Heated Water from Nuclear Plants Causing Global Warming
A total amount of nuclear power plant output has been steadily increasing globally, though now all the 50 nuclear reactors in Japan are stopped due to a result of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident of 2011.
A nuclear reactor uses only one third of heat it generates for electricity generation while the rest of two thirds of heat is discarded into a river, a sea, and the atmosphere. As there are 440 nuclear reactors for electricity generation in the world today, the total amount of heat being discharged to the atmosphere in the earth must be great enough to contribute to global warming, especially in the north hemisphere.
Northern hemisphere (red line) and Southern hemisphere, 1880-2009. Last year was the hottest ever recorded in the south.http://www.earth.columbia.edu/articles/view/2620
So, the trend of the global temperature rising is almost proportional to the trend of increase in output of electricity and waste heat from nuclear power plants.
Scientists argue however that the effect of this waste heat from nuclear power plants on a temperature rise in oceans is 5,000 times smaller than the effect of the sun. But heated water from a nuclear power plant floats and diffuses on the surface of a sea, thus affecting the air above the sea more efficiently than the heat from the sun that penetrates 100 meters deep into the sea.
There are some proofs in Japan that temperature of the sea around Japan got 2 centigrade degrees lower off Akita Prefecture and 2.9 centigrade degrees lower off Hokkaido after the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident and the subsequent halt of all the nuclear power plants in Japan. And as a result of fixed-point observation in seas around Japan, the temperature rise in the Sea of Japan is three times larger than that in the Pacific Ocean, since a higher concentration of nuclear power plants is observed on the Sea of Japan than on the Pacific.
The above figure shows that heated waste water from a Japanese nuclear power plant is adversely impacting even fish and other marine lives. A Japanese anti-nuclear scientist calls a nuclear power plant a "machine to heat the sea."
BBC predicted in 2007 that ice in the Arctic Sea would completely disappear by 2013. But the ice covered are in the Arctic Sea expanded in the winter of 2013 while all the 50 nuclear reactors in Japan were halted.
Of course, not only nuclear power plants but also thermal electric power plants using coal, gas, or oil also contribute to an increase in atmospheric temperature. It is estimated energy output from a power plant loses 5% of it while being sent through grids. This loss very directly contributes to an increase in temperature in the surrounding air. But even electricity energy being carried to its destination for final use is also a factor for global warming in a larger scope.
Different from indirect mechanism of atmospheric warming by CO2, electricity energy generated and distributed from power generation plants contributes directly to temperature rise of the earth due to the simple physical law called the energy conservation law. Whatever final use of electricity provided by power plants, it surely results in heat being discharged to the air through any equipment, machines, and systems eventually and thus an increase in temperature.
Of course, output of CO2 is ever increasing due to continued economic and industrial activities of human beings (especially including those accelerated in China). However CO2 is a gas that is not a primary source of heat.
The data of CO2 increase had better be regraded as indicating status of use of fuels for power generation in addition to use of cars and other vehicles. As the figure of "Annual electricity net generation in the world" shows, indeed use of fossil fuels has been growing along with the upward trend of the global temperature as seen in the above figures related to the temperature rise.
The key truth is that energy released or consumed in the world causes eventually an increase in atmospheric temperature in the earth regardless of existence of CO2.
To stop global warming, we have to stop use of electricity whether it is generated by use of uranium, coal, oil, wind, sunlight, hydraulic power, or any other resources.
Japan after the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident is proving it.
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Mar 6:3 Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him.