73-02: Atmospheric Effects of Water Cooling Facilities

Recirculatory cooling systems using natural or mech­anical draft towers, sprays, canals, ponds or lakes are becoming more popular with steam electric stations. Today's trends are towards developing larger generating stations at each site. This change has occurred due to concern about waste heat disposal and thermal pollution effects caused by traditional once through systems. Simultaneous with this concern about thermal pollution and the trend towards use of recirculatory systems incorporating evaporative cooling systems, concern was expressed about the possible detrimental effects of releasing large quantities of heat and water vapor into the atmosphere from concentrated 
point sources. (refs. 1-8).