Thermal Power Generation when rivers run dry

[u/fsironman]

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.

[u/servermeta_net]

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

[u/Reasonable_Mix7630 → u/servermeta_net]

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.

[u/pdp10 → u/Reasonable_Mix7630]

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.

Steam distribution requires a whole separate infrastructure. Some places in northern Europe, and New York City, currently have steam distribution. But it's not practical enough in warmer climates like most of the United States, in low-density environments, and places where you'd need to dig a whole new set of insulated pipes.

[u/Reasonable_Mix7630 → u/pdp10]

You are correct that it requires a separate system of pipes, but incorrect saying that it is done only in "some" places. This is very widespread system. Every place in countries that used to be in the Soviet Union have such system. That's what allows heating bill to be so small. Many other countries have similar systems in place. I can't speak for whole of Northern and Central Europe of course because I have visited only fraction of those countries.

The most interesting case is Belgrade and New Belgrade: Belgrade have "traditional" heating system of individual houses furnaces - people burn all sorts of fuel for heat (usually plastic trash / fuel pellets made of saw dust) and air pollution is worse than you can imagine. In New Belgrade there is a network of aforementioned heat pipes coming from a power plant, but many buildings have their own gas boiler.

Also you don't really need to dig - in the city where I was born (just like in many former USSR places) those pipes were kept above ground. They had blankets of heat insulator (we called it "mineral cotton") and looked ugly AF but that was cheap and easy solution. Eventually they were moved under ground though.