The Oil Drum: Europe | Why wind needs feed-in tariffs (and why it is not the enemy of nuclear)

92 comments on Why wind needs feed-in tariffs (and why it is not the enemy of nuclear)

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Kiashu on March 3, 2008 - 6:08pm

You can't put seawater through a coal, nuclear etc plant, the salt stuffs everything up. You need fresh water.

You can of course use the plant's power to desalinate seawater to then use in the plant itself, but then you're getting less net energy from the thing.

Fresh water's a big issue for power plants. Here in Victoria we've had power prices rises largely because of that. Most of our power comes from hydroelectric and coal, both of which use a lot of water.

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Eddd on March 4, 2008 - 1:47am

Actually it is possible to use seawater to cool nuclear powerplants (and I would assume other types as well).

I've visited Seabrook before - http://www.answers.com/topic/seabrook-station-nuclear-power-plant?cat=te...

So it can be done. It's not common, but Seabrook has a safe record now of 18 years of operation...

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Arclite on March 4, 2008 - 3:40pm

The Millstone nuclear powerplant in Waterford, CT, USA uses sea water as coolant. It's been in operation since 1970 without incident, although it was shut down for a year for a safety evaluation in the nineties. But the safety issues raised were not related to sea water as far as I know. My roommate in college worked there in the eighties and said that safety protocols were very lax (so he quit, returned to college, and became my roommate). It's currently in operation.

Here's an article in wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millstone_Nuclear_Power_Plant

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