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To: UpAllNight
Again you say nothing. How hot is the steam after it leaves the turbines at a nuclear power plant? It's several hundred degrees Fahrenheit when it goes through the turbines and has to be cooled and condensed before it can be reintroduced into the system. Distillation only requires temperatures less than 175 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on atmospheric conditions. A slight vacuum lowers the required temperature a lot. You can buy home stills for fuel production with vacuums incorporated that distill at 130 some odd degrees. I did a quick Google search but did not find anything that gives the temperature of steam from a nuclear power plant after it leaves the turbine but before it is cooled and reintroduced into the system. I doubt though very seriously that this super hot steam loses most all of it's heat as it passes through the turbines.

I doubt they ever use steam from nuclear power plants to heat stills in ethanol plants. The ethanol plants would have to be right next to the nuclear power plants and it seems like that would cause some safety issues, something you really don't want when dealing with highly radioactive materials. My uneducated bet is that the steam coming from the turbines would be hot enough to distill alcohol. If not it would come close to being hot enough under normal conditions and would be hot enough if the distillation took place under a vacuum, or the waste heat could at least partially fire the stills. None of this really matters though because it is unlikely that they'll ever build ethanol plants right up against nuclear power plants. They may find uses for this waste heat though and we may very well see waste heat from factories or coal or gas fired powerplants being used to provide all or part of the energy for ethanol plants.
45 posted on 01/25/2007 10:21:34 AM PST by TKDietz (")
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To: TKDietz

--. My uneducated bet is that the steam coming from the turbines would be hot enough to distill alcohol. --

My educated bet is that it is not.

--did not find anything that gives the temperature of steam from a nuclear power plant after it leaves the turbine but before it is cooled and reintroduced into the system.--

The link below gives the parameters of the cycle. It looks messy but down at the end there is a diagram, steam cycle on temperature and enthalpy. Look at the temperature at the exit of the turbine. About 80 degrees. That is what you would have to work with for your still.

http://www.roymech.co.uk/Related/Thermos/Thermos_Steam_Turbine.html

It is NOT "cooled" after it leaves the turbine. The thermo cycle requires it to


46 posted on 01/25/2007 10:32:08 AM PST by UpAllNight
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