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Comment by WastingMyTime89 | Hacker News Reader

A nuclear power plan doesn’t “use” water. It takes fresh water in and reject it later a bit warmer. That’s pretty much it.

Water usage must be one of the silliest metric used in ecology by the way. Water doesn’t magically disappear when it’s “used”. What’s important is the share of the potable water available in an area used by an activity and how much other pollutants are released in the water.

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Don’t be silly, “Use“ does not imply destruction it just implies an opportunity cost. Land you use for a nuclear power plant isn’t destroyed, but you can’t put a shopping mall there until you decommission it.

Water evaporated into the atmosphere before it can be use to irrigate crops is one such cost. Nuclear therefore uses ~600 - 800 gallons per MWH not a huge amount but much larger than solar. On the other hand much larger quantities of water are discharged in such a way they an be reused down stream, that’s not what I am talking about.

> A nuclear power plan doesn’t “use” water.

Some nuclear power plants have cooling towers that evaporate large quantities of water.

So it will flow away into universe...

Water use doesn't mean destroying water. It means using some of the limited quantity of water that's available at a given time in a given place, using it for a given purpose and not some other purpose.

Water that evaporates isn't available for drinking and showers and farming.

It is - it will rain down not too far away.

So it will be available again in the future, but it's not available right now anymore.

I guess everyone here lives someplace with abundant water. When water supplies are actually limited, using water for one purpose means water isn't available for something else.

Edit:

I know nothing about European water supplies, but with a quick search I found news suggesting that is an issue even in Europe:

https://www.euronews.com/2022/08/08/nothing-left-in-the-pipe...

Where exactly in Europe are water supplies limited?

Edit for your edit: Europe definitely could do better in terms of making use of the available water - but there's no shortage of water in nature around us.

For example, the communists have damaged many rivers (made the river basins concrete etc), leading to drying of the surrounding areas. We're slowly correcting the damage. But generally speaking we have enough water. And you choose the place to build a nuclear power plant based on water availability.

Perhaps it's more of a problem in the southern states, I don't know about that. But we have an interconnected grid - we can sell electricity from one state to another (it's being done today).

Unfortunately there's water scarcity in Europe and it's only going to get worse. I'll just leave this here: https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/figures/water-stress...

If I understand that map right... We are going to be moving from medium/severe water stress to low water stress in many central/northern areas - isn't that an improvement in water availability? Why couldn't we build the nuclear power plants primarily in the light-yellow places and transfer the electricity via the grid to the places where it's worse?

I don't understand why should we reject it altogether on the whole continent just because it's bad in Spain and Italy - OK, agreed, let's not build nuclear there maybe. The rest of the EU seems like a good place.

Most especially, Germany should stop ignoring science and make the water-rich land they got available for as much nuclear as possible. The Union needs it now more than ever, and it's not like they haven't got a hand in creating the situation.

No, in the heatwave of this summer, some French nuclear plants had to be turned off because the rivers in which the cooling water had to be released had become too warm. (Further French nuclear plants had to be turned off due to technical problems.) So France had to import much energy to meet its demand. It was mainly Germany that helped out. The same problem affected – besides Belgium, Switzerland – Germany, too, though to a lesser degree (no pun intended) because Germany is less dependent on nuclear.

https://www.businesslive.co.za/bloomberg/news/2022-08-03-fra...

https://www.powermag.com/nuclear-power-production-curtailed-...

https://www.theenergymix.com/2022/08/07/failing-french-nucle...

https://www.grs.de/en/news/built-close-water-do-increasing-d...

https://www.thelocal.de/20090630/20301/ [Rhine, too, heated up by nuclear plants]

That is a question of design and not a necessity.

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