Environmental Impact of HTGR Power Stations

Book excerpt: From ANS topical meeting on gas-cooled reactors: HTGR and GCFBR; Gatlinburg, Tennessee, USA (8 May 1974). The high-temperature gas-cooled reactor power station has all of the potential environmental impacts associated with any large nuclear station. Construction impacts can be minimized by proper planning and are usually of limited duration. The potentially most significant impacts of station operation result from the operation of the heat dissipation system. The use of cooling towers is assumed. The effects of salt deposition, fogging, and icing are expected to be minor. The magnitude of the adverse effects caused by intake and discharge such as entrainment of eggs, larvae, and fish and chemical impacts from blowdown can only be assessed for a specific site but may be signlficant. The impact of radionuclide releases, constrained by the as-low-as- is-practicable criteria, is small. The only potential environmental advantage over other reactor types is lower consumptive water use for the same net electric power production. (auth).