Climate Change Effects on Operations of Saint Lucie Reactor Case Study

Climate Change Effects on Operations of Saint Lucie Reactor - Case Study Example From this paper it is clear that the recent accidents at Chernobyl, Three mile islands and Japan have opened the eyes of the global public and currently many studies are going on to assess the climate change effects on operations of nuclear reactors. â€Å"The threat of global climate change has pushed governments around the world to consider alternative energy sources, including nuclear energy. As the interest in nuclear power increases, serious discussions on safety must resume before moving forward†. St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant is a nuclear power station located on St. Lucie County in Florida. It is a twin unit commissioned in 1976 and operating with pressurized water reactors. This nuclear power plant is located near the ocean and has two nuclear reactors. The current nuclear reactor accidents caused in Japan due to tsunami attack have raised many concerns about the effects of climate changes on Nuclear power plants such as St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant. This paper analy ses the possible climate change effects on St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant. From the above statistics, it is evident that St. Lucie nuclear power station consists of two pressurized water reactors each having electrical output of 839MWe. Pressurized water reactors are normally comes under the light water reactor (LWR) category. In all forms of pressurized water reactors, water is used as coolant which is pumped at a high pressure to the reactor’s core in order to convert it into heated water using the heat energy liberated by the fission reaction or chain reaction. It should be noted that the high pressure helps water prevents the water from becoming steam at this juncture.