In Southeast, Extreme Heat Is a Growing Concern for Nuclear Power Operators: "Last summer, a heat wave forced a TVA nuclear plant to run at 50% capacity for eight weeks, costing ratepayers $50 million, an investigation finds."
There was no threat of a meltdown, explosion or leaking of radioactive material at the Browns Ferry plant. The nuclear power plant turned down the reactors due to the threat of hefty fines that would result from violating their environmental permit.
Inland nuclear plants use water from rivers or lakes to cool the reactors, and then return the water to the source. However, if the water is returned to the river at these hotter temperatures, it would harm the ecosystem and fish. Thus, the government requires permits to regulate these discharges. Two climate change impacts can increase the frequency of the unreliability of these plants by increasing the temperature of receiving waters: Water shortages that lower the level of rivers or lakes, and; even when there are not low water levels, heat waves.
At some point, this could ripen into a familiar debate: Should the power companies have to spend millions to improve their cooling systems or should they be allowed to destroy the rivers and lakes? After all, in a similar situation, mining companies have been able to dump their waste into rivers rather than pay for its disposal because they claim mountaintop removal mining would not be economically feasible if they could not dump their waste into rivers.
UPDATE: H/T to gmoke, who wrote comment with a link to "European Heat Wave shows limits of nuclear energy" – response was to allow nuke plants to discharge the hot water into rivers, nevermind the aquatic critters.:
The heat wave since mid-June has led authorities in France, Germany, Spain and elsewhere in Europe to override their own environmental norms on the maximum temperature of water drained from the plants' cooling systems.
The French government announced July 24 that nuclear power plants situated along rivers will be allowed to drain hot water into rivers at higher temperature. The measure is intended "to guarantee the provision of electricity for the country," according to an official note.
In July 2010, the temperature in Decatur, Alabama was 98 degrees Fahrenheit. The Browns Ferry plant is located adjacent to the Tennessee River, and the warm weather heated the river water up to 90 degrees Fahrenheit. The nuclear plant uses the river water to cool the 3 reactors at the plant and then the water is discharged back into the river "about 23 degrees hotter than when it entered the plant." But, environmental permits regulate thermal pollution discharge so that the hot water does not harm the ecosystem and fish by the degradation of water quality as the change in ambient temperature of the receiving waters can decrease oxygen supply in the waters, thus harming fish and other aquatic critters. In Alabama, environmental laws mandate that Browns Ferry cannot discharge water above 90 degrees Fahrenheit back into the Tennessee River.
One obvious impact of climate change is an increased frequency and intensity of heat waves, which could impact the reliability of nuclear power to obtain electricity:
It's not the first time high temperatures have affected the performance of the Browns Ferry plant, and extreme heat is a growing concern for power plant operators across the Southeast.
So, we have advocates stressing the need for nuclear power to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but "global warming is making the technology less effective at providing electricity." While some plants use ocean water to help cool the reactors, the "vast majority of nuclear reactors in this country (89 of the total 104) are inland, next to freshwater sources, and many of these are constantly cycling through river or lake water." Another climate change impact can make matters worse: Water shortages leave waterways with lower water levels, such that water temperatures can heat up faster even when there is no heat wave. Thus, climate change can impact inland power plants disproportionately due to thermal pollution.
Climate change can result in more such occurrences:
Kunkel and his colleagues have recently modeled the future of heat waves across the United States, depending on what global greenhouse gas emissions are like during the rest of this century. In the Southeast, they found that by 2100, every year there could be between 60 and 80 more days with heat wave-level temperatures than there are currently. More frequent heat waves will mean higher Tennessee River water temperatures.
Several times over the past 5 years, Browns Ferry had to reduce electricity production, and then they need to buy power from other companies or increase production from their coal plants. TVA spokesman Ray Golden notes that coal plants are also "vulnerable to heat waves" and are subject to the "same kind of environmental permits for hot water." However, Golden says it is a larger problem for nuclear plants:
But according to the TVA's Golden, while "it is also a problem for coal-fired power plants, the size of nuclear power plants is much larger so the cooling problem is bigger." That's because cooling at many nuclear power plants isn't as efficient as at coal-fired power plants, and the nuclear power plants usually require more water for their cooling than other types of plants.
This issue of reliability of nuclear power service might be reduced for some plants by improving cooling procedures:
While some nuclear plants can improve their cooling procedures to cope with the intake of warmer water, the upgrades can cost hundreds of millions of dollars and still don't offer an indefinite defense against extreme heat.
In the case of Browns Ferry, the plant is spending $160 million on "retrofits to improve the cooling" system.
Other power companies may have to explore similar options in the years to come. Installing better cooling to combat high water temperatures, and designing more efficient closed-loop systems that don't constantly demand fresh water are technically feasible, says Golden, but they could prove to be prohibitively expensive upgrades for older power plants.
While nuclear energy remains a key part of energy proposals in the U.S., DC needs to address all the potential costs or problems associated with nuclear power, including its reliability when there are heat waves or water shortages.
Other climate change news this week:
CLIMATE CHANGE & ENERGY
- New climate change case headed to Supreme Court on issue of whether "federal law allows states and private parties to sue utilities for contributing to global warming" to force cutting their emissions (Briefs in this case are available here.) The Obama Administration sides with utilities advocating EPA should make rules about climate change, not the courts. Yet, the GOP in Congress are working to strip EPA of power to regulate GHG. So, while DC fiddles over climate change, citizens are filing lawsuits.
The administration is siding with American Electric Power Co. and three other companies in urging the high court to throw out the lawsuit on grounds the Environmental Protection Agency, not a federal court, is the proper authority to make rules about climate change. The justices will hear arguments in the case Tuesday.
- U.S. utilities push to delay EPA rules to reduce emissions of toxic chemicals with a proposed 3-year schedule.
The anti-pollution regulations proposed by EPA last month would require many coal-fired power plants to install scrubbers and other technologies to cut the levels of arsenic, chromium, nickel and acid gases in addition to mercury escaping through smokestacks and eventually reaching water supplies, which can damage nervous systems in babies.
Fanning said the new rules coupled with a suite of other pollution regulations being pursued by EPA will raise costs and force a significant amount of plants to shut down, hampering the nation's ability to handle periods of high electricity demand or power outages.
- Report warns of 'crumbling' Arctic.
Arctic coastlines are crumbling away and retreating at the rate of two metres or more a year due to the effects of climate change, a report says.
In some locations, up to 30 metres of the shore has been vanishing every year.
The rapid rate of coastal erosion poses a major threat to local communities and ecosystems, according to a new report by more than 30 scientists from ten countries.
Two-thirds of Arctic coasts consist of frozen soil, or permafrost, rather than rock, and are highly sensitive to erosion by wind and waves.
Rising temperatures are melting protective sea ice fringing the coastlines and leaving them more exposed to the elements, say the experts.
- Black Carbon: The Dark Horse of Climate Change Drivers: "More than three-quarters of the world’s black carbon is thought to come from developing countries, discharged from cookstoves, open burning, and older diesel engines." (For more information on the global transport of black carbon and animations, click here.)
For decades, efforts to slow global warming have mostly aimed to limit heat-trapping emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2). Now scientists are pointing to a different class of warming agents they say also must be targeted to keep global temperatures in check. Dubbed “short-lived climate forcings” (SLCFs), these other emissions—namely, black carbon particles, methane, hydrofluorocarbons, and tropospheric ozone—are even more powerful than CO2 in terms of their warming potential. But they persist in the atmosphere for much shorter durations than CO2, which can linger airborne for hundreds to thousands of years
FOOD & HEALTH
- Ants, tarantulas, fried crickets, deep-fried silkworms, scorpions, cockroaches: Saving the World...One Mouthful at a Time. (Photo of fried cricket appetziers.)
Artist Angela Palmer sent out the invitations to this "Grand Banquet of Rainforest Insects" to garner support for rainforest protection by offering a meal with courses made up of insect dishes. Yes, eating ants, dragonflies and locusts is apparently good for the environment.
By 2030, the global population is expected to balloon to 8 billion people, and meat consumption is increasing drastically. What's more, using valuable agricultural resources to feed cattle and hogs contaminates drinking water, generates greenhouse gases and accelerates rainforest deforestation.