re: The point?
Is that if you explain even one incorrect assumption of mine so that I understand it, then I will have learned something and perhaps you will have learned how to communicate your understanding to others.
I’ll limit my assumptions to the two main points that you bring up in your last post, hopefully that will lower the confusion to a minimum.
You said:
The heat of the nuclear power industry is lost in the noise when compared to the immense natural inflow and outflow of Earth's thermal energy.
I agree that if the heat sink is very large compared to the thermal energy going into the said heat sink, then the heat sinks temperature will not raise very much for a very long time.
Now then, let’s consider the Earth as the heat sink and the sun as the source of the heat.
In order for the heat sink (Earth) to remain at a (relatively) constant temperature the heat energy must be expelled somehow, the only area where the excess energy can flow to is the surrounding space.
There are two different ways that this energy flows into the outer space, one is that the energy simply radiates out and disappears into the void.
The other is that the hot molecules or atoms in the upper atmosphere can attain escape velocity and in the process of escaping from the influence of the Earth’s gravitational field can take the extra energy with them.
The Earth has maintained this energy balance for a very long time, but at the same time the radioactive energy content of the atmosphere has been minimal for a very long time also.
If there is an error in these assumptions, then please correct them so I can re-evaluate my thinking.
You said:
You confuse the energy of nuclear particles with heat..
Nuclear particles contain kinetic energy, when the kinetic energy is transferred to molecules then the molecular motion is considered as heat. The greater the motion of molecules are, the greater the heat content of those molecules are.
You assume cooling water vapor is "superheated," when in point of fact it's barely above bathwater temperature. I could go on and on.
I did not say that the vapour was superheated, I only indicated that superheated vapour behaves differently from that of ordinary (low heat) vapour.
But I do have some questions on that subject.
How much energy does it take to evaporate water at the rate of 25,000 gpm?
How much energy does it take to raise 500,000 gallons of water by 36F every minute?
The following are assumptions.
Information comes from:
http://www.tai.org.au/documents/downloads/WP96.pdf
Hunwick Consultants Pty. Ltd. 2006 indicated that 1000 MW reactor would consume 15GL of water per year for cooling.
If all 440 commercial reactors were 1000 MW then they need 440,000 GL of water per year for cooling.
From here:
http://www.nucleartourist.com/us/scriba.htm
The Fitzpatrick unit is rated at 2436 MWt and 816 MWe net output. The unit's condenser is cooled by Lake Ontario water, similar to Nine Mile Point 1.
Maximum lake surface temperature increase 3F
Now suppose that it is correct that one 2436 MWt reactor will raise the temperature of the lake Ontario’s surface by 3 degrees.
The question then is: How will such a temperature increase affect the evaporation rate of the water?
The second question is: How will this heat energy disappear from the environment?