[Manuel_D]

The issue outlined above is a problem for all thermal plants. Coal and gas plants would suffer from the same issue.

Furthermore, nuclear plants don't need to be cooled with potable water. They can be cooled with ocean water, or with waste water. In fact, seawater cooling is the most popular form of cooling. Only 15% of nuclear plants are cooled with river water.

https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-fu....

[numpad0]

Off topic question. Can a large nuclear reactor be completely air-cooled? I think a full-scale reactor cluster expelling hot jet upwards and providing air conditioning in form of negative static pressure to its surrounding megalopolis would be very cyberpunk.

[Manuel_D]

Air doesn't have much thermal mass, so you'd have to move a lot of air through the heat exchangers to make it work. It's probably possible, but there's much more viable alternatives. In particular, you can use wastewater to cool plants where water is scarce: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Verde_Nuclear_Generating_...

[ceejayoz]

https://www.npr.org/2018/07/27/632988813/hot-weather-spells-...

> Nuclear power plants in Europe have been forced to cut back electricity production because of warmer-than-usual seawater.

[Manuel_D]

This can be addressed by expanding heat exchangers. Unlike the river water cooling which is constrained by how much the plants are allowed to heat the river.

[numpad0]

Primary coolant loop runs at arbitrary temperature, there's never going to be a point that a nuke can't be cooled. It's only matter of designed capacity.

[Ghaenergyyy]

So a coolant loop can run at 100.000 degree? How?

[Log_out_]

Could part of that waste heat be transfered underground so that a city could use it as a differential source for heatpumps?

[Ghaenergyyy]

Yes but not solar or wind.

And YES It is a problem which needs to be fixed, increases risk and costs. Don't say its not a problem.

[cryptonector]

To be fair, and as a non-fan of wind (kills birds, annoys animals and humans) and solar (lowers the albedo of the planet, denies sunlight to parts of the local ecosystem), wind and solar do not have this cooling requirement. So that's nice. But anyways, you can always use sea water if you have access to the sea, or rely on a geographically-very-large grid for the diversity of sources that GP says we need.

[Manuel_D]

A geographically large grid will require extensive transmission network upgrades. That has to be factored into the cost competitiveness of these sources.

Renewable generation itself is cheap. But what's expensive (or straight up unfeasible) is everything required to mitigate the intermittent production. Storage at the scale of tens of terawatt hours can't even be feasibly built with current technologies. Moving electricity over thousands of miles, across mountain ranges, would require HVDC lines to be constructed in very rugged terrain.

[cryptonector]

Europe's and the U.S.'s grids are geographically large.

[Manuel_D]

Correct, but most generation is still produced close to demand. If you look at a map of where power plants are located (https://synapse.maps.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/201fc98c0d74...) you'll see they're concentrated near cities. The grid spans a large area, but most energy is transmitted over a short distance.

Renewables, due to their low energy density and specific weather requirements, need to be built in remote areas. This has led to situations where the grid cannot accommodate transmitting the amount of energy that proposed renewable plants will produce: https://www.vox.com/videos/22685707/climate-change-clean-ene...

People often cite the decentralized nature of renewables as an advantage. It's not. It's a significant disadvantage as it has a much bigger burden on the transmission infrastructure.

[Ghaenergyyy]

Good studies showed that wind doesn't kill birds.

solar on roofs doesn't take anything from local ecosystem. Solar above car parks neither.

Solar on a home is such a simple, affordable and save solution, why are you 'non-fan'? which indicates you hate it? How much are you against it? So much that you prefer burning coal over it?