4 ms·

How is there "waste heat" in a power plant that is designed to produce heat?

• epistasis 6y ago
  Thermodynamics! > The efficiency of the Rankine cycle is limited on the cold side by the lower practical temperature of the working fluid. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rankine_cycle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rankine_cycle > The efficiency of even the best heat engines is low; usually below 50% and often far below. So the energy lost to the environment by heat engines is a major waste of energy resources. Since a large fraction of the fuels produced worldwide go to powering heat engines, perhaps up to half of the useful energy produced worldwide is wasted in engine inefficiency, although modern cogeneration, combined cycle and energy recycling schemes are beginning to use this heat for other purposes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_efficiency https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_efficiency
• CydeWeys 6y ago
  ... the power plant is designed to produce electricity, not to produce heat. If it was designed to produce heat then it wouldn't need the turbines. The heat is waste. For the same power generation, you want to minimize the amount of waste heat as much as possible.