Skip to main content

Turkey Point Nuclear Plant Home to One-Fifth of the Nation's Crocodiles

By
Florida Power & Light (operator of Turkey Point) has the best idea when it comes to nuclear plant security: host hundreds of crocodiles. ;-) National Wildlife Federation took notice of the crocs in their October/November issue:
In the 1970s, engineers designed a 6,800-acre system of canals to cool the power plant. In doing so, they also inadvertently created a crocodile Eden, closed off from the rest of the world and well-stocked with everything the animals need. So for the few people who work along the canals, and the even fewer who are able to visit the heavily guarded facility, the rare and reclusive animals are about as accessible as pigeons in a park—if a bit more dangerous. The shelter provided by the power plant and other protected habitat is a big part of why the large reptiles, after 30 years on the federal Endangered Species List, were reclassified in 2007 as “threatened.”

...

In 1978, when a backhoe accidentally uncovered a nest at Turkey Point, FPL realized it would have to take action to preserve the protected animals that were seeking refuge in the power plant’s canals. Soon after, the utility began a monitoring program that has documented the extraordinary breeding success at Turkey Point: In 1985, researchers counted 19 crocodiles older than a year. Ten years later, there were 40. By 2005, the number had soared to 400, says Wasilewski, who took over the monitoring program in 1989. And the growing population is not limited to the power plant. In other well-protected areas, such as Everglades National Park, the crocodile is also flourishing. In the mid-1970s, FWS created a recovery plan for the croc. “Part of the plan said that if there were 60 or more viable nests (throughout the state) in a year, we could consider the species recovered,” says Wasilewski. “We hit 60 nests three years ago.”
Right on. For some reason, though, I don't think terrorists would be afraid of the crocs in the picture above. Oh well.

Here's some of our previous posts on Turkey Point's crocodiles.
Labels:

Comments

Marcel F. Williams said…
It has long been argued that waste heat could have many positive commercial uses beyond just heating and cooling. Waste heat could also be used for sea water desalinization, greenhouse and hydroponic farming and the raising of fish and shellfish in aquaculture farms.

Marcel F. Williams
http://newpapyrusmagazine.blogspot.com/
December 16, 2008 at 3:22 AM
Anonymous said…
People who were there during the first few cycles told me that the cooling canals also supported a huge population of really big shrimp - employees were scooping bucket loads off the traveling screens and bringing them home. Some made it to the local market, and FPL had to begin treating the coolant to kill the shrimp after the local fishmongers complained !
December 30, 2008 at 4:19 PM
Anonymous said…
Hmm.... Turkey Point. Wonder what happened to the turkeys. Croc food perhaps?
March 22, 2012 at 2:48 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Activists' Claims Distort Facts about Advanced Reactor Design

By
Below is from our rapid response team . Yesterday, regional anti-nuclear organizations asked federal nuclear energy regulators to launch an investigation into what it claims are “newly identified flaws” in Westinghouse’s advanced reactor design, the AP1000. During a teleconference releasing a report on the subject, participants urged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to suspend license reviews of proposed AP1000 reactors. In its news release, even the groups making these allegations provide conflicting information on its findings. In one instance, the groups cite “dozens of corrosion holes” at reactor vessels and in another says that eight holes have been documented. In all cases, there is another containment mechanism that would provide a barrier to radiation release. Below, we examine why these claims are unwarranted and why the AP1000 design certification process should continue as designated by the NRC. Myth: In the AP1000 reactor design, the gap between the shield bu...
23 comments
Read more

How many nuclear plants does it take to meet the world's energy needs?

By
Several weeks ago Joshua Pearce at Clarion University in Pennsylvania released a study titled “ Thermodynamic limitations to nuclear energy deployment as a greenhouse gas mitigation technology .” In the study he stated... nuclear energy production would have to increase by 10.5% per year from 2010 to 2050 to both replace fossil-fuel-energy use and meet the future energy demands. This line, of course, made the headlines and has been picked up by several outlets and blogs . When looking into his calculations for this statement, he made one assumption error that overstated the above sentence by nearly a factor of three. Page 121, Section 4.1 of the study states: Richard Smalley pointed out that in 2004, the global economy consumed the equivalent of 220 million barrels of oil per day, which converted into electricity terms is the equivalent of 14.5 TeraWatts (TW), or 14,500,000 MegaWatts (MW) (2005). … With a nuclear plant having about 1000 MW (1 GW) of capacity, we would need 14,500...
7 comments
Read more

What Happens During a Refueling Outage?

By
You may have noticed over the past few weeks that a number of nuclear plants are shut down for refueling outages or are resuming operations after just returning from one. This type of routine outage usually occurs in the spring or fall when electricity demand is low so that nuclear reactors can replace about one-third of the spent fuel rods with new fuel and conduct other routine maintenance and repairs at the plant. To get a better sense of how refueling works at a nuclear energy facility, I spoke with Marcus Nichol, NEI’s senior project manager for used fuel storage and transportation, and asked him to explain the basics. Why does a nuclear plant need to replace one-third of its fuel? Nichol: The main purpose of a refueling outage is to replace older fuel that is depleted—meaning it can no longer efficiently produce energy from nuclear fission reactions—with new fuel. This “used fuel” has typically been used in the reactor for four-and-a-half to six years before it is pe...
6 comments
Read more