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Hungary nuclear plant cuts output because of warm Danube waters

reuters.com

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Re: Hungary nuclear plant cuts output because of warm Danube waters

#71

Post by troupo »

cygx wrote: post #67
troupo wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Note that partial shutdowns due to excessive heat happen regularly in France, e.g. in 2018, 2019 and 2022. And they affect a very small number of plants and energy output. The largest disruption so far has been when French government finally got its head out of its butt and stopped a few plants for long overdue maintenance

Even before the most recent maintenance period, there were problems: In 2019, French regulators had to ask industry to cut consumption by 1.5GW to keep the grid stable as utility frequency was dropping significantly [1]. That issue comes up basically every other winter, but so far, we've avoided catastrophic results. [1] https://www.cre.fr/actualites/RTE-fait-appel-aux-industriels...

They asked to cut consumption because of nuclear power plants or because insufficient supply of electricity?

Re: Hungary nuclear plant cuts output because of warm Danube waters

#72

Post by theandrewbailey »

senectus1 wrote: post #22

nuclear power plants are not environmentally friendly. sure they're carbon friendly and "green" in other ways, but the mining of uranium is horrendously dirty, the long term storage of the waste is dirty as hell and this waterways heating issue is just another problem. green renewable should be our goals, we're bathed in power every day it just needs to be bottled. nuclear plants have their place, but its few and far…

> but the mining of uranium is horrendously dirty, the long term storage of the waste is dirty as hell and this waterways heating issue is just another problem.

The production of renewable infrastructure, and mining for the materials required to produce them is also horrendously dirty.

Re: Hungary nuclear plant cuts output because of warm Danube waters

#74

Post by b3orn »

Filligree wrote: post #4
manwithaplan wrote: post #2

> the temperature of the Danube, whose water is used to cool the plant, reached 29.72 degrees Celsius

Still works for cooling, right? It's not that there's any technical issues; it's that there's ecological issues. Though there's going to be much larger ecological issues if we have to replace it with coal.

Coal power plants have more or less the same cooling problem.

Re: Hungary nuclear plant cuts output because of warm Danube waters

#75

Post by cygx »

troupo wrote: post #71
cygx wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even before the most recent maintenance period, there were problems: In 2019, French regulators had to ask industry to cut consumption by 1.5GW to keep the grid stable as utility frequency was dropping significantly [1]. That issue comes up basically every other winter, but so far, we've avoided catastrophic results. [1] https://www.cre.fr/actualites/RTE-fait-appel-aux-industriels...

They asked to cut consumption because of nuclear power plants or because insufficient supply of electricity?

Insufficient supply in winter times due to electric heating, mostly. Nuclear power plants are relevant insofar that they (in particular the older generation of power plants) are bad at providing energy on-demand. So while everyone worries about Germany and the issues associated with variable availability of solar and wind power, there are also documented cases where Germany had to fire up its coal plants to meet nuclear posterchild France's electricity demands.

I used to read German online magazine Telepolis regularly. They've got a writer who advocates for renewable energy, hence I used to come across related articles every now and then.

Re: Hungary nuclear plant cuts output because of warm Danube waters

#76

Post by hansthehorse »

no_wizard wrote: post #44

what if you just pooled the water until it cooled down naturally under shade before discharging back into the Danube?

Turkey Point plant in SE Florida uses miles and miles of man made switchback canals to cool the discharge before it returns to the plant.

Re: Hungary nuclear plant cuts output because of warm Danube waters

#77

Post by hansthehorse »

freeone3000 wrote: post #54
Moldoteck wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the long term storage of the waste is dirty as hell - It's not! France manages to recycle a lot of it's fuel(not sure if all), 90% gets back to reactor, 10% is transformed in solid state via vitrification for long term storage, where only first ~300 yrs are really dangerous bc of the decay speed of these 10% Why others don't do this? Fk knows, fossils lobby I guess+ some other 'reasons' that are not that important. T…

US doesn’t do it because the highly-radioactive byproducts generated by the reactors were at one point the desired end-product. But even so, it’s a miniscule amount — such that things like “having an off-site storage facility” are problems that have been put off for decades (and probably can be for a few more).

In the US the Carter administration stopped spent fuel recycling due to it's fears of nuclear proliferation. Didn't make sense to me at the time and still doesn't.

Re: Hungary nuclear plant cuts output because of warm Danube waters

#78

Post by acidburnNSA »

taylodl wrote: post #21

Nuclear power plants and coal-fired power plants work off the same principle: Use the heat to boil water to create steam, run the stream through a steam turbine, and condense the steam back to water. This water is continually recycled throughout the system. The river water is used to condense the steam back to water and then the water is discharged back to the river - warmer than it came in. If the water coming in fr…

You can do air cooling with nuclear plants as well, for locations that don't want to or can't use a water supply. Costs more, but totally doable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9S1P54n1FA

Re: Hungary nuclear plant cuts output because of warm Danube waters

#79

Post by troupo »

cygx wrote: post #75
troupo wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They asked to cut consumption because of nuclear power plants or because insufficient supply of electricity?

Insufficient supply in winter times due to electric heating, mostly. Nuclear power plants are relevant insofar that they (in particular the older generation of power plants) are bad at providing energy on-demand. So while everyone worries about Germany and the issues associated with variable availability of solar and wind power, there are also documented cases where Germany had to fire up its coal plants to meet nucl…

> Nuclear power plants are relevant insofar that they (in particular the older generation of power plants) are bad at providing energy on-demand.

This is, of course, an easily verifiable lie.

During winter nuclear power plants already work at near 100% capacity. They can't give you more than 100%, other sources cannot meet demand, and somehow you blame nuclear.

Re: Hungary nuclear plant cuts output because of warm Danube waters

#80

Post by troupo »

senectus1 wrote: post #22

nuclear power plants are not environmentally friendly. sure they're carbon friendly and "green" in other ways, but the mining of uranium is horrendously dirty, the long term storage of the waste is dirty as hell and this waterways heating issue is just another problem. green renewable should be our goals, we're bathed in power every day it just needs to be bottled. nuclear plants have their place, but its few and far…

> the long term storage of the waste is dirty as hell

90% of waste can be safely stored on-site, and is short-lived.

The remaining waste is ridiculously minuscule, and can probably fit in a few shipping containers. The main reason it's expensive to store is politics.

> it just needs to be bottled

"just".

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