Atmospheric impacts of evaporative cooling systems

The report summarizes available information on the effects of various power plant cooling systems on the atmosphere. While evaporative cooling systems sharply reduce the biological impacts of thermal discharges in water bodies, they create (at least, for heat-release rates comparable to those of two-unit nuclear generating stations) atmospheric changes. For an isolated site such as required for a nuclear power plant, these changes are rather small and local, and usually environmentally acceptable. However, one cannot say with certainty that these effects will remain small as the number of reactors on a given site increases. There must exist a critical heat load for a specific site which, if exceeded, can create its own weather patterns, and thus create inadvertent weather changes such as rain and snow, severe thunderstorms, and tornadoes. Because proven mathematical models are not available, it is not now possible to forecast precisely the extent and frequency of the atmospheric effects of a particular heat-dissipation system at a particular site. Field research on many aspects of cooling system operation is needed in order to document and quantify the actual atmospheric changes caused by a given cooling system and to provide the data needed to develop and verify mathematical and physical models. The more important topics requiring field study are plume rise, fogging and icing (from certain systems), drift emission and deposition rates, chemical interactions, cloud and precipitation formation and critical heat-release rates