"J. van Baardwijk" wrote:
>
> They (and many other countries' governments) certainly don't seem to have
> unlimited faith in the safety of their own nuclear reactors. The website of
> the International Nuclear Safety Center has a map of Europe that shows the
> locations of the various nuclear power plants. Notice that there are quite
> a lot of them built near national borders and near oceans.
The reason that they are located near oceans and rivers (which,
coincidentally, also often form natural borders) is that nuclear power plants
require cooling water. It's not polluted with chemicals, nor is it
radioactive (secondary coolant passes through a heat exchanger and is heated
by primary coolant which has been heated by the core. The super-heated
secondary coolant powers energy producing turbines.) but it is a good deal
warmer than the ambient temperature of the source water. But then,
conventional plants use cooling water as well.
Doug
