From: J. van Baardwijk
> At 20:29 5-7-01 -0700, Doug Pensinger 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.
>
> That argument is only valid for nuclear power plants near rivers. As I
> pointed out in a previous post, you can't use sea water for coolant
because
> it's too salt: you'll get a corrosion problem in the pipelines.
>
> .
>
>
> >It's not polluted with chemicals, nor is it radioactive
> >but it is a good deal
> >warmer than the ambient temperature of the source water. But then,
> >conventional plants use cooling water as well.
>
> And that's supposed to make things right? "Conventional plants dump their
> coolant in the river, so it's okay for us to do the same"? Or, closer to
> home: if you neighbour dumps his trash in your garden, does that mean it's
> okay for you to dump your trash in his garden?
>
>
> Jeroen
_______________
I don't know if this was talked about, have e-mail in three places. I have
read lots of posts which have refuted a lot of the statements made, true
facts about plant location, cancer clusters, use of sea water....
>Do you also have a good explanation (other than: if it goes wrong, part of
> it won't be *our* problem) for the fact that many nuclear power plants are
> built close to national non-water borders? Example: Germany and Belgium
> built nuclear power plants close to the Dutch border -- no rivers or
> anything acting as a natural border
First looking closer at the maps of Europe: Germany has many plants not on
any borders. The fact that two are on the Dutch border proves nothing. Those
two are on rivers. One is shut down. The other one seems to be near a city
(can't see which one).
Belgium has three reactor sites. Two are on the Dutch border. Both are on
rivers. One has no other information supplied. All three seem to be the same
distance from cities.
Obviously chosing a site is the most important part of the nuclear process.
The plants were built in the 70's. If you had a population density map and
perhaps a map showing property rates from the year the site was selected you
could probably pick the site the plant was built (if you didn't know). You
(collective you) want a plant built in a city? Indianapolis just blew up an
arena, they could use that vacant lot to build a reactor! Sarcasm.
One thing not widely know is that the nuclear plants (at least here in the
US) have to be completely supplied by outside power. I thought that is
stupid but I can understand the reasons. TMI has a hydrodam plant that
produces 10MW of power and TMI uses 7-9MW. The hydro plant was there for
many many years before TMI was built. A plant that is built has to be close
to this other power plant. Don't know how close.
Now the questions about river water. I live three miles from Three Mile
Island (ever hear of it?). I can see it from my bathroom window. I've been
on the public and private tours. The river water is brought in but it isn't
like running water over a hot pan in a sink, it doesn't just come in and go
right back out. The water is mostly evaporated, ever see cooling towers?
Some water is released back into the river but usually it is near the
current temerature of the river. There are two closed systems and the
cooling system. The water in contact with the reactor rods themselves is
flashed to steam, that steam is put through a heat exchanger to heat the
next system to steam. That steam drives the turbines. Then that water is
passed to the cooling tower where it is cooled with the river water. It's is
neat to see the cooling towers up close. The bottom ten feet of the towers
are actually cedar wood. (Obviouly the tower is held up with cement, it's
just the bottom ten feet the cement is like a lattice, foot wide cross
members with nothing between them.) The cedar is set like window blind slats
and offset so the water drops off of each and the air gets pulled through
these little waterfalls.
A lot of water is drawn into the plant and some is discharged but no effects
have been seen on the river. In fact plenty of people fish below the plant.
The river does get covered in ice even below the discharge points, it's not
as if in the middle of winter there are green trees and cat o'nine tails
growing on the banks surrounded by snow.
All for now.
Kevin Tarr
Trump high, lead low
