Thread: The next nuclear plants .The answer to our climate goals.

The problem with cooling is that in most countries there is a limit as to how much you are allowed to heat up the water. We have a 5c limit and nothing above x (where x is pretty high, almost 30c I believe) so in warm summer days, which you have plenty you need to use the cooling towers. These in turn use HUGE amounts of power and some water evaporates.

One of our local (coal fired) stations once explained to me that to run their cooling tower, they need to use up to 10% of their total power generation.

In any case. I know this is a nuclear topic and I don't really believe in solar panels but how about those solar towers? Surely australia is dang near perfect for those types of installations, I reckon they are much more efficient and have a longer lifespan than your average crappy solar installation... Why are there not a **** ton of those around? Running on molten salt with buffer storage you can run them at night as well (residual heat) so they are stable unlike solar panels and actually reasonably good for the environment (no dirty panels, no inverters with electronics for every house that end up in a landfill some day).

I can think of only one good argument: not in my back yard They are kinda big so I would not want one looming in the distance over here...

Cheers,
-P

I can understand why people are nervous about nuclear, i just watched Chernobyl on HBO and scary stuff, but realistically a totally different technology, era and culture to today, like comparing an early Lada to a Tesla.

For example, Hydro is great, but did you know that possibly 230,000 people died in one incident Banqiao Dam - Wikipedia
Casualties[edit]

The death toll of this disaster was considered a state secret until 2005 when it was declassified.^[4] According to the Hydrology Department of Henan Province, approximately 26,000 people died in the province^[13] from flooding and another 145,000 died during subsequent epidemics and famine. In addition, about 5,960,000 buildings collapsed, and 11 million residents were affected. Unofficial estimates of the number of people killed by the disaster have run as high as 230,000 people.<sup>[1]


Now this could never happen in an advanced western economy like Queensland in the 21st Century with dams overflowing by bad management or partially collapsing with lost documents could it, cough cough, oh bad example. And with no or inadequate insurance to cover all risks.

Point is we dont condemn Hydro dams forever based on such an incident, we lift our game and assess the risks/benefits dispassionately , without playing the Chicken Little game.

BTW, 500 mm in the last week, ash/mud flows from earlier volcanic eruptions, a bridge about to go, but noones complaining. Enjoy your rain down their folk.</sup>