How unfortunate that we really do not have even a minimum level sewage system leading to treatment plants before effluent discharge to acceptable location, instead of present horrible practice of discharging to rivers and direct to the sea!
District heating and cooling systems need to be integrated with “district energy” systems to get the maximum benefits of high thermal efficiencies and very less environmental pollution. Many countries, especially in Europe and in Japan, base their planning on district energy systems which ensures very high thermal efficiency and thus lower costs as power plant heat recovery (cogeneration) provides the energy for district heating and/or cooling. Unfortunately, some countries having large district cooling systems are not taking advantage of district energy systems, though most of their electric power production is based on inefficient thermal power plants using seawater cooling. These are large district cooling systems, specially in the Middle East and, if converted to cogeneration system based on waste heat availability from thermal power plants operating on natural gas or furnace oil, substantial benefits can be obtained with lower costs and reduced overall environmental pollution.
(Concluded)
Engr. Ainul Abedin (Karachi)
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021