I think that plant in Alabama the most endangered by the drought because it gets its water off of Lake Lanier.

As for TVA, that article cited the more likely scenario if there's another dry, hot summer--the plants still have water to draw, but they can't use it because of environmental/temperature restrictions.

Brian A.
I'd rather be cycling.

New nukes. What a brilliant solution for an era of increasing droughts. Oh yeah, I forgot. TVA is not a bunch of wimps who would "believe" in a hoax invented by Al Gore.

Next they'll be telling us nuclear power is affordable and even profitable.

Watts Bar is and has never been in danger of shutting down due to water conditions. Sequoyah has at times reached to upper temperature limits and was saved by slugs of cold water flushed down form the bottom of Norris Lake. The further down the river you go the higher the average water temps and nukes have an upper limit for discharge water temperature.
There's always the cooling towers but those most times are non-operational which is something that needs remedied.

There are so many problems with this story that it's hard to know where to start. Here are links to a pair of posts on our blog explaining what's really going on and the fatal flaws in the AP's account:

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Oh boy! A blog dedicated to promoting nuke power. The perennial energy of the future.

Why is that a return to nuclear power requires government to intervene and further bend an already non-flat economic playing field with more government subsidies and other incentives including indemnifying utilities against nuclear accident liability? If nuclear power is so attractive, why can't it compete on its own in the "free market," without government to hold its hand? It's not like a new technology that needs a boost to help its economies of scale.

At least those who oppose nuclear power are real citizens with genuine concerns about safety, security, costs, sustainability, etc. And they depend on real citizen groups to help voice their concerns.

The pro-nuclear voices, on the other hand, have deep pocket industry-funded PR outfits like NEI to promote their product, and it's still an uphill climb! Show me a blog dedicated to promoting nuclear power, like the one in Eric's link, and I'll show you an astroturf outfit tied to commercial profit interests.

For some counterbalance:

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Re. "perennial energy of the future"...

Global non-renewable energy resources in terawatt/hours:

• Coal: 6,000,000
• Natural Gas: 1,500,000
• Uranium 235: 1,500,000
• Oil: 1,000,000
• Tar Sands: 800,000
• Total: 10,800,000

The only "perennial" source is solar, and it won't even last forever. But probably long enough.

I was only referring to nuclear energy being called the "energy of the future" in the '50s and it could still be called that since it didn't grow as expected. On new reflection, I think that tag is more usually reserved for fusion energy. (Though, I think fusion could be ducky with a lot of breakthroughs.)

I was probably misreading "perennial" in how you meant it, and wan't meaning to single that out.

It just reminded me that a lot of nuke supporters want us to think it's "unlimited" when in fact it isn't.

If we could bring safe plants online in a reasonable timeframe at a reasonable cost that might be a good interim/transition solution. But there's still the waste problem that nobody has figured out.

And as long as it takes to get a plant licensed and built, we will be way past the point of a transition and either activiely rolling out a long term solution or nearing the end of the line, I fear.

I'm still waiting for cold fusion and my flying car... :)

If it weren't for the cost and build time, I'd be OK w/ directly swapping out some really well designed and built plants with existing coal plants. The new plants could have enough extra capacity over the coal ones they'd replace to cover growth for the life span of the plants. (At least for night time capacity when the sun ain't shinin'.)

I'm still waiting for cold fusion and my flying car... :)

Here's a flux capacitor for only $220!

Yes! And other corn subsidies. Except for cellulosic ethanol, which needs technology breakthroughs to be competitive, just like fusion does. That's what government is for. Corn and corn ethanol, OTOH, are government boondoggles.