--- In Know_Nukes@yahoogroups.com, esbuck@... wrote:
>
> I recall eating at a restaurant on the coast in the Los Angeles area. One
> could see a clump of dozens of fishermen, shoulder to shoulder, happily
> fishing, but none elsewhere. I asked about it, and I was told that was the
> outfall of cooling water from a nearby (non-nuclear) power plant. The warm
> water attracted fish. So much for thermal pollution.
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Actually I've fished at my power plant out fall as well on my time off. The
problem, more seriously, with 'thermal pollution' isn't the thermal part, that
is on the outfall side, it's on the intake.

The "issue" is that the water, a small circulating water pump can pump 100,000
gallons a minute, (mine is about 130kgpm), and the condensers where the heat is
transferred to the circulating water back to the river/ocean/bay kills a lot
baby fish. Really.

I have questions about the true environmental effect of this as it is extremely
localized and usually small fish or 'fry' that are killed (by impact of the
pumps and cooked in the condensers) tend to be then used as food for other fish
or, make room in the ecological niche for other fish to survive.

In the anti-power plant press you will see statements that "hundreds of
millions" or even "billions" of "fish" are killed every year. Yeah, a 'true
fact' as they say, but out of context for the entire ecology of a given water
body.

David