1. The mechanical draft cooling towers are cheaper to build but unlikely to be more efficient as they consume some MW of power to run the fans, significantly more energy than is required to pump the water to the top of the cooling tower although higher air velocities may partially offset that.
2. The sucking sound even for a cooling tower is 30-50 litres/minute per MW to supply the cooling towers so for Eraring at full power on a hot day would be sending 6.5-7.5ML/hour into the atmosphere, enough for the domestic supply of 1.1m urban residents.
3. Dry cooled plants like Kogan Creek trade off water use for efficiency because the Tmin on the heat exchanger is limited by the the dry bulb temperature rather than the wet bulb temperature. Further as the specific heat of water is an order of magnitude higher than air, the system needs much more surface area and fan power so in effect, the overall coal use per MWh delivered to the grid is 8-10% higher than for an optimal water cooled plant
No mention of mussell cooking Alex. Other than that a terrific read. Although I think writing about the LNP regaining control of energy policy (something you must surely have done) would have been more terrifying than the brain-eating amoeba story.
Classic piece or literature mate, the Skyline reference is a pearler!
Excellent article.
1. The mechanical draft cooling towers are cheaper to build but unlikely to be more efficient as they consume some MW of power to run the fans, significantly more energy than is required to pump the water to the top of the cooling tower although higher air velocities may partially offset that.
2. The sucking sound even for a cooling tower is 30-50 litres/minute per MW to supply the cooling towers so for Eraring at full power on a hot day would be sending 6.5-7.5ML/hour into the atmosphere, enough for the domestic supply of 1.1m urban residents.
3. Dry cooled plants like Kogan Creek trade off water use for efficiency because the Tmin on the heat exchanger is limited by the the dry bulb temperature rather than the wet bulb temperature. Further as the specific heat of water is an order of magnitude higher than air, the system needs much more surface area and fan power so in effect, the overall coal use per MWh delivered to the grid is 8-10% higher than for an optimal water cooled plant
No mention of mussell cooking Alex. Other than that a terrific read. Although I think writing about the LNP regaining control of energy policy (something you must surely have done) would have been more terrifying than the brain-eating amoeba story.
Writing about LNP energy policy would have been more terrifying, if they had any such policy to actually write about!
This bit is not quite correct, Alex:
'Although there are no remaining Australian coal-fired stations utilising a river as cooling source'
For instance, Stanwell Power Station sources its water from the Fitzroy River (via a Weir):
https://www.stanwell.com/stanwell-power-station
I suspect Alex means stations where all the waste heat goes into the river water Paul, rather than those using cooling towers.
Fair point Paul about where the water actually comes from.
As Allan suggests I was thinking of river water as a heat sink/direct usage through the condensers.