Evaluating the Thermal Pollution Caused by Wastewaters Discharged from a Chain of Coal-Fired Power Plants along a River

Marc Rosen,Constantin Brindusa,Andreea Jeles,Cornelia Bulucea,Nikos Mastorakis,Carmen Bulucea

doi:10.3390/su7055920

Abstract

Reliable and safe operation of a coal-fired power plant is strongly linked to freshwater resources, and environmental problems related to water sources and wastewater discharge are challenges for power station operation. In this study, an evaluation on the basis of a wastewater thermal pollution vector is reported for the environmental impact of residual water generated and discharged in the Jiu River during the operation of thermoelectric units of the Rovinari, Turceni and Craiova coal-fired power plants in Romania. Wastewater thermal pollutant vector Plane Projection is applied for assessing the water temperature evolution in the water flow lane created downstream of each power plant wastewater outlet channel. Simulation on the basis of an Electricity of France model, and testing validation of the results for thermoelectric units of 330 MW of these power plants are presented.

Highlights

Within an industrial ecology framework, an estimation of the industrial metabolism should explore economic and social issues and benefits, and the environmental impacts [1,2,3]
This case study takes into consideration operation of the thermoelectric power plant of Rovinari with an installed power corresponding to 3 energetic units (n = 3) of 330 MW, resulting in a total power generation of 990 MW [23,30,31,32]
Power plant capacity utilization of 75% of the installed power (n = 3); the outlet allows the discharge of wastewater provided by the three thermoelectric units of 330 MW; temperature assessment is based on the EDF methodology

Summary

Introduction

Within an industrial ecology framework, an estimation of the industrial metabolism should explore economic and social issues and benefits, and the environmental impacts [1,2,3]. Beyond the environmental and human health impacts caused by the air pollutant emissions generated by coal-fired power plant operation, other environmental issues exist, including those related to water resources and thermal pollutant wastewater generation [9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18]. A common cause of thermal pollution is the use of water as a coolant by thermoelectric generation stations, coal-fired power plants. Water withdrawals for thermoelectric power generation have been shown to be the highest of any industry [4,5,6,7,8,14,15,16,17,18,19,20], and most of that water is used in cooling systems

Objectives

Methods

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Conclusion