Xcel's Monticello Nuke Plant (MN) May Have To Shut Down Due To DROUGHT

[Dems Will Win]

Nukes can never be the solution to global warming. Spain, France and Germany too have to shut or power down the nukes. And the hot water kills the fish and flora if the nukes are allowed to use the low, heated water anyhow, as in France.

Meanwhile, Xcel Energy officials are monitoring Mississippi River levels because the company's Monticello nuclear power plant draws water for cooling from the river. If levels fall too low, the plant must shut down. That hasn't happened yet, but it's a worry, said Pat Flowers, Xcel's water quality manager.

http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/15175855.htm

Every day more nukes draw closer to complete shutdown due to the global heat wave--now discovered--that is raising temps degrees in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres! Nukes can thus never be the answer for the future as their much-vaunted and flaunted capacity from now on will be shot to hell.

[skids]

1. To be perfectly fair...

...and I actually oppose nuclear power, this is not a problem peculiar to nuclear plants.

Any thermoelectric plant -- be it coal, natural gas, geothermal, whatever, that is designed to use a local water source as a heat sink is vulnerable to this problem.

And any of these technologies can be designed to be cooled by high level air, as well, using a closed loop water system that is cycled through a cooling tower. Might be fairly expensive to do so, compared to water cooling, but it's better for the environment because localised heat pollution can in some places be rather bad for marine/river/lake ecosystems.

[Dogmudgeon]

2. You're not GLOATING, are you?

The energy-poor era into which we're speeding is not going to provide us with a lot of opportunity for gloating and nyah-nyahs.

I'm not keen on gloating over the misfortune of others because of energy and environmental crises. Remember the European heat wave a few years ago? Lots of people died; in France alone, the death toll was over 20,000. And many American conservatives gloated long and laughingly over it. "Payback for Iraq and Mumia", or some such nonsense.

Let the Republicans gloat, while we solve problems. If you don't approve of nukes, please recommend something that works better; the alt-energy movement has been moving quite slowly, and we can't afford to ignore any solution.

--p!

[Dems Will Win]

3. I am definitely not gloating, I'm pissed

The government spent $150 billion subsidizing nukes and now they won't work because of global warming heat waves and now, even with all the nuke problems, they want to build hundreds, thousands of them. Now we see with global warming, the plants won't even be open.

New Cooling towers and heat exchangers won't work, too much cool water is needed--and the economic costs, when added to the nuke subsidies of 5 cents to 8 cents a kwh, make new nukes a REALLY stupid idea.

Solar does work, with concentrating PV going into commercial production and all previous tech problems solved, you get 1 MW per acre. That 640 MW per sq. mile. 40 10 sq. mile solar farms (and big 300 MW farms with CPV are already being contracted out) will provide 250 Gigawatts on about 200 days of the year. They're in the desert so the land is CHEAP, and you don;t even need much of it. Cost at $2.50 a watt installed would be a mere $900 billion over 15 years.

That's equal to 2 1/2 times the current installed capacity of US nukes. Add 20 GW of hydro from existing dams that don't have generators. 30 GW from wind and you've got 300 GW of renewable to add to the 100 GW of current US hydro.

That's 400 GW! nearly half the installed capacity of the current US electric market. Then outlaw the ICE and make all electric Tesla sedans charging off solar or current base plants at night and no extra fuel or plants are needed. THEN take $25 billion every 3 years and shoot sulfur particles into the stratosphere. That will reduce global temps by half a degree immediately and give us the time we need to return this planet to normal.

On top of that reduce energy use by 15% to 20% with conservation (Europeans use HALF the electricity of non-thinking Americans) and the nation will need less than 800 GW, leaving only 300 GW for natural gas plants to make up (you could convert those to hydrogen later).
This is all real, I work in renewable energy and know who has the new renewable breakthroughs and what they can do.

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[mccoyn]

5. One square mile is not much land?

I worked on a 600 acre farm. Its huge. The only way a power company is going to fork out the dough for that is if the government gives it to them. Not to mention the cost of all those PVs and their maintance.

"New Cooling towers and heat exchangers won't work"
These are proven, well understood technologies. Why won't they work?

"Then outlaw the ICE"
Ah, I see, we arn't limiting ourselves to what is pratical today.

"global heat wave--now discovered--that is raising temps degrees in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres!"
Not true, in fact, South Africa is going through a cold wave. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x62620

[MadHound]

6. I have a solution for you,

Back in 1991, the DOE did an inventory of the US's harvestable wind resources. They found that there is enough harvestable wind energy in three states, N. Dakota, Kansas and Texas to supply all of our electrical needs, including the growth factor, through the year 2030.

Now I'm not saying that we should cover those three states with wind farms, but it does illustrate that we do have an energy source that can power this country readily, cleanly and cheaply. Rather than rely on uncertain, polluting energy generating methods whose cost continues to rise, instead we should go with clean renewable alternatives whose cost is actually going down.