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Danube's record low levels force shutdown of Hungary's only nuclear plant

bbc.com

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Re: Danube's record low levels force shutdown of Hungary's only nuclear plant

#121

Post by Retric »

Choco31415 wrote: post #93
petre wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would a cooling pond with controlled discharge into the river maybe mitigate this problem? One could also cycle the water from the cooling pond through the plant's cooling loop. The worse that could happen is evaporate the water from the cooling pond which is gets replaced with new water (sans fish) from the river.

There's plenty of work happening with adapting non evaporative cooling loops for data centers. Maybe that can be applied here too, even if to mitigate some of the cooling needed?

Data centers can afford to spend way more per kWh of heat discharged. Nuclear needs to dump 3+kWh of heat per kWh of electricity generated.

Re: Danube's record low levels force shutdown of Hungary's only nuclear plant

#123

Post by Retric »

seszett wrote: post #41
number6 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it's not cold enough to cool the reactor

No that's never the problem, even 40°C intake is cool enough to cool a reactor, it's all just a question of returned water temperature that can be harmful to a river if too high (generally the limit in Europe is set to 30°C).

As long as it’s designed for those temperatures everything is fine, but efficiency still suffers.

Re: Danube's record low levels force shutdown of Hungary's only nuclear plant

#124

Post by delecti »

downrightmike wrote: post #108
petre wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would a cooling pond with controlled discharge into the river maybe mitigate this problem? One could also cycle the water from the cooling pond through the plant's cooling loop. The worse that could happen is evaporate the water from the cooling pond which is gets replaced with new water (sans fish) from the river.

making modern websites not 100's of megabytes heavy would go a long way

FWIW, this one was only about 5 MB.

Re: Danube's record low levels force shutdown of Hungary's only nuclear plant

#125

Post by jacquesm »

expedition32 wrote: post #62
exploderate wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not matter of "can", it's a matter of "how much does it cost?" and "who pays for that?".

Precisely why the Netherlands does not have nuclear power plants. Cheap coal. Cheap oil. Cheap gas. And now cheap wind and solar. They just absolutely cannot math the math which leaves ideology and this ain't France.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_Netherlan...

Re: Danube's record low levels force shutdown of Hungary's only nuclear plant

#126

Post by otherme123 »

stavros wrote: post #7
cinntaile wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People arguing for one alternative over the other are usually politically motivated. I feel like you are doing the same. Sometimes nuclear is a good fit, sometimes renewables is a good fit, sometimes fossil fuels are a good fit. Most of the time a mix is the best fit. It depends on what you are optimizing for and what is geographically, (geo)politically and economically possible. All these systems are then built usin…

Agreed, whenever I hear someone say "we need more/less nuclear and less/more solar/wind", I hear "let's burn more fossil fuels while we uselessly split hairs".

Unless the scenario is totally different where you live, pro-nuclears are mainly "we need more nuclear, less rerewables, don't care about fossils, just guaranteed production", while pro-renewables are mainly "we need more renewables, less or no fossils and as few nuclear as possible".

If someone is getting wiped from the mix because of renewables, it is coal and fuel, not nuclear.

Re: Danube's record low levels force shutdown of Hungary's only nuclear plant

#127

Post by SiempreViernes »

chpatrick wrote: post #107
ccozan wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Batteries? Starting this year, in Romania you cannot put new PV capacity online without the storage for it, is mandatory. Possibly for existing ones, but I am not sure.

They're being installed but it's going to take a while.

Much faster than any nuclear build though.

Re: Danube's record low levels force shutdown of Hungary's only nuclear plant

#128

Post by vablings »

dudefeliciano wrote: post #65
gib444 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not filled with joy about my chav ("redneck") neighbours weighing in on nuclear vs solar and climate change and national and international energy markets and power distribution... I don't have a clue either. Don't ask for my vote on how to power a country. Take my taxes and use them to listen to experts

Plot twist, the experts are lobbyists and they convince our politicians to start fracking and massively increase the use of "clean coal"

I would be willing to bet on a board of PHDS of varying sciences they would determine that coal is dumb and a waste of money

Re: Danube's record low levels force shutdown of Hungary's only nuclear plant

#129

Post by slow_typist »

wcoenen wrote: post #111
petre wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would a cooling pond with controlled discharge into the river maybe mitigate this problem? One could also cycle the water from the cooling pond through the plant's cooling loop. The worse that could happen is evaporate the water from the cooling pond which is gets replaced with new water (sans fish) from the river.

Nuclear plants can run with those hyperboloid cooling towers as the sink for waste heat. They are just a lot more expensive to build, run and maintain compared to using river water.

You still need water when cooling with towers. Instead of heating the river you consume some of its water and release it into the atmosphere.

Re: Danube's record low levels force shutdown of Hungary's only nuclear plant

#130

Post by hamper653 »

one33seven wrote: post #83
Luc wrote: post #43

Of course a 1960's design isn't adapted to current weather conditions. That doesn't mean the whole technology is useless, like so many commenters imply. Any new build can and will include cooling adapted to hotter conditions.

There's a nuclear reaction in the sky beaming free energy to us, let's just use that

Calling the sun’s fusion "a nuclear reaction" in a discussion about fission reactors is a bit silly.

> let's just use that

Also, let’s use both?

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