re what do nuclear site s cooling towers do excerpts from netnews sci electronics apr re what do nuclear site s by r tim coslet cup portal from r tim coslet cup portal com subject re what do nuclear site s cooling towers do date fri apr pdt in article qlg o d q sequoia ccsd uts edu au swalker uts edu au s s walker man wrote i really don t know where to post this question so i figured that this board would be most appropriate i was wondering about those massive concrete cylinders that are ever present at nuclear poer sites they look like cylinders that have been pinched in the middle does anybody know what the actual purpose of those things are i hear that they re called cooling towers but what the heck do they cool except for their size the cooling towers on nuclear power plants are vertually identical in construction and operation to cooling towers designed and built in the s a hundred years ago for coal fired power plants used for lighting and early electric railways basicly the cylindrical tower supports a rapid air draft when its air is heated by hot water and or steam circulating thru a network of pipes that fill about the lower of the tower to assist cooling and the draft water misters are added that spray cold water over the hot pipes the cold water evaporates removing the heat faster than just air flow from the draft would and the resulting water vapor is rapidly carried away by the draft this produces the clouds frequently seen rising out of these towers that slight pinch maybe of the way up the tower is there because it produces a very significant increase in the strength and rate of the air draft produced compared to a straight cylinder shape the towers are used to recondense the steam in the sealed steam system of the power plant so that it can be recirculated back to the boiler and used again the wider the temperature difference across the turbines used in the power plant the more effecient they are and by recondensing the steam in the cooling towers before sending it back to the boilers you maintain a very wide temperature difference sometimes as high as degrees or more from first stage hot turbine to final stage cold turbine r tim coslet usenet r tim coslet cup portal com technology n domesticated natural phenomena great explaination however you left off one detail why do you always see them at nuclear plants but not always at fossil fuel plants at nuclear plants it is prefered to run the water closed cycle whereas fossil fuel plants can in some cases get away with dumping the hot water as i recall the water isn t as hot thermodynamically in many fossil fuel plants and of course there is less danger of radioactive contamination wayne martin
