Texas Needs Equivalent of 30 Reactors to Meet Data Center Power Demand

One of the windiest, sunniest, emptiest places on earth and they want to waste water building reactors instead of renewables.

Hell, the geology means you can store energy in the ground using pressurized air.

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wizardbeard 10 points a year ago

What? I've grown up around people in the nuclear industry, and nothing I've ever learned about the function "wastes" water.

Some rambling on how I understand water to be used by reactors

You've got some amount of water in the "dirty loop" exposed to the fissile material, and in the spent fuel storage tanks. Contaminated water is stuck for that use, but that isn't "spending" the water. The water stays contained in those systems. They don't magically delete water volume and need to be refilled.

Outside of that you have your clean loop, which is bog standard "use heat to make steam, steam move turbine, moving turbine make electiricity, steam cools back to water". Again, there's no part of that which somehow makes the water not exist, or not be usable for other purposes.

Not saying you're wrong. Renewables are absolutely preferable, and Texas is prime real estate to maximize their effectiveness. I'm just hung up on the "waste water building reactors" part.

Guessing it was some sort of research about the building process maybe, that I've just missed?

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Semi_Hemi_Demigod -4 points a year ago

Building them doesn’t waste water, running them does. In a place with a lot of water they make sense but any industrial water usage in a place with limited water supplies - when there are lower usage alternatives - seems wasteful

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Saik0Shinigami 5 points a year ago

They literally outlined the whole process... What stage in

Outside of that you have your clean loop, which is bog standard “use heat to make steam, steam move turbine, moving turbine make electiricity, steam cools back to water”. Again, there’s no part of that which somehow makes the water not exist, or not be usable for other purposes.

Wastes water?

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Semi_Hemi_Demigod -1 points a year ago

If you send the water through a bunch of pipes it needs treated before it can be put back into the environment. This is true of any industrial process. This takes it out of circulation for a while, and in an arid state like Texas that’s a waste.

And reactors need a lot of water, which is why they’re built next to the ocean or a lake or something.

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flavonol 2 points a year ago

Why put water back in the environment at all if it's needed to make steam again?

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Semi_Hemi_Demigod 1 point a year ago

Because they use water for more than making steam. Much more water is used to cool the steam condensers and is often just dumped into the surrounding environment to cool off. Turkey Point in Florida has miles of canals that cool this water down.

If you don't believe me, then listen to the IAEA who created a water management program for just this reason:

Countries in water scarce regions, and considering the introduction of nuclear power, may show concern on the requirement for securing water resources to operate nuclear power plants and search for strategies for efficient water management. Experience has shown that nuclear power plants are susceptible to prolonged drought conditions, forcing them to shut down reactors or reduce the output to a minimal level.

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flavonol 1 point a year ago

Thanks for the information.

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