The Drought and The Nuke Plants, Continued

I began the first part of this post with a quote from Giuliani's campaign website, so, for equal time, here is one from Romney's energy policy page: Promote Nuclear Technology. Accelerate construction of new nuclear power plants in order to ensure that nuclear power continues to be a part of a robust, cleaner, and reliable energy mix.

Yes indeedy fellows, that good old clean, affordable, reliable nuclear energy, let's just have a lot more of it. To give you a visual on what is going on in the Southeast right now, and into the foreseeable future, take a look at these two maps. I wish I had the technical skill to superimpose them one atop the other, but I think you'll get the picture. First, from the NRC iself, a map of operating nuclear power reactors in the USA.
Then, from The US Drought Monitor, this image:
A glance at the two maps will show the large number of nuclear plants in the areas of exceptional, extreme, and severe drought. The Climate Predicton Center tells me that for the coming year most of the nation "is likely to experience above-average temperatures," as well as the unhappy news that below-average precipitation amounts are expected in the Southwest, the southern and central plains, along the Gulf coast...throughout much of the southeastern U.S. including Florida, the Mid-Atlantic coast states and coastal sections from the Delmarva Peninsula to far eastern sections of New England. Sounds like a whole damn lot of the country to me, how about you? If these predictions are anywhere near accurate (always a crap shoot, I know), a long hot dry summer could put energy companies up and down the whole East coast, in the Mid-West and the always too-hot and dry Southwest into the same position Duke Energy Corp, the TVA, Progress Energy Inc, and others in the SE are in currently. I think "affordable, robust and reliable" may be adjectives that no one may be inclined to attach to "nuclear power" in the very foreseeable future.

As Jim Warren, executive director of N.C. Waste Awareness and Reduction Network, an environmental group critical of nuclear power. says in the original AP article: ""Water is the nuclear industry's Achilles' heel. You need a lot of water to operate nuclear plants...This is becoming a crisis."

Technorati Tags: climate crisis, climate predictions, southeastern drought, nuclear power plants,

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