Use No 3.
SUCKING THE SEA LIFE FROM THE OCEANS
New "as many as possible" reactors proposed for Sellafield would use sea water to cool the reactors. Fresh water is used to cool the wastes.
"Half the commercial catch for some regions" in the UK is destroyed by sea water abstraction.
Use No 2.
HEATING THE OCEANS
Nuclear reactors use sea water for cooling, billions of gallons of seawater are heated and pumped back out to the oceans. Raised temperatures - not to mention the chemicals used to keep the pipes "clean" don't do marine species any favours...
a report commissioned by British Energy (2008) estimated that new generation reactors would need 72000 litres per second of cooling water. This is more than the average flow of the River Thames at Teddington Lock.
Cumbria Wildlife Trust
http://www.savekirksanton.org.uk/sites/default/files/document/cumbria%20wildlife%20trust%20response%20to%20ecc%20consultation%20on%20nps.pdf
Another terrible explosion in Japan this morning. The most technologically advanced nation on earth cannot pump enough seawater into the stricken and boiling reactors.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2011/mar/15/japan-earthquake-and-tsunami-japan
The intake pipes from the sea to the Japanese reactors may well be clogged up with the remains of the towns and villages...
ReplyDeleteReport Published: Thermal standards for cooling water from new
ReplyDeletebuild nuclear power stations
(the report can be downloaded from:
http://www.cefas.defra.gov.uk/publications/scientific-series/environment-reports.aspx)
Produced by the Expert Panel, British EDF Estuarine & Marine
Studies (BEEMS)
The abstraction and return of seawater used for cooling
represents the most important environmental aspect to the marine
environment of nuclear power station operation. The discharge
introduces significant thermal energy (heat) to receiving
waters, which will continue with little variation throughout the
operational life of the station, which may exceed 40 years.
Return cooling-water will typically be 8–10°C higher than
background. A modest temperature rise adjacent to the discharge
is inevitable with little practical opportunity for mitigation
once the station is commissioned.
Although European and UK legislation includes inter alia thermal
limits, there are currently no uniform standards available to
the Environment Agency and other UK regulators for the control
of temperature or thermal loads in Transitional (estuaries) and
Coastal (TraC) waters. Current thermal controls have been
derived mostly on pragmatic grounds and have worked tolerably
well, but they have a number of fundamental flaws. Many of the
current limits are either based on freshwater standards or rely
heavily on an intuitive view on the behaviour of fish (and other
marine organisms) with little scientific justification, whilst
the potential impacts of a systemic rise in seawater temperature
brought on by climate change has largely been ignored......
.......