True true, but before all the atomheads spawn here. Why not use technology, that provides energy without the possibility of nuking a city/country/world.
The fact that they shut down because of the water outlet temp is due to policy and procedure, not because of the engineering of the plants. We have many reactors in the US that sit on the great lakes and the ocean, both of which don’t suffer this problem.
Nuclear is expensive for the same reason, politics, not engineering or the science behind it.
We have many reactors in the US that sit on the great lakes and the ocean, both of which don’t suffer this problem.
No, you just don’t have environmental regulations in the US.
The reason those plants have been shut down wasn’t because they can’t technically operate in the summer heat (as any thermal power plant, they do operate on a temperature difference, so warmer cooling water will lower their efficiency, though), but because the temperature of the cooling water released would be high enough to endanger the ecosystem in the body of water they draw their cooling water from.
The nuclear industry is arguably the most regulated energy industry here in the US. The fact of the matter is that energy consumption isn’t going to go down any time soon, and while solar and wind are great supplements, they are very diffuse and the capacity factor is quite low, requiring more just to overcome the uncertainty in the weather.
The discharge from Turkey point in Florida creates one of the largest protected sanctuaries for crocodiles in the state. So also not something we can’t handle with proper engineering.
Procedure sounds an awful lot like a technical requirement ;)
Don’t worry the reactors on the shore of greater bodies of water will surely come up to temps sooner or later.
The “politics” making this stuff expensive is mainly safety precautions, which I for one would like to have in place when we’re talking about a nuclear fission reaction strapped to a water boiler.
This is why we should focus on less "aggressive’ forms of powe generation. Especially if they are more independent.
Well when I operated reactors for the Navy, we procedurally couldn’t exceed a certain outlet temp, but I was not only mechanically possible, but occasionally required when we were operating in very warm waters ;)
Nuclear in America is expensive because we stopped building reactors for 40+ years, so all of the supply chain and expertise atrophied.
France is doing just fine power wise and doesn’t rely on Russian gas to do so. One could argue their actions in North Africa to secure their uranium reserve, are equivalently bad, but that goes for the minerals required for batteries/solar panels/wind turbines, all of which require a massive amount of material to be pulled out of the ground and be processed with chemicals.
It’s unlikely for the lake cooled reactors like 9 mile point to suffer from high inlet temps because the bottom of the lake is a massive heatsink which is already used by some municipalities for cheap district cooling.
I think solar and wind are good for land that is developed but underutilized, like a rooftop, but bulldozing swaths of desert, which hosts its own unique ecosystem, just to coat it in silica and metal feels counterproductive.
Nuclear power is just so energy dense that it makes little sense not to use it. It could completely eliminate oil in heavy polluting industries like shipping. As well as still being able to tie into our current power grid, something that still isn’t addressed in “green circles”.
I’m a former Navy Nuclear Power Program Electronics Technician Instructor. I was at Nuke School from 2000-2006. Even back then I wouldn’t have agreed with you. If, and only if, Admiral Rickover was in charge of civilian nuclear power I would agree that we should use it. As is, the lowest bidder is in charge. That’s just needless disasters waiting to happen.
Oh, and even if Rickover was in charge, he and I would only approve molten salt reactors, not the light water reactors that we currently use. Molten salt reactors aren’t used because you cannot make nuclear weapons with them, but they also physicsally cannot meltdown. Physicsally because physics won’t allow it to happen.
Cool cool, still at some point you cannot cool that shit anymore. This is true for any form of technology, to be honest, but I’d rather have a burning solar panel, than a runaway nuclear reaction.
Nuclear plants are better than coal or gas, but. They are far outperformed by solar/wind plus batteries. We haven’t even begun tapping into the full potential of this form of power generation and already nuclear is not financially viable anymore. Your point with coating deserts in Solar is obviously valid, but we have soo much underutilized / stupidly utilized land, that can be filled with solar and batteries.
Yes they require minerals that need to be mined, but so does a nuclear reactor which then consumes mined and processed uranium, while in the stuff thats built into a solar cell is needed once and then generates power for free for decades.
Imo this is the way we need to go, given that its not only more environmentally friend but also sooo fucking cheap, that anything else doesn’t even begin to make sense. But given the way the world works, we will build coal/gas/nuclear plants that need to be subsidized heavily and then disassembled using public funds, like we’re doing in Germany.
And is also way cheaper and more reliable and doesn’t produce trash that will be radioactive for thousands of years and doesn’t make a country reliant on very unstable and/or autocratic countries to get access to the resources required for it’s use
There are some downsides. They just pale in comparison to fossil fuels and nuclear.
For example, tidal barrages and tidal power disrupting local ecosystems, wildlife deaths from windmills, geothermal agitating local land stability and releasing emissions, etc.
No perfect solutions - but there are better solutions, and renewables are definitely better than the existing alternatives. Full speed ahead.
The possibility of nuking shit is the only reason why governments keep subsidising nuclear power generation, because the nuclear industry it supports serves as a manpower and knowledge pool for the potential military use of nuclear power.
If you want to do it half way safely, nuclear power is anything but cheap. You can’t justify the enormous costs by anything but it being a stepping stone to nuking shit. I am fine with that, it unfortunately is a necessary evil. Just stop lying about the cheap reliable power source, and state the true reasons behind running that kind of haphazard expensive shit.
True true, but before all the atomheads spawn here. Why not use technology, that provides energy without the possibility of nuking a city/country/world.
Don’t build a reactor that’s designed to produce bomb worthy fissile material then.
Don’t build a reactor in the first place maybe. We have better ways to produce power.
Citation needed
https://www.euronews.com/2025/07/02/france-and-switzerland-shut-down-nuclear-power-plants-amid-scorching-heatwave
You cannot cool nuclear (and by extension most other nonrenewable power plants) in the summer. With heat rising, it will only get harder.
Plus nuclear is expensive as fuck, as you can see in the other comment
The fact that they shut down because of the water outlet temp is due to policy and procedure, not because of the engineering of the plants. We have many reactors in the US that sit on the great lakes and the ocean, both of which don’t suffer this problem.
Nuclear is expensive for the same reason, politics, not engineering or the science behind it.
No, you just don’t have environmental regulations in the US.
The reason those plants have been shut down wasn’t because they can’t technically operate in the summer heat (as any thermal power plant, they do operate on a temperature difference, so warmer cooling water will lower their efficiency, though), but because the temperature of the cooling water released would be high enough to endanger the ecosystem in the body of water they draw their cooling water from.
The nuclear industry is arguably the most regulated energy industry here in the US. The fact of the matter is that energy consumption isn’t going to go down any time soon, and while solar and wind are great supplements, they are very diffuse and the capacity factor is quite low, requiring more just to overcome the uncertainty in the weather.
The discharge from Turkey point in Florida creates one of the largest protected sanctuaries for crocodiles in the state. So also not something we can’t handle with proper engineering.
Procedure sounds an awful lot like a technical requirement ;)
Don’t worry the reactors on the shore of greater bodies of water will surely come up to temps sooner or later.
The “politics” making this stuff expensive is mainly safety precautions, which I for one would like to have in place when we’re talking about a nuclear fission reaction strapped to a water boiler.
This is why we should focus on less "aggressive’ forms of powe generation. Especially if they are more independent.
Well when I operated reactors for the Navy, we procedurally couldn’t exceed a certain outlet temp, but I was not only mechanically possible, but occasionally required when we were operating in very warm waters ;)
Nuclear in America is expensive because we stopped building reactors for 40+ years, so all of the supply chain and expertise atrophied.
France is doing just fine power wise and doesn’t rely on Russian gas to do so. One could argue their actions in North Africa to secure their uranium reserve, are equivalently bad, but that goes for the minerals required for batteries/solar panels/wind turbines, all of which require a massive amount of material to be pulled out of the ground and be processed with chemicals.
It’s unlikely for the lake cooled reactors like 9 mile point to suffer from high inlet temps because the bottom of the lake is a massive heatsink which is already used by some municipalities for cheap district cooling.
I think solar and wind are good for land that is developed but underutilized, like a rooftop, but bulldozing swaths of desert, which hosts its own unique ecosystem, just to coat it in silica and metal feels counterproductive.
Nuclear power is just so energy dense that it makes little sense not to use it. It could completely eliminate oil in heavy polluting industries like shipping. As well as still being able to tie into our current power grid, something that still isn’t addressed in “green circles”.
I’m a former Navy Nuclear Power Program Electronics Technician Instructor. I was at Nuke School from 2000-2006. Even back then I wouldn’t have agreed with you. If, and only if, Admiral Rickover was in charge of civilian nuclear power I would agree that we should use it. As is, the lowest bidder is in charge. That’s just needless disasters waiting to happen.
Oh, and even if Rickover was in charge, he and I would only approve molten salt reactors, not the light water reactors that we currently use. Molten salt reactors aren’t used because you cannot make nuclear weapons with them, but they also physicsally cannot meltdown. Physicsally because physics won’t allow it to happen.
Cool cool, still at some point you cannot cool that shit anymore. This is true for any form of technology, to be honest, but I’d rather have a burning solar panel, than a runaway nuclear reaction.
Nuclear plants are better than coal or gas, but. They are far outperformed by solar/wind plus batteries. We haven’t even begun tapping into the full potential of this form of power generation and already nuclear is not financially viable anymore. Your point with coating deserts in Solar is obviously valid, but we have soo much underutilized / stupidly utilized land, that can be filled with solar and batteries.
Yes they require minerals that need to be mined, but so does a nuclear reactor which then consumes mined and processed uranium, while in the stuff thats built into a solar cell is needed once and then generates power for free for decades.
Imo this is the way we need to go, given that its not only more environmentally friend but also sooo fucking cheap, that anything else doesn’t even begin to make sense. But given the way the world works, we will build coal/gas/nuclear plants that need to be subsidized heavily and then disassembled using public funds, like we’re doing in Germany.
Renewables have the best LCOE
https://www.lazard.com/media/5tlbhyla/lazards-lcoeplus-june-2025-_vf.pdf
Renewables have the best SLCOE
https://www.csiro.au/-/media/Energy/GenCost-2025-26-Draft/GenCost2025-26ConsultDraft_20251216-FINAL.pdf
Thanks!
And is also way cheaper and more reliable and doesn’t produce trash that will be radioactive for thousands of years and doesn’t make a country reliant on very unstable and/or autocratic countries to get access to the resources required for it’s use
Seems like there are only positives to renewables :D
There are some downsides. They just pale in comparison to fossil fuels and nuclear.
For example, tidal barrages and tidal power disrupting local ecosystems, wildlife deaths from windmills, geothermal agitating local land stability and releasing emissions, etc.
No perfect solutions - but there are better solutions, and renewables are definitely better than the existing alternatives. Full speed ahead.
The possibility of nuking shit is the only reason why governments keep subsidising nuclear power generation, because the nuclear industry it supports serves as a manpower and knowledge pool for the potential military use of nuclear power.
If you want to do it half way safely, nuclear power is anything but cheap. You can’t justify the enormous costs by anything but it being a stepping stone to nuking shit. I am fine with that, it unfortunately is a necessary evil. Just stop lying about the cheap reliable power source, and state the true reasons behind running that kind of haphazard expensive shit.