Hot water discharged by the cooling systems of thermal power plants, nuclear power plants and steelworks, as well as production wastewater discharged by the petroleum sectors, Chemical, paper mill and other factories contain large amounts of waste heat, once this waste heat is released into the surface water body, it can increase the water temperature.
In the industrialized United States, 450 million cubic meters of cooling water are discharged each day, accounting for nearly a third of the nation's hot water consumption which contains about 250 billion; kilocalories of heat, which is sufficient The temperature of 250 million cubic meters of water increased by 10°C.
Characteristics
Thermal pollution is an increase in environmental warming caused by waste heat emitted by industrial and agricultural production et human life, which damages the quality of the environment and in turn affects human production. and lifespan. Thermal pollution occurs in densely populated and energy-consuming areas such as cities, factories, thermal power plants and nuclear power plants.
Since the 1950s, with the development of social productivity, energy consumption has increased rapidly. In the process of energy conversion and consumption, not only pollutants that directly harm human beings are produced, but also pollutants that do not. Substances that are directly harmful to the human body are produced, COz, water vapor and hot sewage, etc.
Once released into the environment, these components cause an environmental warming effect, which can harm environmental quality and become thermal pollution. Thermal pollution includes ggenerally thermal pollution of water and thermal atmospheric pollution. With people's increasing awareness of environmental protection, thermal pollution has begun to attract public attention.