"Drought could force nuke-plant shutdowns"
This entry was posted on 1/23/2008 10:39 PM and is filed under Water problems,nuclear,Leadership.
The title is from an article today by the Associated Press on Yahoo!.
As covered in the entry Water, water not everywhere, one of the big problems with generating electricity with nuclear and fossil fuels is excessive fresh water use. Some excerpts from the article:
Nuclear reactors across the Southeast could be forced to throttle back or temporarily shut down later this year because drought is drying up the rivers and lakes that supply power plants with the awesome amounts of cooling water they need to operate.
Utility officials say such shutdowns probably wouldn't result in blackouts. But they could lead to shockingly higher electric bills for millions of Southerners, because the region's utilities may be forced to buy expensive replacement power from other energy companies.
An Associated Press analysis of the nation's 104 nuclear reactors found that 24 are in areas experiencing the most severe levels of drought.
While rain and some snow fell recently, water levels across the region are still well below normal. Most of the severely affected area would need more than a foot of rain in the next three months — an unusually large amount — to ease the drought and relieve pressure on the nuclear plants. And the long-term forecast calls for more dry weather.
At Progress Energy Inc., which operates four reactors in the drought zone, officials warned in November that the drought could force it to shut down its Harris reactor near Raleigh, according to documents obtained by the AP. The water in Harris Lake stands at 218.5 feet — just 3 1/2 feet above the limit set in the plant's license. Lake Norman near Charlotte is down to 93.7 feet — less than a foot above the minimum set in the license for Duke Energy Corp.'s McGuire nuclear plant. The lake was at 98.2 feet just a year ago.
During Europe's brutal 2006 heat wave, French, Spanish and German utilities were forced to shut down some of their nuclear plants and reduce power at others because of low water levels — some for as much as a week.
"Currently, nuclear power costs between $5 to $7 to produce a megawatt hour," said Daniele Seitz, an energy analyst with New York-based Dahlman Rose & Co. "It would cost 10 times that amount that if you had to buy replacement power — especially during the summer."
Progress spokeswoman Julie Hahn said the Harris reactor, for example, sucks up 33 million gallons a day, with 17 million gallons lost to evaporation via its big cooling towers. Duke's McGuire plant draws in more than 2 billion gallons a day, but most of it is pumped back to its source.
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Our federal representatives can't say they didn't know this was coming. From a December 2006, Dept. of Energy Report, Energy Demands on Water Resources - Report to Congress on the Interdependency of Energy and Water:
- A 2003 General Accounting Office study showed that most state water managers expect either local or regional water shortages within the next 10 years under average climate conditions (GAO, 2003). Under drought conditions, even more severe water shortages are expected.
Problem is.... over four years later, the needed action with respect to our fresh water use is not occurring. The sooner we address an escalating problem, the easier it is to fix. From my neighbor Andre, "we can choose, or have Mother Nature choose for us."
Let's start paying the external costs of nuclear power AT THE TIME WE USE THE ELECTRICITY. Costs like the use of millions (even billions) of gallons of fresh water each day at a single nuclear plant and the costs (still unknown) of safe, long-term storage of nuclear waste.
The best way to start paying these external costs is a phased-in, federal tax shift from income to non-renewable energy. This tax shift will provide a real incentive for conservation and make entire tiers of renewable energy projects economically viable.
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P.S. - prediction: just watch as the plant license water limits are hurriedly lowered. Because of engineering factors of safety, lowering these by very small amounts may be OK. The BIG PROBLEM will be if this is done WITHOUT instituting fresh water-related, energy policy fixes.
