Skip to main content

Catfish, Swans – and Monticello Nuclear Plant

Uh-oh. Here’s a benefit of nuclear energy that falls under the heading of unintended consequences:

The shutdown of Xcel Energy’s Monticello Nuclear Power Plant on Friday is hurting fish and wildlife along the Mississippi River.

The flow of warm water from the plant stopped after the unplanned shutdown, and by Saturday the water temperature downstream had dropped from 75 degrees to just 35 degrees, said Joe Stewig, Department of Natural Resources area fisheries manager.

Wait, what? The plant output raised the temperature of the water 40 degrees? That in itself would be deadly to all kinds of flora and fauna – it would seem – but …

I asked NEI’s William Skaff, director of policy management, about this – NEI did some work on water policy awhile ago but did not address this particular aspect. Bill said that it’s unlikely the plant’s water discharge could cause a 40 degree difference, but that Monticello may well be permitted to discharge warmer water – if not that much warmer - because it can be beneficial to animal and plant life in the rivers. He gave the example of manatees in Florida, which thrive in the warmer water emitted from energy facilities.

Indeed, as the Minneapolis Star Tribune story notes about Monticello, a plant may well be charged fines by the state for going offline and thus altering the temperature of the water. Bill said this can occur even during planned outages. I assume this is true of all thermal energy plants, including coal and natural gas, so the issue doesn’t “belong” to nuclear facilities specifically. It is not a particular benefit of nuclear energy, as I implied at the start, nor is it strictly true that it is an unintended consequence. It appears the state wants to keep plants up and running to keep the warmer water flowing even when they can be spelled by other facilities, hence the fine. And this episode is not a fishy apocalypse – the story reports 30 dead fish found along the shore – leading to the conclusion that the state has traded the occasional plant outage for a healthier aquatic ecosystem generally. That is a benefit.

---

The story, while focusing on catfish, also addresses the colder water’s impact on swans:

Meanwhile, about 2,000 trumpeter swans usually winter in the open water near Monticello, but without the influx of warm water from the plant that open area has shrunk and become slushy, and some swans could leave, said Lori Naumann of the DNR’s nongame wildlife program.

Jim Lawrence, who lives on the river and feeds the swans, said he’s not concerned. There are other open-water spots in the region where the swans will go.

“I think they’ll be fine,’’ Lawrence said. “We will have fewer birds, possibly. But they’ll come on back.’’

So, no apparent swan fatalities, but I guess the combination of Monticello’s outage and the recent blast of winter weather proved less than fortuitous for them as well as the catfish. I suspect the cold weather might prove to have been determinative in these outcomes – the area around Monticello was 15 degrees below zero this morning. Still, we’ll be happy to see the plant return to service.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

An Ohio School Board Is Working to Save Nuclear Plants

Ohio faces a decision soon about its two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse and Perry, and on Wednesday, neighbors of one of those plants issued a cry for help. The reactors’ problem is that the price of electricity they sell on the high-voltage grid is depressed, mostly because of a surplus of natural gas. And the reactors do not get any revenue for the other benefits they provide. Some of those benefits are regional – emissions-free electricity, reliability with months of fuel on-site, and diversity in case of problems or price spikes with gas or coal, state and federal payroll taxes, and national economic stimulus as the plants buy fuel, supplies and services. Some of the benefits are highly localized, including employment and property taxes. One locality is already feeling the pinch: Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, home to Davis-Besse. The town has a middle school in a building that is 106 years old, and an elementary school from the 1950s, and on May 2 was scheduled to have a referendu

Why Ex-Im Bank Board Nominations Will Turn the Page on a Dysfunctional Chapter in Washington

In our present era of political discord, could Washington agree to support an agency that creates thousands of American jobs by enabling U.S. companies of all sizes to compete in foreign markets? What if that agency generated nearly billions of dollars more in revenue than the cost of its operations and returned that money – $7 billion over the past two decades – to U.S. taxpayers? In fact, that agency, the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank), was reauthorized by a large majority of Congress in 2015. To be sure, the matter was not without controversy. A bipartisan House coalition resorted to a rarely-used parliamentary maneuver in order to force a vote. But when Congress voted, Ex-Im Bank won a supermajority in the House and a large majority in the Senate. For almost two years, however, Ex-Im Bank has been unable to function fully because a single Senate committee chairman prevented the confirmation of nominees to its Board of Directors. Without a quorum

NEI Praises Connecticut Action in Support of Nuclear Energy

Earlier this week, Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signed SB-1501 into law, legislation that puts nuclear energy on an equal footing with other non-emitting sources of energy in the state’s electricity marketplace. “Gov. Malloy and the state legislature deserve praise for their decision to support Dominion’s Millstone Power Station and the 1,500 Connecticut residents who work there," said NEI President and CEO Maria Korsnick. "By opening the door to Millstone having equal access to auctions open to other non-emitting sources of electricity, the state will help preserve $1.5 billion in economic activity, grid resiliency and reliability, and clean air that all residents of the state can enjoy," Korsnick said. Millstone Power Station Korsnick continued, "Connecticut is the third state to re-balance its electricity marketplace, joining New York and Illinois, which took their own legislative paths to preserving nuclear power plants in 2016. Now attention should