Plenty of Water Use at the Nuke Plant by Geniusofdespair

Here is an explanation by a very kind friend, on his assessment on water consumption at Turkey Point in response to our reader, ExFpler (see Gimleteye's Friday Post):

There are 3 loops of cooling water that are isolated from each other. The water that bathes the reactor core never leaves the containment building. This water has 2 functions: one, to slow down the neutrons so the chain reaction can be sustained and two, to remove take the heat from the reactor core and bring it to the steam generators (heat exchangers). This water from the reactor core is kept under great pressure so that it never boils.

The water in the second loop is sprayed on the outside of the pipes that contain the hot, pressurized water from the reactor core. This second loop immediately turns to steam (hence steam generator). When water turns to steam it expands rapidly and this is the energy that's used to make electricity. The steam expands and rushes through the turbine blades. The turbines are outside the containment building. The turbine blades are attached to an axle and the axle spins the electromagnet. When you spin an electromagnet inside a coil of wires, electricity is then produced in the wire coil. The steam has to be very pure water or the steam would deposit its crud on the turbine blades. And, (hit read more)

The steam (the second loop), then goes through pipes to get condensed back into water. This water then goes back inside the containment building to the steam generator to start the process all over again. The third loop is the water that condenses the steam back to water. This third loop is the 60 - 90 million gallons a day of water that FPL is looking for. The third loop has much more water than 60 - 90 million gallons, and probably half the water is lost to evaporation each day. My guess is that probably 6 billion BTUs of heat per hour has to be removed from the reactor core and sent into the atmosphere, each hour of operation.

FPL has very few cooling options. The closed cooling canal system is already at its maximum and can't be used. For ocean water to be used, there would have to be probably a 15 mile tunnel going under Biscayne Bay, the Keys, the reef tract, and to the other side of the Florida Keys Marine Sanctuary into deep water. Another bad possibility is to dig a 22 mile tunnel from the sewage plant on Virginia Key, under Biscayne Bay, to a new sewage treatment in South Dade just for Turkey Point. Pumping 60 - 90 MGD from the Upper Floridan Aquifer would probably ruin the Aquifer. One last bad possibility would be to use the Lower Floridan Aquifer (Boulder Zone). This has very poor water quality, not enough water, and it is the place where the County has been injecting its sewage for decades. This suggestion was mentioned by Lobbyist Jeffrey Bercow at the Wednesday hearing.

FPL is saying that they're considering getting cooling water from a number of sources. FPL also admitted that if there's no cooling water, there's no new plant.