Power Plant Water: Wanted Dead And Alive

By Jim Lauria

Water is the lifeblood of electrical power plants, whether they are water-cooled steam plants or turbine-spinning hydroelectric installations. Regardless of how the facility generates electricity, there is a growing awareness that each power plant is part of its own, unique industrial watershed—drawing water from the environment, altering its contents and temperature, releasing some to the atmosphere as steam, and returning the rest to receiving waters.