Cooling towers

verygood

Hi All:

My question is, why do some nuclear power plants have cooling towers and some don't? Why spend extra money on cooling towers if the feedwater can be cooled by the large body of water such as lake?

Thanks!

phyzguy

Dumping the heat into a body of water has been done, but there can be adverse environmental impact to the consequent warming of the water in the lake, so in that case cooling towers are used.

Astronuc

Some coal and oil plants have cooling towers and others don't. It depends on the site and access to rivers, lakes, or sea/ocean, and whether or not the thermal burden on the body of water would create a problem.

phyzguy

Here's a recent New York Times article on this issue that can help you see some of the trade-offs.

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/...ower&st=Search

verygood

thanks phyzguy and Astronuc, really appreciated!