(see also the update on 2 and 3.1.24 at the bottom of the page)
In this post, you see my monitoring of the Moselle Water temperature in Palzem based on the German measuring service.
The temperature in December 2023 has shown a very unusual increase, that at first I could not explain: the water temperature in the last two days of the year spiked from the 8-9°C average in the previous days to a record high 13,5° – while the air temperature in the Moselle region has been generally below 10°C and the sky mostly cloudy.
The possible explaination that come to my mind is a malfunction of the water temperature measuring station in Palzem.
I also thought at something connected to the Cattenom nuclear power plant, located close to the Moselle at km 260,7 (30 km before the Palzem temperature measuring station, located at km 230) as the power plant is indeed using water to cool down the system but a bit of simple math should rule that option out:
the water flow in this part of the Moselle in this period of the year is around 290 m3/s. To heat 290 m3 of water of 4,5°C every second, the power required is about 5,8 GW (calculated by ChatGPT after several corrections from my side – see below). Moreover, this does not consider the 30km distance between Cattenom and Palzem: the water flowing in the river through this distance would cool down due to low air temperature, so to get 13,5°C in Palzem the water should come out from Cattenom quite much warmer, probably requiring a thermal power in the range of 7+ GW.
This is an enourmous amount of power. It is the combined maximum power of 15.000 Porche Carrera GT.
Cattenom has an installed electric power of 5,2 GW so it would take more than the full installed electric power at Cattenom to heat that amount of water in one second – of course the thermal power of all Cattenom reactors probably exceed 7GW (to get 5,2 GW of electric power considering the efficiency factor of the thermal to electric conversion) but I deem very unlikely that our French neighbors have just shut down all electric generators and transformed their power station in a water heater.
According to an article from 2019 related to rules for water heating by Cattenom, “Dans tous les cas, « la température à l’aval du rejet, après mélange aux eaux de la Moselle, ne peut excéder de plus de 1,5 °C la température de la Moselle en amont. ». An increase of 5°C or more is therefore not allowed.
(if you spot an error in my calculations please let me know !).
*** UPDATE on 2.1.24 ***
The updated chart below shows that there seem to be indeed a malfunction in the Palzem measuring station: now the values after 29.12.23 have disappeared and the “last value” is 0.0
*** UPDATE on 3.1.24 ***
values not show for three days and then a 13,2°C value.
It will be interesting to observe what happens to the measured temperature when the measurements after the 3.1.24 water level surge will be published
*** UPDATE on 5.1.24 ***
As expected, the surge in water level on 3 January has reduced the temperature. I am still convinced that there was a malfunctioning in the sensor, as 13°C water temperature on 2 January is incompatible with air temperatures of the past days.
*** Update on 6.1.2024 ***
The data seem to have been retroactively corrected.
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