 So much about "nuclear energy will save us". The French power company ESF is continuing to keep shut down its 1.3 gigawatt nuclear reactor Golfech 2 in the southwest of France. Reason: the river water used for cooling is above the maximum permitted temperature due to a heat wave. And it's not the only reactor. 3 comments
@aimaz @owenblacker so what do you think the design limit (not the ecological impact limit) of the max temp of water intake is to run the plant at full output? Hard to imagine that they designed this so they could run it at much higher temps than they would reasonably be allowed to emit. (I’m taking a very wild uninformed guess as to sensitivity of the parameters, please correct me if you know better)  @J12t @owenblacker I don’t know the answer but reading more I’m inclined to not trust the article too much as Golfech 2 does appear to have 2 cooling towers but also Wikipedia says that Golfech doesn’t release any water and it’s a closed loop water only being taken in to top up the cooling water lost to evaporation which doesn’t fit with the marine life protection explanation. So I don’t think it’s easy to find out. |
Gregory's Server
@J12t @owenblacker https://www.power-technology.com/news/edf-energy-golfech-nuclear-plant-heatwave/
The limit is to protect marine life. It seems they don’t have any facilities to cool the water before returning it like cooling towers, though I remember stories from British coal fired power stations about fishermen preferring downstream of the plants because the fish were more active in the warmer water despite the cooling towers.