Call me cynical but I do think an outlet called oil price dot com may not be entirely impartial when they report on this. That is not to say what they wrote here is wrong; I wouldn’t know. It just has a touch of pot and kettle about it.
Since the power networks are linked and European countries import and export electricity, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that next to renewables power from gas stepped in to fill the nuclear gap. And the price for natural gas is often linked to a certain other commodity price.
And even with these reactors shut down, France still exported 5-10GW of power at the time.
So yeah let’s not propagate the anti-nuclear propaganda trying to paint the situation as “nuclear can’t handle global warming and will cause blackouts”, when in reality it’s just us having so much decarbonated electricity that we can afford to produce less as an ecological precaution.
Did you just strawman a fact with an anecdote and then completely get your second statement backwards?
Nuclear plants have to scale down their water output for ecological regulation reasons. Which means they have to restrict their inflow, which means they have to restrict their output capacity.
Oil industry wants you to think that nuclear there doesn’t work, not that it does. Oil and coal have been working against nuclear for an entire generation or more.
That twists it to “protecting nature raises your electricity bill” where it’s just that that the plant, when built, did not take into account water levels could drop this low. As if they assumed climate change wouldn’t be this influential or something.
It is not twisting it. It is exactly like that. The problem is not the water level. The nuclear power plant can work in these condition. The hot water discharge would raise the temperature too much on top of existing higher temperatures in the river for the flora and fauna to survive. We are doing this to protect nature. There is no twisting here.
To my knowledge, but I did not look this up, these constraints were known at design time. I don’t recall these changing. Hence the statement may be true, but pointing at the known constraint after the fact shifts the blame to nature conservation rather than infrastructure and climate change. This at a time where climate change focus is of utmost importance.
Hence, albeit factually correct, it is disingenuous to give it the focus.
If these constraints were added in the past 10 years then that could be considered different depending on the reasons for the change.
What has changed are the water levels and base temperatures. Our environment has changed and the infrastructure has not been adapted to it. Luckily we have other tools for generating electric power ready to be rolled out.
Call me cynical but I do think an outlet called oil price dot com may not be entirely impartial when they report on this. That is not to say what they wrote here is wrong; I wouldn’t know. It just has a touch of pot and kettle about it.
Since the power networks are linked and European countries import and export electricity, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that next to renewables power from gas stepped in to fill the nuclear gap. And the price for natural gas is often linked to a certain other commodity price.
Several nuclear reactors had to shut down because there was not enough water for cooling.
In France, Hungary, Romania
Reactors in France are shut down not because of lack of water, but as an ecological precaution because the effects of warming up rivers even more is not well known (even if it seems to have not much more impact than the heat wave in itself )
And even with these reactors shut down, France still exported 5-10GW of power at the time.
So yeah let’s not propagate the anti-nuclear propaganda trying to paint the situation as “nuclear can’t handle global warming and will cause blackouts”, when in reality it’s just us having so much decarbonated electricity that we can afford to produce less as an ecological precaution.
Mate, I can literally walk across the Rhine where I live. Nuclear doesn’t work without cooling.
Nuclear sucks and the fossil fuel industry wants you to think it doesn’t.
Did you just strawman a fact with an anecdote and then completely get your second statement backwards?
Nuclear plants have to scale down their water output for ecological regulation reasons. Which means they have to restrict their inflow, which means they have to restrict their output capacity.
Oil industry wants you to think that nuclear there doesn’t work, not that it does. Oil and coal have been working against nuclear for an entire generation or more.
In France, sure. In Hungary the water level actually dropped below the intake valves so they physically couldn’t pump enough water into the reactor.
But it is a consistent problem, because the hotter water is the less oxygen it holds by a lot, so fish frequently die if the water gets too hot.
From euronews:
That twists it to “protecting nature raises your electricity bill” where it’s just that that the plant, when built, did not take into account water levels could drop this low. As if they assumed climate change wouldn’t be this influential or something.
It is not twisting it. It is exactly like that. The problem is not the water level. The nuclear power plant can work in these condition. The hot water discharge would raise the temperature too much on top of existing higher temperatures in the river for the flora and fauna to survive. We are doing this to protect nature. There is no twisting here.
To my knowledge, but I did not look this up, these constraints were known at design time. I don’t recall these changing. Hence the statement may be true, but pointing at the known constraint after the fact shifts the blame to nature conservation rather than infrastructure and climate change. This at a time where climate change focus is of utmost importance.
Hence, albeit factually correct, it is disingenuous to give it the focus.
If these constraints were added in the past 10 years then that could be considered different depending on the reasons for the change.
What has changed are the water levels and base temperatures. Our environment has changed and the infrastructure has not been adapted to it. Luckily we have other tools for generating electric power ready to be rolled out.