Jan Wildeboer 😷Jun 29, 2025
Next week, France is forced yet again to reduce output and in some cases completely shut down nuclear reactors as the high temperatures heats up the cooling water they take from rivers beyond acceptable limits. This is the new normal now and will only get worse over the following years as we collectively ignore #ClimateChange
Show threadaerisJun 29, 2025
@jwildeboer And our Cour des Comptes said it only concern 1 to 2% of nuclear power.
In the same time, solar panel must be cooled with water to stay at 25°. Each ° above is 0.2% to 0.5% less power.
Show threadTiber SeptJun 29, 2025

@[email protected] @jwildeboer So, I see this is relevant, but is it the most important aspect? According to your statement, at 50°C we'll have 13% less power from each panel max ... as compared to playing with the cooling system of nuclear reactors. I bet accidents never happened this way

UPDATE: I was arguing here against bots, I deleted all my follow-up posts as they were mostly to trick the bots to do basic calculations.

Show threadBreizhJun 30, 2025

@tibersept @aeris @jwildeboer We’re not playing with it, we’re just lowering the heat output to avoid overheating the watercourse. We could continue to use it to max power without safety issue, but it could hurt the wildlife.

Do you know how a thermal (not only nuclear, but fossile ones too) electrical plant works?

Show threadaerisJun 30, 2025
@[email protected] @tibersept @jwildeboer And there is this trouble only on high temperature, which is basically on summer so also the least energy consumption point. And so the moment nuclear plant are stopped for refill. So usually not a trouble, we ALREADY have to stop ~30% of the park to go from 70GW on winter to 50GW on summer.
Show threadaeris
@[email protected] @tibersept @jwildeboer Fun fact too : it's less CO2 intensive to go on gaz backup (300g/kWh) for the 2% lower nuclear power (6g/kWh) for 50GW so 11g/kWh than producing 50GW from wind turbin (14g/kWh)
Jun 30, 2025 at 1:30pmWeb
Show threadBreizhJun 30, 2025
@aeris @jwildeboer @tibersept (especially since wind turbins needs a lot more of backup in practice…)
Show threadaerisJun 30, 2025
@[email protected] @tibersept @jwildeboer And so, once again, the ONLY trouble with 1-2% lower nuclear power plant is where to produce those missing part. And this is NOT a trouble if we know in advance we will need such cut. This is called : planning.
You can produce that with another underpowered not overheating nuclear plant, with one planned for refill, or with any other production mean (gaz, wind, solar…)