The recent Polar Vortex and our Nuclear Power Plants
Surely, the extreme cold weather caused lots of problems with the nuke plants?
That would be a big
NO! -- from
World Nuclear News:
Nuclear power fleets in North America have run at high capacity through the recent period of extreme cold.
People in a wide area across the USA and Canada have been hit by temperatures much lower than usual during a weather phenomenon where fluctuations in the polar vortex have seen dense cold air move south from the Arctic. Demand for electricity and heating fuels has surged, prompting requests for conservation of energy by people and businesses. Throughout this, nuclear reactors in the USA and Canada have maintained a high level of performance.
Having completed readiness checks and maintenance outages before the season of high demand, 97 of the USA's 100 reactors were in operation yesterday - all but three of them generating at over 90% of rated capacity.
Good job!
Posted by DaveH at January 8, 2014 4:43 PM