The warmest summer on record in the US, along with increased
demand and diminished water supplies have put intense and unexpected
pressure on the nation's power plants, according to
new reporting by the
Washington Post.
The massive Hoover Dam has been generating electricity since the 1930s,
but falling water levels have forced engineers to develop new turbines.
(Jonathan Gibby / For the Washington Post)
Citing climate change and its impact, scientists and experts interviewed by
the Post
say that the country's energy infrastructure -- including large
hyrdoelectric dams and nuclear power plants -- is in danger. Designed
for a cooler and more predictable climate, but now faced with more
frequent extreme weather events, the aging energy system is strained by
growing demand and diminished resources.
“We’re trying to manage a changing climate, its impact on water
supplies and our ability to generate power, all at once,” Michael L.
Connor, commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation, the Interior
Department’s water management agency, told
the Post.
And nuclear power plants have already felt the strain. As Juliet Eilperin reports:
Warmer and drier summers mean there is less water available to cool
nuclear and fossil-fuel plants. The Millstone nuclear power plant in
Waterford, Conn., had to shut down one of its reactors
in mid-August because the water it drew from the Long Island Sound was
too warm to cool critical equipment outside the core. A twin-unit
nuclear plant in Braidwood, Ill., needed to get special permission to
continue operating this summer because the temperature in its cooling
water pond rose to 102 degrees, four degrees above its normal limit;
another Midwestern plant stopped operating temporarily because its water
intake pipes ended up on dry ground because of the prolonged drought.
Scott Burnell, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
said the safety of America’s nuclear plants “is not in jeopardy” because
the sources of water cooling the core are self-contained and might have
to shut down in some instances if water is either too warm or
unavailable.
“If water levels dropped to the point where you can’t draw
water into the condenser, you’d have to shut down the plant,” he said.The commission’s new chairman, Allison Macfarlane,
has asked her staff to look at “a broad array of natural events that
could affect nuclear plant operations” in the future, such as climate
change, Burnell added.
And US coal plants:
Rising temperatures have started to affect U.S. coal plants as well.
This summer’s drought disrupted the transport of coal delivered by
barges on the Mississippi, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had to
use dredges to deepen the navigation channel.
The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency granted special
exceptions to four coal-fired plants and four nuclear plants this
summer, allowing them to discharge water into local waterways that was
hotter than the federal clean water permits allowed. Normally the
discharge water cannot exceed 90 degrees, but the waiver allowed
utilities to release water as hot as 97 degrees.
# # #
No comments:
Post a Comment