analytic skills fail (either due to intellectual capacity or to unwillingness to use those skills) I doupt even that would help.
Please stop with the half-assed facts. The average temperature of the coldest region of Antractica is -57C. That has nothing to do with the average temperature overall on the continent. What you wrote is just as stupid as saying nobody will get a heat stroke anytime soon in Pheonix; the average temperature in Vail is 11C (52F) after all.
Then by all means, enlighten them. Explain these sorts of sizes, and similar sizes to which they are relative.
I'll wait.
The point is anyone who asks such questions in that manner is objecting. It's a stupid rhetorical "trick" to claim [citation needed] without expressing an opinion themselves, nor supporting their obvious opinion. It's just lazy.
Learn to love Alaska
If only (Holland) some country (Holland) could come up with a way (Holland) so that areas (60% of the population of Holland) could remain viable (half of Holland's land area) in the face of (dikes in Holland) rising sea levels (Holland) so that we didn't (Holland) have to worry about this (Holland).
Doesn't the necessary (Holland) expertise (Holland) exist anywhere on Earth (Holland)?
Not sure why i'm replying to an anonymous retard but anyway.
Water does have the strange property of expanding significantly when it freezes (and expanding slightly just before freezing). However above about 4 degrees centigrade it expands with temperature. Of the order of 0.04% per degree centigrade (depending on the current temperature)
0.04% doesn't seem like much but the oceans are about 4km deep so a 1 degree centigrade rise in average ocean temperature would be of the order of a 1.6m rise in sea level.
however the bigger concern is the release of water that is currently locked up in ice on land (ice on the water floats and so has a negigable impact on sea levels when it melts).
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Because it is useful to stir up a bunch of chicken-littles to run around panicking about the sky falling. Then D.C. is obliged to begin another round of legislation , probes and programs that wont work, but will create a nice diversion to cover other activities.
The useful parts of the report are probably classified so they dont fall to terrorist hands, like anyone who would vote them out of office.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
So then why provide them with fodder like these reports of the science that leave out all the crucial information?
MOD THIS UP!
In particular this nuclear FUD. It seems that certain submitters peruse for anything they can find that sounds remotely anti-nuke and post it regardless of any credibility or truth. In reality, most coastal nuclear plants are quite a bit above sea level already, and several feet of rise would likely make no difference at all to the main facility. The intake structures could easily be modified, if even needed, for higher water elevation. The intakes are by nature under water to start with. In truth, if the intake is actually further under water, the water would be a bit cooler, and would improve the efficiency of the turbine generator.
ironically, the most effective, fastest, and cost effective way to offset Co2 contributions and thereby reduce that impact on GW is to build more nuclear.
They don't have to still be operating 86 years from now for there to still be significant risk. The decommissioning plans for a nuclear power plant extends into decades, and there are risks and vulnerabilities all during that time. The plans call for leaving the spent fuel there for years or decades after the operational lifetime of the plant. At the rate the U.S. is dealing with the problem of radioactive waste (that is, not at all), I wouldn't be surprised if some decommissioned plants still had spent fuel hanging around 86 years from now. Any nuclear facility that hasn't been decommissioned back to a green field state, and gets inundated in a flood, presents a risk that's worth looking into.
It is not as though the intervening 85 years are free from risk, either - rising sea level and a serious storm could flood a nuclear plant in the next decade. There is a risk today, and the risk will increase gradually and inexorably for decades.
According to a US geological survey there are 332,519,000 cubic miles of water in the oceans and they have a surface area of 129,444,000 square miles a rise of 7 feet is 171,611 cubic miles of water or a 0.05% increase. The average temperature of the ocean is 39F to get that increase in volume the average temperature would need to be 46F. That's 4.06e25 Joules to achieve that over 86 years or 4.83e23 J per year which is half the total energy of the sun that strikes the earth each year. I just have a hard time believing that greenhouse gases trap 50% more of the sun's energy and put it directly into the ocean.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
Haha, no, I don't think I'm going to spend my time explaining such things as "the oceans are large." You are pig ignorance exemplified.
South Florida has a population of greater than 6 million. Not only do we have nukes right on the beach we also have garbage mountains, graveyards that go back 150 years, chemical wells, and every other pollutant that a city tends to have. All of this is less than five feet above sea level. Most of it may be only two feet above sea level. The topography is such that the area will flood from the Atlantic all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. The region will not be habitable inland or on the coasts. Keep in mind we get high tides, spring tides, and hurricanes with surges as well as very tall waves. In other words a house on stilts would not help. Houseboats would have about a two year life span as tropical storms are common. So what you may say. Who gives a hoot about South Florida? the catch is that the pollution that would take place may well be enough to destroy the Atlantic ocean completely. South Florida also produces fruit and vegetables even in winter and there is no other part of the continental US that does that. On top of that the investment and mortgage value of south Florida is on a scale large enough to completely destroy the US economy if we go under.
I found the following numbers: volume = 1.3 billion km^3, expansion coefficient = 250 ppm/K, heat capacity = 3.993 kJ/kg/K. Average depth = 3.68 km. So, to get a rise of 7 feet, a temperature rise of 2.32 K is required, which requires 1.3E21 * 3993 * 2.32 = 1.2E25 J total, or 1.4E23 per year. That's quite a bit less, but still a lot of heat. But of course, not all of the 7 feet rise will be due to thermal expansion. Over the last couple of years, about 75% of the rise in sea level was due to melting ice, and only 25% due to thermal expansion.
The NRC is responding to a court order to show that the nuclear waste issue is under control. They are trying to claim that it can be stored for a long long time at nuclear power plants. It seems pretty clear that climate change makes that claim false in some cases.
Yeah, they are in consensus that it's been getting a little warmer
A lot warmer, if you're interested in ecology. Take eucalyptus species for and example. 25% of species have a range that spans less that 1C in mean temperature. That means that a 1C change in temperature puts the new long-term survivable range completely outside their current range. That comes with a significant extinction risk, and where movement is blocked by the edge of continents, tops of mountains, or human land use, it get this think called "committed to extinction"
...and humans contributed a little to that.
The consensus is probably contributed the majority of that.
... other things being equal.)
I think most people would say likely all of it, or slightly more. (We are in the cooling part of the Milankovic cycle, having hit the peak about 8000 years ago, so many reconstructions of natural climate is that it would be in a slow cooling
One of the most severely affected plants is Turkey Point, yet Florida just approved and expansions. http://www.pennenergy.com/arti... Why new power would be needed when the customer base is eroding hard to fathom. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05...
Yea, no big news, this is the latest roll out of old news to supplement the new global wierding narrative the administration is pushing.
Which administration are you talking about? You are aware that the authors of the SAM papers are from: (1) British Antarctic Survey, Natural Environment Research Council, Cambridge CB3 0ET, United Kingdom, (2) Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory , Australia, (3) Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, Laboratoire HydroSciences Montpellier et Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environment, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France, and (4) Climate Change Research Centre and ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales 2052, Australia?
So unless this is an administration of Australia, France and the UK, you're mistaken.
This was known and predicted in 1999.
There are new findings about the relationship between the Southern Annular Mode (the winds around Antarctica's latitude and speed), and the ice mass loss. And there are new proxy data for this SAM, showing the current effect the strongest in the past 1000 years. So mass loss acceleration is expected.
No acceleration in the rise
The acceleration is more visible in the data here: http://www.cmar.csiro.au/seale...
If this is the case, then civilizations can probably adapt to the havoc this will cause to coastal communities. However, we have evidence from prehistoric warm periods that this could occur over decades. At this point we don’t know long it will take, but we do know that the climate forcing today is much stronger than at any time in over 50 million years.
Assuming you are referring to radiative forcing, all we have are forcing assumptions and climate models that use them, and it appears so far from observations that the assumptions of warming based on forcing are not accurate. A recent paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research demonstrates that global temperatures are entirely independent of radiative forcing.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
What's up with all the climate alarmism on Slashdot. Next, we'll have horoscopes and astrological papers.
Why didn't they build a wind farm off the coast of Massachusetts? Was it the Koch brothers or Ted Kennedy?
Please describe the foot print of a wind or solar farm that generates electrical output equal to the 24x7 production capability of one nuke reactor plant... Your alternative isn't much of an alternative, really.
Each of the two reactors at Three Mile Island generate about 852 MWe, a comparable wind farm occupies about 9,000 acres (about 14 square miles) and the largest solar power plant takes up 2,400 acres just to generate 290 MWe, so to replace TMI you'd need to dedicate enough space for six such facilities, or about 14,400 acres (about 22.5 square miles)...
The Three Mile Island reactor occupies less than three square miles.
I leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine if either facility can generate that much electricity 24x7 as Three Mile Island can.
Ken