Some physics: raising 1kg of water by 1k takes 4184 J. Evaporating 1kg of water takes 2260 kJ. Notice the k in kJ. That's 500x better.
Regulation has changed, and you can no longer cool down a react by heating river water. You can't raise it more than 4 degrees anymore. And that's taking down about 1% of the reactor's operating time, at a time of the year there's no hard need for energy anyway.
Now, you just change the cooling system. That's a fairly simple, non-risky modification, though a bit costly. And you get more than 100x bang for the buck. For like a drop in the river's capacity that would have evaporated anyway elsewhere (and goes up in the atmosphere to rain down at a much needed time in the summer). But it's gonna be an eyesore, which might have been why they didn't build them like that originally.
Some physics: raising 1kg of water by 1k takes 4184 J. Evaporating 1kg of water takes 2260 kJ. Notice the k in kJ. That's 500x better.
Regulation has changed, and you can no longer cool down a react by heating river water. You can't raise it more than 4 degrees anymore. And that's taking down about 1% of the reactor's operating time, at a time of the year there's no hard need for energy anyway.
Now, you just change the cooling system. That's a fairly simple, non-risky modification, though a bit costly. And you get more than 100x bang for the buck. For like a drop in the river's capacity that would have evaporated anyway elsewhere (and goes up in the atmosphere to rain down at a much needed time in the summer). But it's gonna be an eyesore, which might have been why they didn't build them like that originally.