Arial photo of Port St. Lucie, Florida taken by John Pannici

Author Ed Johnson

I would like your support on a nuclear plant issue in Florida. The Port St. Lucie nuclear Plant is asking for NRC to approve adding 12%- to their generating capacity. In so doing they will increase the amount of heat being released into the Atlantic Ocean by 2 Deg. F or 1.1 Deg C. All incoming ocean water is treated with chlorine to kill all microorganisms. An astounding 1 million gal./sec of water is pumped through the plant to cool the reactor. In my calculations every 17 hours a volume equal to the size of the New Orleans Super Dome is basically sterilized and heated up and cooled back down to 113(presently) Deg F. which will be increase to 115 if approved before  it returns to the ocean. Of course they claim that  this hot water which is basically 18 deg. F warmer then the supposed 95 Deg. ocean water that surrounds this reentry point, no increase in the ocean temperature will occur outside of an approved mixing zone. Comment and info can be found at the following. FYI when you arrive at the page scroll down to comment field:  http://www.regulations.gov/#!searchResults;rpp=10;po=0;s=%252BNRC-2011-0302.%252B

In 300 + words a general picture has been created. By no means is this the complete story much needs to be added and in particular the thread between here and marine mammals, what Champions for Cetaceans is all about. In a subsequent post those elements will be elaborated upon. REMEMBER the deadline for submitted your comment using the link above is FEB 6, 2012.

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