Tuesday 15 March 2011

SUCKING THE SEA LIFE FROM THE OCEANS



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



2 comments:

  1. The intake pipes from the sea to the Japanese reactors may well be clogged up with the remains of the towns and villages...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Report Published: Thermal standards for cooling water from new
    build 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......
    .......

    ReplyDelete