Posted on 05/05/2010 5:26:46 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
Tough new rules imposed by the State Water Board Tuesday would force 19 coastal power plants to begin phasing out their reliance on ocean-water cooling systems — raising the specter of giant towers erected along I-5 to cool the San Onofre nuclear plant.
San Onofre and the other plants, including the AES plant in Huntington Beach, were given deadlines to make technological updates to their cooling system by the Water Board, which voted to approve the new rules late Tuesday. The deadlines are years away — for San Onofre, it’s 2022.
The new rules could force many plants to switch to using cooling towers erected on land.
Southern California Edison officials, who own and operate the San Onofre plant, say that in their case, massive cooling towers would have to be built on the other side of I-5; the rendering above shows fog from the towers rolling across the freeway at night.
...
The board agreed to a three-year study of the two nuclear plants involved — San Onofre and Diablo Canyon — to determine whether they should be subject to different requirements.
The coastal plants rely on ocean water to cool turbines — in the case of San Onofre, to condense steam — pulling in billions of gallons of seawater each day. Along with the water comes billions of marine eggs and larvae and millions of fish; marine mammals, such as sea lions, also are sometimes trapped and killed.
The Water Board is trying to bring California’s coastal power plants in line with the Clean Water Act, which requires the best available technology to protect aquatic life.
Power plant operators have said the new rules will greatly increase their costs.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedude.freedomblogging.com ...
but, but all the glaciers are melting, now we will have TOO MUCH water.
:)
Aynn Rand, can you see this?
We've been there already for a long, long time. And Congress has nothing on the state legislatures.
Somewhere, a greenweenie is going “Drat, they figured out my fiendish plan!”
There’s some comfort in thinking about who will be among the first to freeze and starve in the dark.
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