"Water is the nuclear industry's Achilles' heel,"

Drought could shut down nuclear power plants

Southeast water shortage a factor in huge cooling requirements

 LAKE NORMAN, N.C. - Nuclear reactors across the Southeast could be forced to throttle back or temporarily shut down later this year because drought is drying up the rivers and lakes that supply power plants with the awesome amounts of cooling water they need to operate…………“If water levels get to a certain point, we’ll have to power it down or go off line,” said Robert Yanity, a spokesman for South Carolina Electric & Gas Co., which operates the Summer nuclear plant outside Columbia, S.C

From the October 2008 Special Editions | 25 comments

Energy versus Water

By Michael E. Webber   

In June the state of Florida made an unusual announcement: it would sue the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over the corps’s plan to reduce water flow from reservoirs in Georgia……..Georgia wanted to keep its water for good reason: a year earlier various rivers dropped so low that the drought-stricken state was within a few weeks of shutting down its own nuclear plants.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-future-of-fuel  

Some states are now suing each other for water rights

For every three units of energy produced by the reactor core of a U.S. nuclear power plants, two units are discharged to the environment as waste heat. Nuclear plants are built on the shores of lakes, rivers, and oceans because these bodies provide the large quantities of cooling water needed to handle the waste heat discharge.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0728-06.htm

A similar situation has been experienced in Europe in the summer of 2006 when the whole continent  was covered by a massive heat wave that forced a temporary of several nuclear facilities in Germany, France and Spain.

Spain shut down the Santa Maria de Garona reactor on the River Ebro,

Reactors in Germany are reported to have cut output, and others in Germany and France have been given special permits to dump hot water into rivers to avoid power failures. France, where nuclear power provides more than three quarters of electricity, has also imported power to prevent shortages….. a series of power cuts in central London prompted fears of regular blackouts as global temperatures are predicted to keep rising, bringing more long, hot summers.

And the nuclear industry’s argument against renewables is “What if the wind does not blow or the sun does not shine?

This may be a good point to remember the longevity of the poisons created by the production of nuclear power. Literally FOREVER !

http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/archive/2605/26051202.jpg