Vulnerability of existing and planned coal-fired power plants in Developing Asia to changes in climate and water resources

The territory of the municipality of Mali Zvornik is, from the aspect of morphology and spatial-functional structure, a heterogeneous area. It is located in the valley of the Drina River and in hilly-mountainous part of Podrinjske mountains. The area of the municipality is 184 km?, with 14076 inhabitants (2002). The importance of water resources for the development of the municipality, particularly of the hydropower plant (HPP) ?Zvornik?, is analyzed in this paper. Inadequate use of hydro-energetic potential, possibilities for construction of new hydropower plants and economic reasons for their construction are also emphasized. The priorities of the development of hydraulic engineering are defined in relation to morphological and hydrological conditions. They refer to increase of power of the HPP ?Zvornik? and construction of small-scale hydropower plants in hilly-mountainous part of municipality. Considering depopulation processes in the villages of Mali Zvornik, hydraulic engineering, together with agriculture, forestry, exploitation of mineral goods and tourism, can be one of the factors of demographic and economic revitalization of this area.

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Effects of Cooling System Operations on Withdrawal for Thermoelectric Power

Volume 1: Boilers and Heat Recovery Steam Generator; Combustion Turbines; Energy Water Sustainability; Fuels, Combustion and Material Handling; Heat Exchangers, Condensers, Cooling Systems, and Balance-of-Plant ◽

10.1115/power-icope2017-3763 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Zachary Clement ◽

Fletcher Fields ◽

Diana Bauer ◽

Vincent Tidwell ◽

Calvin Ray Shaneyfelt ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Water Use ◽

Power Plants ◽

Multiple Scales ◽

Cooling System ◽

Detailed Examination ◽

Water Withdrawal ◽

Energy Information Administration ◽

Data Set ◽

Wear And Tear ◽

Plant Configuration

A new dataset released by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) — which combines water withdrawal, electricity generation, and plant configuration data into a single database — enables detailed examination of cooling system operation at thermoelectric plants at multiple scales, most importantly at the unit level. This dataset was used to explore operations across the population of U.S. thermoelectric plants, leading to the conclusion that roughly 32% of all thermoelectric water withdrawal occurs while power plants are not generating electricity. Based on interviews with industry representatives, a unit’s location on the dispatch curve will largely dictate how the cooling system is operated. Peaking plants and intermediate plants might keep their cooling system running to maintain dispatchability. Other considerations include minimizing wear and tear on the pumps and controlling water chemistry. This observation has implications for understanding water use at thermoelectric plants, policy analysis, and modeling. Previous studies have estimated water use as a function of cooling technology, fuel type, prime mover, pollution controls, and ambient climate (1) or by calculating the amount of water that is thermodynamically necessary for cooling (2). This, however, does not capture all the water a plant is withdrawing simply to maintain dispatchability. This paper uses the new data set from EIA and interviews with plant operators to illuminate the role cooling systems operations play in determining the amount of water a plant withdraws.

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Management of water resources assessment for nuclear power plants in China

Water Quality Research Journal ◽

10.2166/wqrjc.2015.023 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 51 (3) ◽

pp. 282-295 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Xiaowen Ding ◽

Wei Wang ◽

Guohe Huang ◽

Qingwei Chen ◽

Guoliang Wei

Keyword(s):

Water Resources ◽

Public Participation ◽

Nuclear Power ◽

Power Plants ◽

Wastewater Discharge ◽

Site Survey ◽

Radioactive Wastewater ◽

Water Resources Assessment ◽

Regional Water ◽

Resources Assessment

To deal with global warming and energy shortages, the nuclear power industry has flourished in China. Operation of a nuclear power plant consumes a large amount of water and discharges radioactive wastewater into nearby water bodies. Therefore, assessment and management of water resources are crucial for such projects. This article proposes the contents, procedures and methods of water resources assessment for nuclear power plants in China. Taking a pioneering inland plant as an example, a case study was also developed. It was suggested that assessment of water resources for a nuclear power plant in China should focus on regional water resources analyses, rationality of water-draw and water use of a plant, feasibility of water sources and impacts of water-draw and wastewater discharge on regional water resources. The proposed processes mainly included site survey and data collection, work outline completion and approval, water resources assessment, assessment report completion, expert consultation and public participation, and technological review, as well as administrative approval. The methods presented were referring to legal documents, site survey, model simulation, expert consultation and public participation. Finally, suggestions, including comparing and selecting several optional sites, improving impact assessment of radioactive wastewater discharge and enhancing public participation, were also proposed.

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The Palo Verde Water Cycle Model (PVWCM) – Development of an Integrated Multi-Physics and Economics Model for Effective Water Management

10.1115/power2021-65768 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Bobby D. Middleton ◽

Patrick V. Brady ◽

Jeffrey A. Brown ◽

Serafina T. Lawles

Keyword(s):

Water Management ◽

Water Resources ◽

Sonoran Desert ◽

Power Plants ◽

Water Cycle ◽

Cooling Water ◽

Software Tool ◽

Cycle Model ◽

The Us ◽

Water Strategy

Abstract Water management has become critical for thermoelectric power generation in the US. Increasing demand for scarce water resources for domestic, agricultural, and industrial use affects water availability for power plants. In particular, the population in the Southwestern part of the US is growing and water resources are over-stressed. The engineering and management teams at the Palo Verde Generating Station (PV) in the Sonoran Desert have long understood this problem and began a partnership with Sandia National Laboratories in 2017 to develop a long-term water strategy for PV. As part of this program, Sandia and Palo Verde staff have developed a comprehensive software tool that models all aspects of the PV (plant cooling) water cycle. The software tool — the Palo Verde Water Cycle Model (PVWCM) — tracks water operations from influent to the plant through evaporation in one of the nine cooling towers or one of the eight evaporation ponds. The PVWCM has been developed using a process called System Dynamics. The PVWCM is developed to allow scenario comparison for various plant operating strategies.

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Increasing the Efficiency of Cooling Water Resources Using at Power Plants

10.1007/978-3-030-86047-9_10 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 96-104

Author(s):

Artem Vinogradov ◽

Antonina Filimonova ◽

Natalya Chichirova ◽

Andrey Chichirov

Keyword(s):

Water Resources ◽

Power Plants ◽

Cooling Water

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Water Security in a Changing Environment: Concept, Challenges and Solutions

Water ◽

10.3390/w13040490 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (4) ◽

pp. 490

Author(s):

Binaya Kumar Mishra ◽

Pankaj Kumar ◽

Chitresh Saraswat ◽

Shamik Chakraborty ◽

Arjun Gautam

Keyword(s):

Water Resources ◽

Water Resource Management ◽

Environmental Changes ◽

Multiple Scales ◽

Water Security ◽

Dissemination And Implementation ◽

Holistic View ◽

Water Resources Systems ◽

Sustainable Solutions ◽

Wide Range

Water is of vital and critical importance to ecosystems and human societies. The effects of human activities on land and water are now large and extensive. These reflect physical changes to the environment. Global change such as urbanization, population growth, socioeconomic change, evolving energy needs, and climate change have put unprecedented pressure on water resources systems. It is argued that achieving water security throughout the world is the key to sustainable development. Studies on holistic view with persistently changing dimensions is in its infancy. This study focuses on narrative review work for giving a comprehensive insight on the concept of water security, its evolution with recent environmental changes (e.g., urbanization, socioeconomic, etc.) and various implications. Finally, it presents different sustainable solutions to achieve water security. Broadly, water security evolves from ensuring reliable access of enough safe water for every person (at an affordable price where market mechanisms are involved) to lead a healthy and productive life, including that of future generations. The constraints on water availability and water quality threaten secured access to water resources for different uses. Despite recent progress in developing new strategies, practices and technologies for water resource management, their dissemination and implementation has been limited. A comprehensive sustainable approach to address water security challenges requires connecting social, economic, and environmental systems at multiple scales. This paper captures the persistently changing dimensions and new paradigms of water security providing a holistic view including a wide range of sustainable solutions to address the water challenges.

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Localizing the Water-Energy Nexus: The Relationship between Solar Thermal Power Plants and Future Developments in Local Water Demand

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su13010108 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 13 (1) ◽

pp. 108

Author(s):

Julia Terrapon-Pfaff ◽

Sibel Raquel Ersoy ◽

Thomas Fink ◽

Sarra Amroune ◽

El Mostafa Jamea ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Water Resources ◽

Water Demand ◽

Power Plants ◽

Solar Power ◽

Local Level ◽

Thermal Power ◽

Water Saving ◽

Mixed Method Research ◽

Evaluation Approach ◽

Local Water

Water availability plays an important role in the expansion planning of utility-scale solar power plants, especially in the arid regions of the Middle East and North Africa. Although these power plants usually account for only a small fraction of local water demand, competition for water resources between communities, farmers, companies, and power suppliers is already emerging and is likely to intensify in future. Despite this, to date there has been a lack of comprehensive studies analyzing interdependencies and potential conflicts between energy and water at local level. This study addresses this research gap and examines the linkages between water resources and energy technologies at local level based on a case study conducted in Ouarzazate, Morocco, where one of the largest solar power complexes in the world was recently completed. To better understand the challenges faced by the region in light of increased water demand and diminishing water supply, a mixed-method research design was applied to integrate the knowledge of local stakeholders through a series of workshops. In a first step, regional socio-economic water demand scenarios were developed and, in a second step, water saving measures to avoid critical development pathways were systematically evaluated using a participatory multi-criteria evaluation approach. The results are a set of water demand scenarios for the region and a preferential ranking of water saving measures that could be drawn upon to support decision-making relating to energy and water development in the region.

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Policies on water resources assessment of coastal nuclear power plants in China

Energy Policy ◽

10.1016/j.enpol.2019.01.008 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 128 ◽

pp. 170-178 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Xiaowen Ding ◽

Wei Tian ◽

Qingwei Chen ◽

Guoliang Wei

Keyword(s):

Water Resources ◽

Nuclear Power ◽

Power Plants ◽

Nuclear Power Plants ◽

Water Resources Assessment ◽

Resources Assessment

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Attribution Analysis for Runoff Change on Multiple Scales in a Humid Subtropical Basin Dominated by Forest, East China

Forests ◽

10.3390/f10020184 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 10 (2) ◽

pp. 184 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Qinli Yang ◽

Shasha Luo ◽

Hongcai Wu ◽

Guoqing Wang ◽

Dawei Han ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Water Resources ◽

Land Use Change ◽

Climate Variability ◽

Human Activity ◽

Multiple Scales ◽

East China ◽

Runoff Change ◽

Change Period ◽

Annual Scale

Attributing runoff change to different drivers is vital in order to better understand how and why runoff varies, and to further support decision makers on water resources planning and management. Most previous works attributed runoff change in the arid or semi-arid areas to climate variability and human activity on an annual scale. However, attribution results may differ greatly according to different climatic zones, decades, temporal scales, and different contributors. This study aims to quantitatively attribute runoff change in a humid subtropical basin (the Qingliu River basin, East China) to climate variability, land-use change, and human activity on multiple scales over different periods by using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model. The results show that runoff increased during 1960–2012 with an abrupt change occurring in 1984. Annual runoff in the post-change period (1985–2012) increased by 16.05% (38.05 mm) relative to the pre-change period (1960–1984), most of which occurred in the winter and early spring (March). On the annual scale, climate variability, human activity, and land-use change (mainly for forest cover decrease) contributed 95.36%, 4.64%, and 12.23% to runoff increase during 1985–2012, respectively. On the seasonal scale, human activity dominated runoff change (accounting for 72.11%) in the dry season during 1985–2012, while climate variability contributed the most to runoff change in the wet season. On the monthly scale, human activity was the dominant contributor to runoff variation in all of the months except for January, May, July, and August during 1985–2012. Impacts of climate variability and human activity on runoff during 2001–2012 both became stronger than those during 1985–2000, but counteracted each other. The findings should help understandings of runoff behavior in the Qingliu River and provide scientific support for local water resources management.

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Automatic Stockpile Extraction and Measurement Using 3D Point Cloud and Multi-Scale Directional Curvature

Remote Sensing ◽

10.3390/rs12060960 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (6) ◽

pp. 960

Author(s):

Xingyu Yang ◽

Yuchun Huang ◽

Qiulan Zhang

Keyword(s):

Point Cloud ◽

Power Plants ◽

Laser Scanning ◽

Multiple Scales ◽

Real Point ◽

3D Point Cloud ◽

Cloud Data ◽

Multi Scale ◽

Average Accuracy ◽

Production And Consumption

With the rapid increase of power supply demand, a large amount of stockpiles of coal have been formed during the process of coal excavation and transportation between the mines, ports, power plants and etc. Quantitative parameters, especially the volume of stockpile are important for the planning of coal production and consumption. Although laser scanning can collect the dense 3D coordinates of the stockpile surface for its quantification, stockpiles of coal have irregular shape, size, height, and base conditions, and may be overlapped with each other, which makes it hard to measure the different stockpiles automatically and accurately. This paper proposes an algorithm to extract and measure the stockpiles from the 3D point cloud data using the multi-scale directional curvature. Firstly, the second-order directional curvature analysis along multiple directions and at multiple scales is proposed to extract the distinctive ridge of crest in the point cloud of stockpiles. Then, starting with the crest points, a competitive growing strategy is proposed to accurately locate the points of slope in the stockpile. Finally, the stockpile’s volume is calculated by reconstructing the complete points of crest and slope with many meshes and triangular prisms through the subsurface fitting and surface reconstruction. Experiments on both the synthetic and real point cloud of stockpiles demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can extract the stockpiles with the average accuracy over 93.5% and measure the volume of stockpiles with the average precision over 93.7%. It is promising for automatically measuring the stockpiles like sand, soybean, etc., and facilitating the scientific storage and transportation management, as well as the maintenance of safety inventory during operation.

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