What the Proposed §316(b)Rule Means ...

Nuclear Power International Jan/Feb 2012, page 22 ^ | January 2012 | THOMAS L. ENGLERT, PH.D., P.E. AND JOHN A.D. BURNETT

[sefarkas]

In roughly six months, owners and operators of nuclear generating facilities will have a new regulation to address. After a hiatus of more than four years, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will issue a new version of the 316(b) Phase II rule, which regulates impingement and entrainment at cooling water intakes.

The proposed rule published in the Federal Register on April 20, 2011, applies to existing power plants and industrial and manufacturing facilities that withdraw at least 2 million gallons per day (MGD) of cooling water and use at least 25 percent of that water exclusively for cooling pur-poses. Nearly all nuclear facilities will meet this criterion because even those with cooling towers likely require more than 2 MGD in make-up water. The proposed rule provides two impingement compliance options (1) the use of modified travelling screens with fish buckets and a fish handling and return system and (2) reduction of through-screen velocity to less than 0.5 feet per second.

[sefarkas]

This rule affects every large industrial plant (refinery, power plant, steel mill, etc.) using river water as a cooling medium for their processes. It is an example of regulatory over-reach. These facilities were built with traveling screens, etc. based on already stringent regulations at the time. 316(b) requires companies to continuously update to best available technology (BAT), regardless of cost. Benefits of the expense are determined by EPA formulas. A large nuclear plant will pull and discharge one million gallons per minute from a large river source. The Mississippi River going by New Orleans is flowing on average at 100 million gallons per minute.

[The Working Man]

It almost sounds like some bureaucrat at the EPA reached in and pulled a number out of his B*tt.

On a side note, I remember a study from the 1980’s that praised the heated discharge from power plants both nuclear and Conventional because it increased the wildlife both fish, Reptile and Manatee etc. that lived in the rivers by giving them a safer place to survive the winters at.

So if we go we these “new” regulations what will the EPA say about the massive winter die-off of wildlife in those areas? Blame it on a Radiation discharge? Infra-red being a type of radiation that is.

[2ndDivisionVet]

Is this similar to what the Chinese, Russian, DPRK, Indian and Japanese versions of the EPA require of their plants? [snort!]

[eyeamok]

The easiest way to fix this problem would be for these operators and owners to band together and keep very quiet, and the instant the Rule goes into effect, SHUT DOWN AND GO HOME, Leave everybody in the Dark and tell them to go see OBAMA for some of his new Green Energy. Which is exactly what Howard Hughes would do.

[LomanBill]

“continuously update to best available technology (BAT), regardless of cost.”

Uhuh. And just how much stock in the corporate-fascist-collectivist entities that produce this “BAT” will our illustrious mosquitoes in the swamp of DC own?

[LomanBill]

That wouldn’t fix anything. It would just create an artificial demand for Soviet style state energy enterprises/monopolies — with Comrade Chairman and Co. deciding whose “need” should be fed by everyone else’s “ability”.

[sefarkas]

Here is some irony for you regarding the warm discharge water, like what happens at the DTE Monroe coal-fired station. Fish and the like thrive in the warmer water returned to Lake Erie. Of course, during a trip the water temperature changes suddenly. The plants are criticized/fined for the destruction of fish that would have never been there had it not been for the power plant.