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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.
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.
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.
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>
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.
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.