I'm no expert but the water evaporates and is released into the air through huge cooling towers. Cooling the water in a closed-loop system requires a huge cooli

I'm no expert but the water evaporates and is released into the air through huge cooling towers. Cooling the water in a closed-loop system requires a huge cooling and storage infrastructure. Evaporation is around 2% of the water taken from rivers, the other 98% are released back into the river.