Junk forbs Magazine Rag, Nuke plant Droughts and Capacity Factor.

As we sit here, Salem 1 and 2 has been off the grid for weeks and months because of dysfunctional maintenance philosophy. Unit 2 is at 15% power today caused by a undiscoverable intermittent generator short and unit 1 is down for baffle bolt troubles. Why does Forbs fail to cover that? The conservatives are just showing you the pretty and incomplete picture to support a profit agenda. The system on all sides are only showing their self interested and profit centered prettified version of life. Artificially jacking up the electric prices is not really bad for these guys.

One forgets the great upper Midwest drought of a few years back. Basically plant's power levels was limited in the heart of a drought and heat emergency. The plants didn't spend enough money during plant designs for adequate heat sink cooling capacity. I framed it as Illinois's grid isn't designed for the developing climate during the past crisis. For Illinois to support the grid in the last Illinois drought, they had to massively jack up nuke plant discharge cooling water temps of their rivers and streams. This damaged the environment. The electric prices went through the roof in the crisis. Pilgrim and Millstone down power in summer heatwaves in recent times are a examples of this.  

Generally across the nation in response to higher heat sink temperatures (droughts and summer heat waves) in recent years many plants have reduce safety by getting the NRC to up the cooling water temperature limits for cooling the plant and safety systems. There has been no real testing at the plants on how the systems will respond in the new upper temp limits with the heat sinks and the worst design accidents. It is just paper whipping...not transparent computer modeling... the new limits with not bringing in bigger pumps and piping. 

America's Heat Wave No Sweat For Nuclear Power

James Conca ,  

This week, like much of July, a heat wave is cooking America with extreme temperatures, affecting energy production as well as causing fires and water shortages, sucking electricity like crazy to power the cooling necessary to avoid discomfort and even death. According to the National Weather Service, 122 million Americans are under heat alerts.

Fortunately, nuclear power hasn’t minded, scoring record capacity factors of 96% and up with no increase in price. Other energy sources do not fare so well.

It’s all about diversity. Whether in biology, in culture, in training, or in technology, when conditions change a system survives if there is sufficient diversity to adapt. Otherwise it dies. This is no less true for electricity production. Having a diverse group of energy systems is key to a society surviving changes in demographics and changes in government, geological processes and natural disasters, disruption in supplies from war, or extreme weather changes.

This concept is in full display this month as this heat wave continues to sweep across America. Just like during the polar vortex, when nuclear stepped up to relieve natural gas and coal when they failed to deliver on the demand, nuclear also performs wonderfully during extreme weather at the other end of the thermometer…