Quote:
Originally Posted by LMagic007
This might seem like an ignorant question, but I cant help but wonder about the efficiency design of a power station that requires cooling towers. i.e. surely all that waste heat could be harnessed and fed back into the system somehow ? i.e. to reduce the water heating requirement to produce steam for the turbines.
I suspect there is an explanation, but I also know that much waste has occurred for decades during an era of cheap energy. I wonder perhaps if they might help allow the plant to be more responsive to grid demand fluctuations, by being able to more rapidly adjust and maintain the optimal the operating temperatures. i.e. presuming a more passive approach ( recirculate heat and reduce burn requirement for feedwater to steam conversion ) might not have that degree of flexibility and responsiveness. Just wondering.
|
When you see a large power station with the cooling towers emitting lots of steam, it would seem they are wasting lots of energy, and indeed they are emitting huge amounts of heat. But the heat is at a low temperature, as all or most of the useable heat has been used up somewhere in the process (pre-heating etc). Many power stations have greenhouses nearby using much of the waste heat, and Drax has in the past asked for more greenhouses to be built nearby to use even more of the heat.
Apparently you could have a greenhouse the size of Yorkshire to use all the heat of drax, although this could be a bit of an exaggeration. Although if you were to use more of the heat, at some point, you would lose efficiency elsewhere.