Lately I’ve seen so many headlines about heat wave related deaths that my eyes just skim right past them. I read one such article the other morning that contained some slightly unrelated, but very interesting information, though; there was a section in the article about needing to shut down a nuclear power unit due to the heat:
The Tennessee Valley Authority, the nation’s largest public utility, shut down one of three units at the Browns Ferry nuclear plant in Athens, Ala., on Thursday because water drawn from the Tennessee River was exceeding a 90-degree average over 24 hours. “We don’t believe we’ve ever shut down a nuclear unit because of river temperature,” said John Moulton, spokesman for the Knoxville, Tenn.-based utility. The shutdown posed no safety threat, but it came as TVA hit records for power consumption in the last two weeks in its service area covering most of Tennessee and parts of Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia. The utility will compensate for the loss of power by buying it elsewhere.
This is an interesting dilemma- heating can cause a problem with any sort of power generation. Even solar panels are less efficient in warmer temperatures. But over-heated nuclear power plants pose a different risk than over-heated solar panels; nobody wants to see a nuclear meltdown in Alabama. With climate change an increasing problem, is it smart to build plants that pose this level of risk in the heat?
1 response so far ↓
Ernest Norsworthy // Aug 20, 2007 at 4:14 pm
Here’s a copy of a letter sent to the Times Daily in Florence, Alabama on this subject. Don’t know if they’ll print it.
EN
The TimesDaily
Florence, Alabama
August 17, 2007
Subject: Why TVA is picked on a lot
A former TVA board member once opined that the TVA was picked on a lot because it was an easy target. He failed to mention why.
Some of those reasons seem to come up nearly every day.
• A nuclear plant’s warning sirens do not work, 77 out of 108 of them. Even a re-test did not restore all of them. This is not rocket science.
• A nuclear plant had to be shut down because its cooling water is too hot. Should this possibility have been anticipated? Yes, and probably along with hundreds of others, maybe thousands of possible occurrences.
• Recently the TVA put up for sale a billion dollars in bonds just to refinance some existing debt. Common sense says you cannot ever borrow your way out of debt. In the first place, TVA is too far in debt ($25 billion) ever to reasonably hope to repay it. The TVA debt-hole was caused by bad management years ago and it continues today.
• The TVA just announced a new rate increase because river water was low. Will even another rate increase be far behind because one of the Browns Ferry reactors had to be shut down? If extreme conditions continue, TVA will have to increase its rates astronomically and have limited electrical service too.
• TVA pretends it is something it is not. TVA is a federal agency pure and simple. TVA is not a private business although it has bought and sold private property as if it were one.
A flaw in the U.S. Constitution since its inception in 1933, the TVA has made many, many management mistakes along with its scandals. Isn’t it time for Congress to say they’ve had enough? Surely, the seven Southeastern states and their public service commissions would like to be able to rule on any electricity rate hikes in their states now within TVA’s “fenceâ€.
Ernest Norsworthy
Visalia, California
emnorsworthy@earthlink.net
http://norsworthyopinion.com
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