Not Enough Water

Sep 21 - Press, The; Christchurch, New Zealand

A regional council debate on nuclear power would be pointless.

Setting aside many other compelling reasons to reject nuclear power, a major problem is that a nuclear power plant requires a large and continuous supply of cooling water (a sizeable proportion of the average flow of the Waimakariri River). Diverting already over-committed freshwater resources in Canterbury to cool a nuclear power plant would be absurd.

An additional serious problem is thermal pollution from the water expelled from a nuclear power plant cooling system. Even if the cooling water were seawater discharged back into the sea, the large volumes of heated water would almost certainly damage coastal ecosystems.

ROBERT L. LEONARD Huntsbury