May 8, 2014 | process_admin
Where Are Tennessee Cooling Towers?
Cooling towers are heat rejection devices which extract waste heat to the atmosphere through the cooling of a water stream to a lower temperature. There are quite a few places in which you can find examples of cooling towers in Tennessee. We’re going to point out three cities with some of the more interesting finds in the state, complete with a little background on each of the cooling tower sites.
Three Great Examples of Tennessee Cooling Towers
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Soddy-Daisy. The Sequoyah Nuclear Plant located just north of Chattanooga is one of the hardest working nuclear power plants in America, and some of the statistics listed with it prove its hardiness. It was the most efficient generator of nuclear power in the 3 year span between 2000-2002, generating power at an incredibly cheap 1.14 cents per kilowatt hour. Generating over 18 million megawatt hours of energy a year, Sequoyah also has good runs with dependability, with both Units at the plant generating runs of service over 500 days long.
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Hartsville. This cooling tower is unique from the others on the list for one key reason; it’s never been used. Even after spending a staggering $2 billion on the site since 1975, the TVA has decided to not put this plant in their current 20 year reconfiguration plan. The plant was originally abandoned in the mid 80’s, meaning the sight of the looming cooling towers has been and will continue to be a reminder of what could’ve been in Hartsville.
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Spring City. The Watts Bar Nuclear Power Plant is an example of the TVA getting things done, with Watts Bar Unit 1 being the most recently civilian reactor to come online in the US, with Unit 2 scheduled to come online in 2015. The plant generates enough electricity to power 650,000 households in the Tennessee Valley, meaning the cooling towers here work round the clock to keep tons of homes lit up.
Sources:
https://www.tva.gov/sites/sequoyah.htm
https://www.newschannel5.com/story/14345460/tva-hartsville-nuclear-plant-will-stay-dormant
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watts_Bar_Nuclear_Generating_Station