What's in a nuke plant site?

[TithonusSyndrome]

What goes into selecting a location for a nuclear power plant? I already know about what regulatory requirements are in place that a license applicant must meet before they can start building, but I want to know what would be the kind of site they would ogle in the first place? It has to be near a water source and a labor source, but beyond that, I'm not clear on what is required in order for a company to want to build there.

For instance, if I, a Canadian, wanted to see more nuke plants, where would be good spots to suggest?

[Dark Flame]

I would guess an earthquake-free area would be a good spot. Open land with lots of space. Being a little ways away from population centers might help to put people's fears of radiation out of their minds.

[TithonusSyndrome]

I would guess an earthquake-free area would be a good spot.

Yep, that's covered under Canadian regulation anyways.

Open land with lots of space. Being a little ways away from population centers might help to put people's fears of radiation out of their minds.

There's a nuke plant I pass on the subway to get into Toronto, and it's not exactly far away from people.

[Dark Flame]

Well, then.

The only nuke plant I've ever seen was out near the Ohio River, well away from substantial civilization.

[FSTargetDrone]

I live near a nuclear power plant, Limerick Generating Station in Pennsylvania, USA. It's several miles away from me and if I stand in the right spot in the apartment parking lot here I can see the cooling towers. There are no large collections of homes or businesses especially close to it, but there are individual homes that are quite close. There are many homes and businesses well within the 10 mile warning radius, however. I could drive there in about 15 minutes (it's not that far from here, but it requires an indirect route), right to the front gate.

Incidentally, every year a packet is sent out with information about where to go if an evacuation is necessary. There are numerous warning sirens scattered all around the area and every first Monday of the month at 14:00, they are tested for several minutes. If you are near one, you can see it rotating.

Anyway, when the conditions are right, the water vapor coming from the towers can have some interesting appearances:







The orange glow there is just from the lights at the plant. It's not burning or anything. In the 3rd picture you can see the moon through the vapor. In the night pictures, those are darkened houses in the foreground, at the bottom of the picture.

Sometimes, the plumes stretch across the sky for miles and it sort of resembles a ship, far out to sea. I've even seen the tower vapors from certain spots at the edge of Philadelphia, which is about 30 miles away by car. The towers are about 500 feet high and are the biggest things around here, dominating the skyline for miles. Every once in awhile one of the towers is shut down and you can get a clear look at its top, but often they are obscured by the vapor pouring out of them.

I took the pictures above from my place here. I don't have anything bigger at hand (those are small versions that I occasionally use as an avatar here), but you get the picture, so to speak.

There's an abandoned village nearby the power plant called Frick's Lock.

[Sea Skimmer]

The only thing you truly need is a source of cooling water, and ground solid enough to support the weight of the reactor building and cooling towers (not a trivial issue), or else a much bigger plot of land for channel based cooling. Being away from population centers is nice, but only necessary within limits; one would hope that no significant town was within 1-2 miles, but beyond that? In the US and France, Russia, Japan and probably others we have examples of cities within 10 miles of reactors.

Being located away from fault zones is nice, but basically impossible. Virtually the entire world surface is riddled with fault lines even if they aren’t particularly active. Just look at the New Madrid quake. Stay away from the active ones as much as possible, but in the end you’ve just got to build the plant to incredibly high standards to withstand them.

Building in highly remote areas is undesirable, this increases construction and operating costs, and have greater transmission losses, though to an extent that can be balanced by adapting extremely high voltage (like 1 million volts instead of say 350,000v) power lines

[Count Chocula]

Ditto what Skimmer said. Access to water is critical. If you look at US plants like Three Mile Island, Crystal River (Florida), Savannah (GA), and San Onofre (CA), you'll find they all have one thing in common: water. They are also located in lightly populated areas, and at least 20 miles away from large cities.

Aside from that, you need enough real estate to put up dozens of miles of VERY high voltage transmission lines. IIRC, San Onofre's output is at 750kV per wire, over 8 wires if I remember the last time I drove under the towers. As far as terrain goes, that's not a big consideration: the cost of preparing land (as long as you're not shaving a mountain) is minimal compared to the construction costs.

[Sea Skimmer]

3 Mile Island is only 11 miles from Harrisburg actually, but you are right in that 20 miles or more much more typical.

Interestingly I just found out that the Palo Verde nuclear power plant in Arizona uses treated sewage water for cooling. A couple of very large onsite reservoirs ensure that it can continue operating for a while even if the water supply is interrupted. All of the water it uses is ultimately evaporated, either from the wet cooling towers or from special evaporation basins after cycling through the heat exchangers a couple times. Constantly reusing the water would lead to a build up of too many impurities, since the treatment process isn’t perfect.

More plants of this type may become necessary In the future as even relatively wet areas of the country overtax fresh water supplies. You can of course always use seawater, but that creates all sorts of corrosion problems which are just annoying, and of course, you want to build a power plant as close to the source of power use as possible.

[FSTargetDrone]

Ditto what Skimmer said. Access to water is critical. If you look at US plants like Three Mile Island, Crystal River (Florida), Savannah (GA), and San Onofre (CA), you'll find they all have one thing in common: water. They are also located in lightly populated areas, and at least 20 miles away from large cities.

Yep, the vapor in my pictures is coming from the Schuylkill River. There is a new, large outlet mall very close to the the plant where I live. A highway also runs parallel to the river and at its closest point where the river and highway bend around the plant, cars are driving just about 1 mile away from the middle of the plant itself. The outlet mall itself where thousands of people visit every day is also just about a mile away.

If one were to use Google Earth and search for various nuclear power plants, you can get a much better idea of how close they can be to towns and cities using the ruler tool. I just now checked and I live about 3.75 miles away from Exelon's Limerick site. The town I live in has a population of about 4300 people.

[Sky Captain]

I`d guess the reactor being close to large city might be a good thing especially in cold climate because of possibility to heat buildings with waste heat instead of dumping it into nearby lake or river. Many people certainly will scream reactor close to city is a disaster in the making yet these same people will live happily nearby chemical plants storing large amounts of toxic chemicals or downstream large hydro power stations where chances of fatal accidents are far higher.
Only way I can imagine something similar to Chernobyl happening in modern reactor is if the reactor is struck by meteorite - an extremely unlikely event.

[TithonusSyndrome]

Okay, part 3: If you were tasked with finding locations for three plant sites in your state/province, where would you suggest?

[Dave]

Uh, ok...
That's actually pretty easy in Missouri, since we have three major cities: St. Louis, Kansas City and Springfield.

For St Louis, I'd choose a location south of the city along the Mississippi river. Looking at google maps, between the city of Festus and the river looks good.

For KC, perhaps near the Smithville reservoir, north of the city.

Finally, for Springfield, I'd place it by Stockton Lake, northwest of the city.

[Guardsman Bass]

More plants of this type may become necessary In the future as even relatively wet areas of the country overtax fresh water supplies. You can of course always use seawater, but that creates all sorts of corrosion problems which are just annoying, and of course, you want to build a power plant as close to the source of power use as possible.

Thanks - that's a question I've had for a while (whether or not it is feasible to use seawater as coolant). Perhaps you could couple your coastal nuke plants with desalination plants?

[Sea Skimmer]

Thanks - that's a question I've had for a while (whether or not it is feasible to use seawater as coolant). Perhaps you could couple your coastal nuke plants with desalination plants?

That you can. The Soviets already did it, building a small plant which also tested a new breeder reactor at the same time on the Caspian Sea. However so far that’s the only nuclear desalination plant in the world. Most nations with water shortages so far have either been to poor to do anything, or else are wealthy Arab states that simply burned oil. This is going to change big time in the future. However politics in so many places are so stacked against nuclear power that they’ll waste huge amounts of money trying (and most often failing) to meet future power and water needs with solar first.

[aerius]

I would guess an earthquake-free area would be a good spot.

Yep, that's covered under Canadian regulation anyways.

There's a fault line not too far from the Darlington nuke station, though if I remember my university geology class correctly, it can only produce a 5.5 or so quake at most, so the nuke station is in no danger.

Okay, part 3: If you were tasked with finding locations for three plant sites in your state/province, where would you suggest?

The Lakeview coal station site, the coal plant has been shut down and partially demolished, clear it out and build a nuke plant there. I'd probably plunk another one on Lake Simcoe near Barrie, and I'm at a loss for the 3rd location.

[Solauren]

Just find existing coal locations that are shutting down or in low use, and you'll find lots of potientel nuclear sites.

Especially if you sell them as 'more jobs'

[Coalition]

Thanks - that's a question I've had for a while (whether or not it is feasible to use seawater as coolant). Perhaps you could couple your coastal nuke plants with desalination plants?

I'd add the ability to pump water uphill as well. Combine a shoreline nuclear plant with hydroelectric power and desalination equipment. It is using its waste heat 24/7 to desalinate water. During the night (when demand is lower) the nuke plant then pumps the water uphill to a nearby hydroelectric dam, which serves as pumped storage. During the day when loads are higher, the nuke plant provides the base load, while the hydroelectric dam provides peak power.

The nuke plant basically runs at a steady load (either providing power to people or pumping water uphill), while the hydroelectric handles surges.

The next step would be combining the nuclear pumping with a grey water pipe system. If part of the country has a flood, they pump the grey water into the pipe system. If another area has a drought, they receive water from the pipe system. Personally, that is what I would have rather done with my 'stimulus' check. The pipe network would provide a few jobs, and it would help with cross country problems.