{"id":4211,"date":"2013-06-24T08:00:36","date_gmt":"2013-06-24T12:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=4211"},"modified":"2013-06-21T06:21:07","modified_gmt":"2013-06-21T10:21:07","slug":"french-german-and-spanish-nukes-unreliable-in-heat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/06\/french-german-and-spanish-nukes-unreliable-in-heat.html","title":{"rendered":"French, German, and Spanish nukes unreliable in heat"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nInvest in nukes for\r\n\r\nhot water in rivers damaging plants and animals\r\nwhile there’s less water for agriculture and cities\r\nand droughts and summer heat waves cause power shortages.\r\nThat’s Europe’s experience.\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nOr we could profit by their experience and get on with\r\nreliable renewable solar and wind power.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe Guardian, 12 August 2003,\r\n\r\nHeatwave hits French power production<\/a>,\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

\r\nFrance has shut down the equivalent of four nuclear power stations\r\nas the heatwave eats into the country’s electricity generating\r\ncapacities. With temperatures in French rivers hitting record highs,\r\nsome power plants relying on river water to cool their reactors have\r\nbeen forced to scale back production.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nJulio Godoy wrote for OneWorld.net 28 July 2006,\r\n\r\nEuropean Heat Wave Shows Limits of Nuclear Energy<\/a>,\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

\r\nThe heat wave since mid-June has led authorities in France, Germany,\r\nSpain and elsewhere in Europe to override their own environmental\r\nnorms on the maximum temperature of water drained from the plants’\r\ncooling systems.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe French government announced July 24 that nuclear power plants\r\nsituated along rivers will be allowed to drain hot water into rivers\r\nat higher temperature. The measure is intended “to guarantee the\r\nprovision of electricity for the country,” according to an official\r\nnote.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nFrance has 58 nuclear power plants, which produce almost 80 percent\r\nof electricity generated in the country. Of these, 37 are situated\r\nnear rivers, and use them as outlet for water from their cooling\r\nsystems.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe drought accompanying the hot summer has reduced the volume of\r\nwater in the rivers, and might force some power plants to shut down.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nUnder normal circumstances, environment rules limit the maximum\r\ntemperature for waste water in order to protect river flora and\r\nfauna.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“For many years now, French authorities have defended nuclear power\r\narguing that it is clean energy, good for the environment, and that\r\nit will help combat global warming, for it does not emit greenhouse\r\ngases,” Stephane Lhomme, coordinator of the environmental network\r\nSortir du Nucleaire (Phase Out Nuclear Power) told IPS.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“Now, with global warming leading to extreme hot summers, we are\r\nwitnessing that it is the other way round,” Lhomme said. “Global\r\nwarming is showing the limits of nuclear power plants, and nuclear\r\npower is destroying our environment.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nDuring the hot summer of 2003, French authorities had allowed\r\nnuclear power plants to drain excessively hot water into rivers,\r\nleading to considerable damage to flora and fauna, Lhomme said.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nAccording to the minutes of the National Surveillance Committee on\r\nwater drained from reactors August 21 and September 3, 2003, “hot\r\nwater temperatures might have led to high concentrations of\r\nammoniac, which is potentially toxic for the rivers’ fauna.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe minutes point to a European norm on the concentration of\r\nammoniac in rivers, which France did not respect.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nMeanwhile France is importing some 2000 megawatts of power per day\r\nfrom neighbouring countries to compensate for shortages in\r\nproduction at nuclear power plants.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nWhile the French authorities have overridden their own environmental\r\nnorms, in Germany energy providers have slowed down some nuclear\r\nreactors to limit waste water temperature and to protect flora and\r\nfauna.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\r\nReactors Kruemmel, Brunsbuettel and Brokdorf situated along the\r\nriver Elbe which flows through Eastern and Northern Germany have all\r\nbeen slowed down. So have traditional fossil fuel power plants\r\nsituated along the river Rhine.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe nuclear reactors Isar 1 near Munich, and Neckarwestheim near\r\nStuttgart have being authorised to drain hotter water into the\r\nnearby rivers than normally allowed.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nIn Spain, the nuclear power plant at Santa Maria de Garona, one of\r\neight Spanish reactors, was shut down last weekend due to the high\r\ntemperatures recorded in the river Ebro, into which the reactor\r\ndrains the water used in its cooling system.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe power plant, Spain’s oldest, provides 20 percent of the\r\nelectricity generated in the country.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nGerman energy expert Hermann Scheer says the situation shows a need\r\nfor radical change in policy. “We must massively invest in renewable\r\nenergy sources, and get rid of nuclear power as soon as possible,”\r\nhe told IPS.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"Santa<\/a>\r\nAccording to\r\n\r\nthe Spanish Nuclear Safety Council<\/a>,\r\nSanta Mar\u00eda de Garo\u00f1a nuclear power plant is\r\n“a BWR-3 type boiling light water reactor and a Mark 1 containment supplied by the US company General Electric.”\r\n\r\n\"Plant<\/a>\r\nThat’s the same design as Fukushima,\r\nand as Plant Hatch 1 and 2 on the Altamaha River in south Georgia,\r\nas well as\r\n\r\n22 other U.S. reactors<\/a>.\r\n

\r\nAnita Elash wrote for NPR 21 August 2007,\r\n\r\nHeat Spells Trouble for France’s Nuclear Reactors<\/a>\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nELASH: Golfech is on the right bank of the River Garonne and barely\r\nhalf a mile from the nuclear plant where there are two reactors\r\nbuilt in the late 1980s.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nMayor ALEXIS CALAFAT (Golfech, France): (French spoken)\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nELASH: As the mayor of Golfech, Alexis Calafat shows off the\r\nreactor. He’s standing near a fish elevator designed to help\r\nmigratory fish get past the reactor so they can spawn. The reactors\r\nare among the most modern in France. And like all nuclear reactors,\r\nthey need abundant supplies of cool water to keep operating. But\r\nduring the heat wave that swept France in 2003, they had trouble\r\ngetting it and one of the reactors have to shut down. Calafat says\r\nthe river water was too hot.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nMayor CALAFAT: (Through translator) During a hot spell, the water\r\ngets very hot because the river here is shallow.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nELASH: Regulations say the reactor can’t pump water over 82 degrees\r\nback into the river. And Calafat says that since the river was\r\nalready warmer than that, they no longer had the right to operate.\r\nLike the plant at Golfech, three quarters of French nuclear reactors\r\nare in rivers or lakes. And during the heat wave of 2003, the French\r\nelectricity operator EDF was forced to shut down or cut back\r\nproduction at nearly one third of them.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nLast summer, many reactors—including the one at\r\nGolfech—had to shut down again when there was another heat\r\nwave. The EDF says it’s doing everything it can to avoid a repeat\r\nperformance, but environmentalists say those shutdowns are a sign of\r\nthings to come.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nSimon Leufstedt write for greenblog 25 July 2009,\r\n\r\nFrance must shut down nuclear plants due to heatwaves<\/a>,\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

\r\nThe\r\n\r\nTimes Online<\/a>\r\nare reporting that France have been forced to close down a third of\r\nits nuclear power stations this summer due to heatwaves:\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

\r\n“France is being forced to import electricity from Britain to\r\ncope with a summer heatwave that has helped to put a third of its\r\nnuclear power stations out of action.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nWith temperatures across much of France surging above 30C this week,\r\nEDF’s reactors are generating the lowest level of electricity in six\r\nyears, forcing the state-owned utility to turn to Britain for\r\nadditional capacity.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nFourteen of France’s 19 nuclear power stations are located inland\r\nand use river water rather than seawater for cooling. When water\r\ntemperatures rise, EDF is forced to shut down the reactors to\r\nprevent their casings from exceeding 50C.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nRobert Krier wrote for InsideClimate News 15 August 2012,\r\n\r\nExtreme Heat, Drought Show Vulnerability of Nuclear Power Plants:\r\nReactor shutdown in Connecticut is latest sign that nuclear energy would face challenges from climate change.<\/a>,\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

\r\nWill 2012 go down as the year that left the idea of nuclear energy\r\nexpansion in the hot, dry dust?\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nActually,\r\n\r\nU.S. nukes have had frequent low and no power periods for years<\/a>,\r\nand the problem is only getting worse.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

\r\nNuclear energy might be an important weapon in the battle against\r\nclimate change, some scientists have argued, because it doesn’t emit\r\ngreenhouse gases. But separate of all the other issues with nuclear,\r\nthat big plus would be moot if the plants couldn’t operate, or\r\nbecame too inefficient, because of global warming.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nIn June,\r\n\r\nInsideClimate News reported<\/a> on the findings of Dennis\r\nLettenmaier, a researcher at the University of Washington. His study\r\nfound that nuclear and other power plants will see a 4 to 16 percent\r\ndrop in production between 2031 and 2060 due to climate\r\nchange-induced drought and heat.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"Millstone<\/a>\r\nThe U.S. is getting plenty of both this year. Just Sunday, the\r\nMillstone nuclear plant in Waterford, Conn., had to shut down one of\r\nits two reactors because seawater was too warm to cool it. It was\r\nthe first time in the plant’s 37-year history that the water pulled\r\nfrom the Long Island Sound was too warm to use.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nSo the question becomes, is the future already here?\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n\r\nYes<\/a>.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Invest in nukes for hot water in rivers damaging plants and animals while there’s less water for agriculture and cities and droughts and summer heat waves cause power shortages. That’s Europe’s experience. Or we could profit by their experience and get on with reliable renewable solar and wind power. The Guardian, 12 August 2003, Heatwave […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[14,558,19,104,23,24,89,36],"tags":[293,8704,426,8701,8781,2077,8709,8702,12,7,8737,827,8713,466,8714,564,6,8735,8716],"class_list":["post-4211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-germany","category-history","category-nuclear","category-renewable-energy","category-solar","category-weather","category-wind","tag-drought","tag-economy","tag-france","tag-georgia","tag-germany","tag-heat","tag-history","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-nuclear","tag-outage","tag-renewable-energy","tag-river","tag-solar","tag-spain","tag-valdosta","tag-weather","tag-wind"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-15V","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4211"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4215,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4211\/revisions\/4215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}