The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) NETL is supporting an award-winning startup company to help develop a novel power plant technology that can produce clean water from cooling tower plumes.
The technology could significantly reduce water consumption in evaporative cooling tower systems by capturing water from cooling tower plumes, which are formed when water vapor generated in cooling towers mixes with colder ambient air as it leaves the tower and condenses.
Both the United Nations and the U.S. State Department have warned that the world is facing a freshwater shortage by 2030. In the U.S. alone, decreasing precipitation and rising populations could pose a serious threat of water shortages.
According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), “About two-fifths of all the water that gets withdrawn from lakes, rivers, and wells in the U.S. is used not for agriculture, drinking or sanitation, but to cool the power plants that provide electricity from fossil fuels or nuclear power.”
More than 65% of these plants use evaporative cooling, leading to huge white plumes that billow from their cooling towers.
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