Climate change – summer heat damaging production of nuclear power
“Heat is the main issue, because if the river is getting warmer the water going into the plant is warmer and makes it harder to cool,” David McIntyre, an NRC spokesman, said……
As long as the heat persists, Saunders of Gelber & Associates expects nuclear supply to stay low while demand continues to climb.
Heat Sends U.S. Nuclear Power Production To 9-Year Low 
Bloomberg, By Christine Harvey – Jul 26, 2012 Nuclear-power production in the U.S. is at the lowest seasonal levels in nine years as drought and heat force reactors from Ohio to Vermont to slow output.
Generation for the 104 plants in the U.S. fell 0.4 percent from yesterday to 94,171 megawatts, or 93 percent of capacity, the lowest level for this time of year since 2003, according to reports from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and data compiled by Bloomberg. The total is down 2.6 percent from the five-year average for today of 96,725 megawatts. We’ve had a fast decay of summer output this month and that corresponds to the high heat and droughts,” Pax Saunders, an analyst at Gelber & Associates in Houston, said. “Plants are not able to operate at the levels they can.”…. Continue reading
Summer heat brings state of emergency to Missouri
Missouri declares state of emergency due to heat, drought Jul 23, 2012 (Reuters) – The governor of Missouri on Monday declared a state of emergency due to the drought and prolonged severe heat of this summer, which has so far been blamed in the deaths of 25 people in the state.
“The high temperatures and dry conditions across the state are taking their toll on Missourians,” Governor Jay Nixon said in a statement. “Our farmers are suffering tremendous losses in crops and livestock, and we’re seeing more heat-related deaths and emergency room visits, particularly among seniors.”…. http://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL2E8INJ2G20120723
(but Governor Nixon still thinks that nuclear reactors will be OK in the heat?)
Young Americans not well educated? Ignorance about Climate Change
“Most Generation Xers are surprisingly disengaged, dismissive or doubtful about whether global climate change is happening “
“The results of this report suggest that better educated young adults are more likely to recognize the importance of the problem”
Uninformed Generation X are unconcerned about climate change, Click Green, 19 July 12, As the United States suffers a summer of record-shattering heat and the UK experiences record summer rainfall, a University of Michigan report finds that Generation X is lukewarm about climate change – uninformed about the causes and unconcerned about the potential dangers Continue reading
Nuclear power not the fix for global warming: it’s the other way around!
Nationally, thousands of daily high temperature records and warm overnight low temperature records have been set this summer.
With global warming already increasing the odds of extreme heat events, the challenges faced at Braidwood and Browns Ferry are likely to become more common in the coming years. It’s an open question as to whether the nuclear industry is prepared for this. As the Union of Concerned Scientists‘ David Lochbaum told the Times, “Nuclear plants like Goldilocks weather — not too hot, not too cold, but just right.”
Such weather is getting harder and harder to come by.
Heat and Drought Pose Risks for Nuclear Power Plants, Climate Central July 18th, 2012, By Andrew Freedman ”…….. it seems that climate change is increasingly causing problems for operators of nuclear plants. Like coal-fired power plants, nuclear facilities use large amounts of water for cooling purposes. After water has cycled through the plant, it is discharged back into a nearby waterway, usually a lake or a river, at a higher temperature. State regulations prohibit nuclear plants from operating once water temperatures go above a certain threshold, in part because it could compromise the safe operation of the facility, and also because discharging very warm water can kill fish and other marine life. Continue reading
Ski resorts taking climate change seriously, going to renewable energy
Ski resorts go renewable U.S. ski resorts tap renewable energy sources to combat climate change Action Sports July 13, 2012, By Jesse Huffman As the volatility of the 2011-12 season made clear, the stake ski resort’s have in resolving climate change is a big one. Over the past three years, resorts like Bolton , Burke , Jiminy Peak and Grouse Mountain have installed wind turbines, while others have pursued efficiency updates, in an effort to take responsibly produce, and reduce, the power and heat involved in swinging chairs and heating lodges all winter long. Now, four more areas, from local ski hills in the Northeast to major resorts in the Rockies, have installed or invested in renewable power sources ranging from solar to biomass to coalmine methane.
Smuggler’s Notch closed early this winter after a spring meltdown saw the highest March temperatures in Vermont’s history. The same solar energy that drove skiers and riders batty as it took away their snow is now being put to use by an array of 35 solar trackers, which collectively produce 205,000 kWh per year — around five percent of Smuggler’s total electrical use. The array provides enough juice for most of the resort’s Village Lodge. Continue reading
Court judgment makes USA, not Australia, the leader in cutting carbon emissions
Three judges –two Democrats and one Republican – upheld the EPA’s right to regulate greenhouse emissions under the Clean Air Act.
Result? No new coal-fired power stations! Under the Clean Air Act, carbon emissions are limited to 1,000 pounds of CO2 per MW hour of power produced.
the United States has pledged a much more responsible cut of 17 per cent by 2020,
EPA Clean Air to end coal in the US http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/politics/epa-clean-air-to-end-coal-in-the-us/ 4 July, 2012 Last week, in a milestone announcement that went largely unreported in Australia, the US Court of Appeals upheld the EPA’s right to regulate greenhouse emissions under the Clean Air Act. Today is the 4th July and Independent Australia believes this decision is cause to celebrate. Environment editor Sandi Keane reports. Continue reading
USA experiencing ‘brutal’, unprecedented heat wave
the center of the country will experience high temperatures for the next several weeks, possibly into August.
More than 2,000 heat records matched or broken http://planetark.org/enviro-news/item/65842 5 July 12, Joseph O’Leary More than 2,000 temperature records have been matched or broken in the past week as a brutal heat wave baked much of the United States, and June saw more than 3,200 records topped, the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said Monday. Continue reading
Climate change – hot weather is bad for nuclear reactors
Hot weather, hot water pose challenges for TVA nuclear, local utilities
By Brian Lawson, The Huntsville Times , June 30, 2012, “…. Browns Ferry’s operator, the Tennessee Valley Authority, faces the same paradox every summer: the plants are designed to help meet the valley’s power demand amid the swelter, but when it gets too hot the plants may have to scale back. Under TVA’s water discharge permits with the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, the water temperature downstream from the plant cannot be higher than upstream when the water reaches a temperature of 90 degrees….. David Lochbaum, a former engineer at Browns Ferry who now works with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said last week that nuclear power plants are about 33 percent efficient, so two-thirds of the waste heat they generate has to be cooled using water. Lochbaum said increasingly hot water in the Tennessee River places another potential burden on Browns Ferry operations.
Lochbaum was part of a conference call last week with area environmental advocates who said electricity generation poses an ongoing strain on water resources, especially in times of drought or the reduced rainfall levels being experienced in North Alabama this year.
A study by the River Network, released last week, found that it takes on average 40,000 gallons of fresh water to produce a megawatt of electricity. The water is used, polluted or consumed in making the electricity, said Wendy Wilson, national director of the River Network’s energy and climate programs.
Climate change: global sea level rise is uneven: USA’s East coast to cop it big
US East Coast a ‘hot spot’ for sea level rise: study http://planetark.org/enviro-news/item/65757 by Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent 26-Jun-12 Sea levels from Cape Hatteras to Cape Cod are rising at a faster pace
than anywhere on Earth, making coastal cities and wetlands in this densely-populated U.S. corridor possibly more vulnerable to flooding and damage, researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey reported.
Climate change is causing higher sea levels around the world, as land-based glaciers like those on Greenland melt and slide into the oceans and as warming ocean water expands.
But seas don’t rise at the same rate, and for 600 miles along the U.S. Atlantic coast, the water is rising more rapidly than elsewhere on the globe, USGS scientists reported on Sunday in the journal Nature Climate Change. In this “hot spot” of rising sea levels, variations in ocean currents and sea water temperature and salinity push oceans upward along the
coastline, the scientists said.
It could have an impact on some of the biggest urban areas along and near the East Coast, including Boston, Providence, New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Norfolk-Virginia Beach, especially when storm surges push water inland. Continue reading
The way to win over climate sceptics
How to convince climate sceptics to be pro-environment, New Scientist, 17 June 2012 by Michael Slezak, Climate change might eventually cause millions of deaths and all kinds of natural disasters. But don’t tell that to a climate-change sceptic if you want them to do anything about it.
Instead, focus on how mitigation efforts can help people become more warm and caring towards others or how it can promote economic and technological development. That’s the advice psychologists give after confirming the strategy in an experiment. Continue reading
So far, 2012 USA’s warmest year on record
Warmest U.S. Spring On Record: NOAA, PLanet Ark, 08-Jun-12, Deborah Zabarenko, So far, 2012 has been the warmest year the United States has ever seen, with the warmest spring and the second-warmest May since record-keeping began in 1895, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported on Thursday. Continue reading
Climate change, hot summers, having a bad effect on nuclear power plants
US, European nuclear and coal-fired electrical plants vulnerable to climate change: study Phys Og, June 3, 2012 Warmer water and reduced river flows in the United States and Europe in recent years have led to reduced production, or temporary shutdown, of several thermoelectric power plants. For instance, the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in Alabama had to shut down more than once last summer because the Tennessee River’s water was too warm to use it for cooling.
A study by European and University of Washington scientists published today in Nature Climate Change projects that in the next 50 years warmer water and lower flows will lead to more such power disruptions. The authors predict that thermoelectric power generating capacity from 2031 to 2060 will decrease by between 4 and 16 percent in the U.S. and 6 to 19 percent in Europe due to lack of cooling water. The likelihood of extreme drops in power generation—complete or almost-total shutdowns—is projected to almost triple. Continue reading
UK govt secretly trying to weaken European Union’s climate regulations
Leaked documents reveal UK fight to dilute EU green energy targets Allegations of coalition hypocrisy over green issues as critics say documents show UK has caved in to fossil fuel lobbyists, Fiona Harvey, environment correspondent guardian.co.uk, 3 June 2012 The government has been trying to water down key environmental regulations in Brussels despite trumpeting its commitment to green issues at home, leaked documents show.
The papers, seen by the Guardian, reveal British officials repeatedly trying to prevent the adoption of European Union rules on energy efficiency, curtailing the proposals and making them voluntary rather than mandatory in many cases. In addition, the UK has tried repeatedly to ensure that the EU does not adopt a new target for renewable energy generation. Continue reading
Large scale study shows Australia is warming, due to global greenhouse emissions
“Our study revealed that recent warming in a 1,000-year context is highly unusual and cannot be explained by natural factors alone, suggesting a strong influence of human-caused climate change in the Australasian region,”
1,000 years of climate data confirms Australia’s warming http://phys.org/news/2012-05-years-climate-australia.html May 17, 2012 By Alvin Stone In the first study of its kind in Australasia, scientists used 27 natural climate records to create the first large-scale temperature reconstruction for the region over the past 1,000 years. The study led by researchers at the University of Melbourne, used a range of natural indicators including tree rings, corals and ice cores to study Australasian temperatures over the past millennium. They then compared these with climate model simulations.
Dr. Stephen Phipps, a researcher with UNSW’s Climate Change Research Centre and the Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science led the climate model simulation research. He said the results showed there were no other warm periods in the past 1,000 years that match the warming experienced in Australasia since 1950. Continue reading
Heartland Institute’s heartfelt attack on climate science
The chimerical construction of an ideologically-driven topsy-turvy reality by Heartland 
and its Australian equivalent, the IPA, is neither new nor surprising.
As the evidence for climate change continues to pile up, and as the frequency of severe weather events continues to sky-rocket, we can therefore be fairly certain that climate denial will take ever more scurrilous forms.
Are Heartland billboards the beginning of the end for climate denial? The Conversation, Stephan Lewandowsky 7 May 2012, The inversion of reality and morality has been a long-standing attribute of the climate “debate,” which reached a new watershed low a few days ago with the latest travesty from the Heartland Institute, a Chicago “think” tank.
Heartland posted on its website that “the people who still believe in man-made global warming are mostly on the radical fringe of society. This is why the most prominent advocates of global warming aren’t scientists. They are murderers, tyrants, and madmen.” Continue reading
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PLEASE OPPOSE HR 8255 AND S.3639 – bills would accelerate satellite deployment, with no environmental review or safeguards – https://ncstd5li.quorum.us/campaign/169331/
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