Advanced Cooling Technologies

摘要

Power plant cooling is the major use of water at nearly all thermo-electric generating plants. The withdrawal, consumption and discharge of water for power production raises some of the most contentious siting issues for new plants. This paper will review the major cooling system types and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each from both the cost/performance and environmental effects viewpoints.Historically, the preferred cooling system for large plants was once-through cooling. In the past few decades, the trend has been to closed-cycle wet cooling to reduce the environmental effects of heated water discharges and large withdrawal rates. More recently, the use of dry and hybrid cooling has been chosen at many sites.The application of dry and hybrid cooling to nuclear plants can introduce design problems not encountered in fossil plants and may lead to the consideration of indirect dry cooling and the reintroduction of natural draft cooling towers. In addition, a number of emerging technologies such as the recovery of water from the plumes of wet cooling towers, the use of inlet air sprays to enhance the performance of dry systems and some innovative approaches to the use of alternative (non-fresh) water supplies may find application in the near future. Some possible research directions for future cooling system improvements are considered.