Eli5: Why do nuclear plants need external power? Couldn’t they just siphon off some of the power the plant makes to accomplish the same tasks (like an alternator running the electrical components in a car)?
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most power plants are not actually capable of “black start” operations, and those that are usually have dedicated systems just to do that. hydro is the notable exception, and that is among the reasons the hoover damn was built. it can (and does) feed power into other power stations to bootstrap them when they lose power.
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