Diablo Canyon and PG&E deal with water-cooling mandate
From the San Luis Obispo:
It’s hard to miss Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant when passing it by air or sea. One immediately sees the hulking containment domes that house and protect the plant’s two nuclear reactors rising above the squat, brown generator building.
Attention is soon drawn to another sight — a massive plume of whitewater cascading from the plant’s cooling water system. When operating at full power, Diablo Canyon uses 2.5 billion gallons of seawater a day to condense steam after it has passed through the two electrical generators.
On May 4, the state Water Resources Control Board adopted a new policy that declared these once-through cooling systems used at Diablo Canyon and 18 other coastal power plants in California to be antiquated. The board gave the utilities that own those plants deadlines for installing less environmentally damaging cooling systems.
Once-through cooling damages the environment because it kills adult and larval fish. The flood of warmer discharge water also alters the marine ecosystem around the plant.
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