Manatees huddle near power plant during Fla. chill

Do you even know how power plants work and use water to cool down reactors?

I'm assuming not, because the water doesn't interact with anything radioactive, it's simply flushed around the reactor transferring the heat mainly through convection. It simply warms the water. In Seabrook NH, we have one of the very few nuclear power plants that does not use cooling stacks, those big things that billow out (you guessed it!) steam, not smoke or chemicals. Water is brought in from the ocean through large tunnels which flush around the outside of the reactor, carrying off the heat. The subsequent temperature has increased wildlife numbers in the area, and made food more available for a wide variety of species.

This story is just another perk, not a disaster.

AND they would NOT have died from cancer had they not worked at the power plant. Keep that in mind Buddha!!! LOL

I don't work for the PR firm of a nuclear power plant, but I did operate nuclear reactors for the Navy for six years so I'd figured I'd chime in.

1) Big Ben Power Plant is a coal not a nuclear facility.

2) Water does not become radioactive. In a similar fashion that water doesn't actually conduct electricity. Its the impurities in the water that become radioactive that become the issue. If water itself became radioactive, it could not be utilized to moderate the reactor or used in shielding. If that was the case, spent fuel could never be placed in pools of water for storage. Typically utilized on the internal mating surfaces of valves and the bearings of pumps in a nuclear plant is cobalt. The reason for this is that cobalt is extremely slippery so it prevents binding of critical wearing surfaces. The problem with cobalt is that when particles of it wear off and circulates through the core, Co-59 becomes Co-60. Co-60 has a relatively short half-life of 5.27 years. That short life means it gives off a lot of energy in the form of betas (meaning lots of bad ionizing radiation). Nuclear reactors usually have a filtering system (typically an ion exchanger) to remove this particles which can be a serious issue if allowed to build up. When entering a shutdown reactor, this filter will be the hottest (meaning the most radioactive) in the core area. I am being very limited in this discussion as there are numerous other sources of radiation such as xenon, argon, etc.) and other forms of radiation to consider (gammas, alphas, fast and slow neutrons), but from my experience, Co-60 was the isotope that caused the greatest concern.

3) The water that is utilize to spin the turbines and ultimately cool the core (the stuff you see exiting from the cooling tower in the form of steam or being discharged into a body of water) does not ever come into contact with the core. Nuclear power plants in the US are designed with a primary loop (the water entering the core) and a secondary core (entering a heat exchanger and the steam being utilized in a turbine). Furthermore, if that was core water being ejected into a body of water, you wouldn't see any animal near it for long. Primary water is keep at a basic pH to prevent the creation of corrosion products (which again, would circulate into the core and become activated) and aquatic life do not like pH changes at all.

4) In my six years of working in radiation zones, my life time exposure was never close to what the average American got exposed to in the same time. Basically I was in a situation that I was outside of sunlight for so much time that my full exposure to ionizing radiation actually lessened by my work. Now of course this is not the case for the typical power plant employee in a civilian situation. To better explain this, when changing commands, it was required to get a full body exposure screening (we called this "hugging the pig"). If you wanted to throw everyone into panic mode, all a person had to do was eat a bunch of bananas right before the screening and it would light you up on the scan like a Christmas Tree (natural potassium typically has radioactivity to it). Depending on your environment, diet, and life style choices, the average human will be exposed to a tremendous amount of ionizing radiation.

Now this article, while showing it in a positive light in this very limited situation, shows a very big issues for most power plants; temperature pollution. This can cause drastic changes to the ecosystem of a body of water and this isn't just a nuclear power issue. Much like light pollution, this tends to get ignored mainly because it doesn't seem to directly effect humans or our food chain. A prime example to the drastic changes involving not only temperature but also sediment composition of an aquatic environment is the effect that the Hoover damn has had on the environment down stream of it.

pukemnukem that was great information. Thanks. I learned quite a bit, although to try and compare that to the training of a Nuke is ridiculous. big up.