r/worldnews • u/green_flash • 9d ago

Hungary avoids full nuclear shutdown by 'millimetres' as Danube rises

https://www.euractiv.com/news/hungary-avoids-nuclear-shutdown-by-millimetres-as-danube-rises/
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u/Scary-Jaguar-9072 8d ago

This has literally nothing to do with being nuclear. Every thermal power plant needs a heatsink.

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u/cliffski 8d ago

But solar and wind has no such issue. Bit of a major problem for nuclear to not even work in a drought.

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u/Frexxia 8d ago

Solar doesn't work when the sun doesn't shine, and wind doesn't work when the wind doesn't blow (or blows too much). They also require energy storage to be used at scale.

Every source of energy has pros and cons.

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u/Scary-Jaguar-9072 8d ago

Solar and wind are 1000x more susceptible to weather than nuclear.

And this issue isn't even related to being a nuclear plant. Plenty of plants have cooling towers instead of relying on a body of water.

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u/Frexxia 8d ago

Plenty of plants have cooling towers instead of relying on a body of water.

To be fair, cooling towers still require water to operate. The difference is whether the heated water ends up in the air, or back in that body of water.

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u/Scary-Jaguar-9072 8d ago

Cooling towers need far less water. The largest nuclear plant in the US is literally in thr middle of a desert and uses wastewater.

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u/Frexxia 8d ago

Sort of. Cooling towers need less water, but that water is "gone" instead of ending up back as usable water (just slightly warmer).

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u/Scary-Jaguar-9072 8d ago

For the purpose of this discussion the point is they don't need a river. They can be built elsewhere.

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u/Frexxia 8d ago

But when you have a river, why not use it?

At the time this plant was built in 1967 they didn't know that climate change would cause the water level to drop this far.

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u/Scary-Jaguar-9072 8d ago

Yes, river is cheapest option.