What's the use of big chimneys in power plants?

In our life, we can see indomitable tall chimneys everywhere. Generally, some factories, boiler rooms or power plants are the most common. The "big fat chimney" in the power plant looks different from other chimneys, and a lot of white smoke is emitted in the air every day. Many people will think that it is no wonder that the air quality is poor because so many cigarettes are discharged every day. If you know what these "fat people" really do, you will feel that you are wrong about them.

In fact, these "big fat chimneys" in power plants are not the chimneys that we understand to emit waste gas. Its name is cooling tower. At present, the power plants we usually see are basically thermal power generation. In the process of thermal power generation, the unit needs a lot of cooling water for cooling to ensure the smooth progress of power generation. However, without these cooling towers, a lot of water would be consumed every day to cool down.

Then why does the cooling tower emit smoke? After the cold water cooling device. When the water in the cooling tower becomes hot, it will produce steam. Another function of the cooling tower is to recycle water without wasting water resources. This is to use the air density difference inside and outside the cooling tower to form a pressure difference, and then ventilate. Most of the water vapor cools in contact with the air, forming water droplets and falling into the reservoir. Before the water vapor cooled down, it ran out of the "big chimney" and formed the "smoke" we saw, but it was just water vapor.

Then why design it like this? Like a big horn upside down! In fact, the previous power plant also had cooling towers. At the beginning of the design, all kinds of shapes were tried, including straight and diamond. Finally decided on this big horn. This is also many factors to consider. Because the cooling towers in power plants are generally built at a height of about 160-200m, this style is the most economical and the structure is stable.

To sum up, we can see that the big chimney of the power plant will not cause great pollution and will not affect everyone's health. So you can rest assured that even if you live around the power plant, you don't have to worry too much, because this big chimney that has always worried everyone is actually one of the effective high-energy power generation devices produced after paying attention to environmental protection.