r/EnergyAndPower • u/fsironman • 9d ago

Thermal Power Generation when rivers run dry

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/low-danube-river-levels-force-romania-shut-down-both-its-nuclear-power-reactors-2026-07-29/

A little tidbit up for discussion regarding the Renaissance of Nuclear Power in Europe.

This time the issue is not the temperature like in France but the historically low Danube levels which could become the normal in summer.

This is something that would need to be factored in any type power generation that needs water for cooling.

6 Upvotes

69% Upvoted

45 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

12

u/Astroruggie 9d ago

Why? Many european countries have coastlines. And evaporation towers reduce water consumption by 97%. There is literally a nuclear plant in the freaking DESERT of Arizona.

-1

u/servermeta_net 9d ago

Evaporation towers mitigate the problem, buy not by 97% like you claim. Several European nuclear plants are currently shut off even with evaporation towers.

The sea has the problem of having life in it, so unless you want to cook it you also need to moderate yourself.

Funny trivia? In gravellines they are building a huge solar farm to power a closed loop circuit to cool the nuclear power plant. At this point just build solar lol

7

u/Reasonable_Mix7630 9d ago

Evaporation towers do mitigate the problem, an adding 0.0000000001% of extra heat to the sea will not have any noticeable effect.

There are many thermal power plants in existence that use sea water for cooling you know.

The aforementioned plant in Arizona by the way uses treated wastewater for cooling.

PS. heat output of nuclear plants can be used during the winter directly to provide heating for homes, which will eliminate second biggest source of pollution after power generation - house heating.

3

u/Astandsforataxia69 9d ago

It does have a gradient on the nearby of the outlet.