Economic tools for managing environmental aspects of water use in power plants

Abstract

Water use in a power station is an irreplaceable resource due to its physical and chemical properties, good availability and abundance. That is why it is used in large volumes for many purposes. Despite the simplicity of water, it is very comprehensive in energy chemistry. Hence if you evaluate the variables in power plants, the second highest variable cost is water. All other types of variable costs are negligible against water. The largest portion of water in power plants is used for refilling cooling circuits. However the largest portion of water added to the cooling circuits (approximately two thirds) is lost to evaporation and is carried over in cooling towers. There is a concentration of water (evaporation) and carry over (drift of small droplets of cooling water in a stream of cooling air). The concentration of water leads to increased concentrations of impurities in the water. Effect of thickening and loss of water is one of the aspects that are discussed in this work.