alt Hacker NewsI think both nuclear steam and car engines are affected by high ambient temp, gas and coal engines too.
That is after all why they bring in water or air to car radiators, to cool them.
Probably only a single percent or so for a few degrees change though.
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voakbasda • yesterday at 2:22 PM
Begs the question: coul reactors use radiative air cooling? Channel the water through a huge radiator and transfer the heat to the air
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Convection cooling efficiency is mostly dictated by the delta in temperature between the hot and cold source. Coolant temperature in the core is in the 300C ballpark. So the river going from 20 to 30C is roughly a 0.3% change in cooling efficiency.
For your car, coolant temperature is typically in the 80-90C range. So the same change in external temperature would be a loss of ~10% of cooling efficiency. Still, cars have no issue running in 30C temps, and IME you have to go up to 45 to really need specialized cars.
So if you car can swallow 40C and >10% efficiency loss without a sweat, a NPP will have 0 issue using 30C water to cool their cores.