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Europe's Heatwave is Forcing Nuclear Power Plants To Shut Down (qz.com)
Europe's heatwave -- which led to wildfires in Greece and Sweden, droughts in central and northern parts, and made the normally green UK look brown from space -- is forcing nuclear plants to shut down or curtail the amount of power they produce, local media reports. From a report: French utility EDF shut four reactors at three power plants on Saturday, Swedish utility Vattenfall shut one of two reactors at a power plant earlier last week, and nuclear plants in Finland, Germany, and Switzerland have cut back the amount of power they produce. Thermal power plants, such as nuclear or coal, use high-temperature steam to turn turbines, which convert heat energy into electricity. In the process, the steam's temperature falls, so it can no longer be used to move the turbine again. [...] Europe's heatwave, however, hasn't just increased air temperatures but also water temperatures.
The problem with climate change isn't so much as our planet breaking but everything we depend on breaking. Somewhat wacky that nuclear reactors aren't designed to handle this heat but then again I would have never imagined the crazy kind of temperatures Europe has skyrocketed up to. So one has to wonder, what other stuff is going to break?
Nuke plants mostly perform well in hot weather and carry the system when other sources are struggling. A few reactors have to cut back due to heat limits on cooling water. The total percentage of nuclear reduction across the board is less than 10%. Meanwhile, wind power during the recent heat wave was down over 80%. Nuclear was carrying the load. Particularly it was critical in late afternoon and evening when solar fades. There were times when wind production during these critical times dropped below 1% of demand.
https://news.bloombergenvironment.com/environment-and-energy/europes-power-prices-rise-as-heat-wave-saps-wind-from-turbines
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-01/scorching-start-to-august-set-to-test-europe-s-power-system
It's a terrible summary.
The problem is that the water is chilled... but it's chilled by running it through colder water, usually pulled from a lake or a stream. Usually this isn't a problem, because the waste heat doesn't disrupt the ecosystem too much.
Right now, however, the environment is so warm that adding the waste heat would push temperatures above acceptable levels, killing the local ecosystem. Instead, the reactors are shut down to minimize the amount of heat they have to dissipate.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
From TFA, the reason why the reactors were shut down (which wasn't included in the summary) is:
Yeah, I know that reading TFA is no longer cool on Slashdot, but someone has to help out the editors. :P
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Poor design. All over the world there are nuclear plants operating just fine in hot tropical and subtropical climates, including the USA. Never has been a problem. So the Euros are doing something wrong with their designs.
Almost all the European nukes are running just fine, full output. Only a few have cut back due to discharge heat limits.
There's rivers in the US where power plants have raised the water temperature 20 degrees and essentially displaced the entire habitat.
An exaggeration. But do you know how much habitat Hydro power has displaced by comparison?
Its a German and EU political and environmental problem. eg Thermal pollution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The cooling water drawn from rivers, lakes, or seas will get more warm in hooter weather as more cooling water is needed.
German laws put limits on how hot cooling water can be when returned to such "rivers, lakes, or seas".
Laws limited the exisiting cooling engineering.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
The cooling water drawn from rivers, lakes, or seas will get more warm in hooter weather as more cooling water is needed.
This is presumably weather so warm that women take off their tops.
This is europe, we do that even in the cold weather.