> the heat wave is such that river water cannot safely cool down its nuclear power plants
Yes - a risk for all thermal power plants, since they need a cooling loop to re-condense the steam before putting it through another cycle in the turbines.
(In general it would be physically possible to still run the plant, but regulatorily impossible because the outlet water would be too hot and people don't take kindly to boiling a river and destroying its ecosystem)
They've got egress cooling water limits of 26-30C (78-86). It's an entirely manufactured problem.
There's trivial solutions to this, but they all probably run into other regulatory stupidity.
They could easily solve this just by offering giant 38-40C (100-104F) pools open to the public near their plants.
Or, just have a parking lot sized winding halfpipe before draining into the river, or otherwise easily make up for the missing cooling tower capacity.
In Iceland thermal plants will release boiling temperature water into rivers that didn't have it before, nobody thinks twice about it, as people are used to the natural equivalent.
You'll want to make sure to give the fish a way out, but otherwise the only notable side effects are some algea buildup.
> They've got egress cooling water limits of 26-30C (78-86). It's an entirely manufactured problem.
> There's trivial solutions to this, but they all probably run into other regulatory stupidity.
> They could easily solve this just by offering giant 38-40C (100-104F) pools open to the public near their plants.
> Or, just have a parking lot sized winding halfpipe before draining into the river, or otherwise easily make up for the missing cooling tower capacity.
> In Iceland thermal plants will release boiling temperature water into rivers that didn't have it before, nobody thinks twice about it, as people are used to the natural equivalent.
> You'll want to make sure to give the fish a way out, but otherwise the only notable side effects are some algea buildup.
this will be my go-to example of how random computer programmers on HN have such profound over-confidence about things they know nothing about that their opinions on anything other than programming are actively dangerous. it is a good reminder for everyone else who still has self-awareness, though, to doubt themselves more when talking about topics they don't know anything about.
If you mean the over-confidence of asserting that water you can comfortably swim in (31C / 88F) would "boil a river" as the GP did, I agree.
There's been ongoing discussion about nuclear power on HN for months now in response to the Ukraine/Russia crisis. This question of French nuclear cooling keeps coming up.
After mulling over it for a bit the French nuclear regulator has arrived at the solution that I'm advocating for here, i.e. deciding that perhaps it's not such a big deal that the cooling water is a bit over regulatory limits[1].
But I'll admit that I'm not too familiar with France's nuclear industry and regulator. Perhaps it's all run by over-confident computer programmers.
Aside from one's own expertise it's an important skill when reading the news to try to parse out whether the latest news about the sky falling is really something to be concerned about in the longer term, or just overinflated reports about easily solved implementation details.
I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to work out how say having an empty pool the size of the Blue Lagoon next to a French nuclear power plant could serve as a thermal buffer on hot days. The examples of using public swimming pools adjacent to nuclear plants as thermal buffers was meant to humanize the ballpark of those numbers.
> They've got egress cooling water limits of 26-30C (78-86). It's an entirely manufactured problem.
There is nothing "manufactured" about not wanting to cook natural water bodies and the flora and fauna that live in said water.
Even very minor changes can have massive effects for everything living in, and around, such waters, as they are part of a bigger ecosystem these changes will also end up affecting wildlife outside of those waters.
> They could easily solve this just by offering giant 38-40C (100-104F) pools open to the public near their plants.
Did you do the math how big they would need to make these giant pools to effectively dissipate the heat? Where is the water for those giant pools supposed to come from?
> Or, just have a parking lot sized winding halfpipe before draining into the river, or otherwise easily make up for the missing cooling tower capacity.
From what material will that winding halfpipe be made, to have good thermal conductivity, while still having the stability to support such a massive structure and the pressurized water going trough it?
> In Iceland thermal plants will release boiling temperature water into rivers that didn't have it before, nobody thinks twice about it, as people are used to the natural equivalent.
Iceland is also not exactly known for its summer heatwaves, even without those I'm pretty sure they still monitor the temperature of those rivers to make sure it doesn't pass certain thresholds.
> You'll want to make sure to give the fish a way out, but otherwise the only notable side effects are some algea buildup.
Algea that will deprive the water of oxygen, thus killing a lot of other flora and fauna if they build up too much.
I could actually see that working pretty well in the winter, but only then. Nobody in their right mind would go swimming in 40 C° hot water during the summer when the sun is blasting down.
Going swimming in 40 C° hot water is rather dangerous. That’s the maximum safe temperature for a hot tub that you sit in for 10-15 minutes. It’s above body temperature and will prevent your body from cooling. A comfortable temperature for swimming is around 30 degrees, lower in summer.
I know at least one nuclear power station in France uses the hot water to run a crocodile wildlife exhibit next door. I can confirm that visiting it does feel like the start of a disaster movie.
That's interesting, do you happen to know which one & which wildlife exhibit?
I suspect it'll come down to a "not really" in that it's using electric cooling rather than some direct thermal connection. I.e. it could use grid electricity from anywhere, it just happens to be near a nuclear plant. But perhaps I'll be pleasantly surprised :)
> When the plants were planned and designed no-one imagined that summer temps of +40C were going to be usual.
More problematically this lack of imagination was then used to save cost by not building cooling towers: the plants with such issues are generally those next to large rivers for which it was assumed the river flow and temperature would always be sufficient, so the expense and visibility of cooling towers could be done away with.
You're making it too simplistic. There's ecological issues, there's engineering issues, and yes, there's also regulatory issues (in an ideal world, they would be fixed in a single day, but we don't live in one).
Yes - a risk for all thermal power plants, since they need a cooling loop to re-condense the steam before putting it through another cycle in the turbines.
(In general it would be physically possible to still run the plant, but regulatorily impossible because the outlet water would be too hot and people don't take kindly to boiling a river and destroying its ecosystem)
The French reactor fleet also has some kind of problem with cracks affecting the longevity. https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/concerns-that-cracks...