Google Earth: Glowing Green Sea.. Near Scottish Nuclear Power Plant

January 27th, 2012 by Breath on the Wind

The Problem:

It is the sort of headline that grabs your attention and suggests doom in the same year that one (of the many) Mayan Calendars is “doomed” to end. Deadline News reports that a local pursuing their countryside on “Google Earth” suddenly noticed that the sea near the Hunterston B nuclear power plant in Ayrshire, Scotland was luminous green on Google Earth. Concerned, they alerted officials to the glowing problem.

The Speculation:

Those familiar with power plant issues raised on CleanTechnica know that thermal power plants need cooling. Nuclear power plants are sometimes located near the sea to admit and discharge seawater for that purpose. While discharged water is not supposed to be mixed with the reactor core and is not supposed to be radioactive, there has also been the alarming case of a three-eyed fish being caught from the same Córdoba, Argentina reservoir as a nuclear reactor. It settles no one’s mind that this reminds one of “Blinky” on the Simpsons.

The “Logic”:

We may not be particularly fond of nuclear power plants, as a human species, so alarming and fearful stories and rhetoric can be compelling. It may sometimes seem to hide ulterior motives and suggests a lack of transparency. But this can also be the technique used against our cherished clean technology projects. The story can be separate from the way it is told. Some radiation has always been a part of our natural environment. Some level of mutations have also been present as long as there has been life. Change is inevitable. Finding a “Blinky” or a bright spot in a photograph are just facts, but it easy to jump to conclusions about them.

More Facts:

A spokesperson for EDF, the energy company that operates the Scottish power plant responded to the alarm with an explanation: “The Google shot taken offshore is where our cooling water exits a pipe and enters the sea, producing a bubbling effect…The other photograph is of our surge shaft, which the cooling water passes through.”

Primary Sources: Deadline | Infobae.com for 3-eyed fish story [Spanish] | Practical Fishkeeping
Mayan Calandar via Wiki Commons

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Tags: 3eyed fish, Blinky, edf, Electricity, Energy, energy headlines, Energy Rhetoric, glowing sea, glowing water, mutations, nuclear safety, radiation, radiation leaks

About the Author

Breath on the Wind We share this World; its past, present resources and our combined future. With every aspiration, the very molecules we use for life are passed to others through time and space so that each of us may be considered a Breath on the Wind. This part of the world's consciousness lives in NYC; has worked in law, research, construction, engineering; has traveled, often drawn to Asia; writes on Energy and Electric Vehicle issues and looks forward to all your comments. "If you would persuade, you must appeal to interest rather than intellect." -- Benjamin Franklin

Omharisai

Nuke power is safe, as long as the genie inside the containment bottle does not jump out, as it happened in Fukushima Dai Ichi, 3-Mile Isl,Chernobyl…..Well soon we will see many Blinkys around. Three eyes can be of some help to the Democrats to enable them to read the small letters in big Environment Bills. Local people in Koodankulam in Tamilnad state, India are fighting to close down a Russian built Nuke power station. But who other than the poor tamil fisherfolk care if the Bay of Bengal turns green or red and they catch three eyed sea monsters?
Lukas Palmer

Nope, nothing to do with the NPP. Google Released a worldwide update to its imagery so it is stitched together much more cleanly.

As a result, when you zoom out, the saturation of the imagery gets more concentrated, resulting in some different colors.

As an example, a lake near me looked as if blood had been poured into part of it, but on closer inspection, it was only brown-red sand on the shoreline.
- http://cleantechnica.com/ Zachary Shahan
  
  Well, the NPP company seems to say it is related, but that it’s no concerning — just water bubbling up from ejection there.