A three-dimensional hydrodynamic multi-purpose model for coastal and shelf seas COHERENS is applied to investigate the transport and dispersion of the heated and concentrated brine discharged from the Huangdao Power Plant situated on the western coast of Jiaozhou Bay. The values of time series of current velocity and water surface elevation given by the simulation have a good agreement with observed data. This indicated that the numerical model provided a fair simulation of the coastal flow in Jiaozhou Bay and were thus available for predicting heated and concentrated brine dispersion in the coastal water. The model can be applied to appropriately evaluate the locations of intakes and outlets of the power plants with seawater desalination processes and minimize the adverse influence on the coastal areas.
Seawater desalination has been a solution to water shortages in the field of drinking and industrial matter for several decades. In general, the salt content of water used in industrial production is no more than 0.05‰~ 2‰. In order to make use of seawater and relieve water shortage, the production of electricity is popularly connected with water. Thus, the power plant and seawater desalination are usually associated with each other, especially in recent years. Even though the processes of seawater desalination contribute to humanity as well as to nature preservation, they are also accompanied adverse environmental effects. However, these effects can be minimized through the appropriate planning. There are high temperature and high salt content in the effluent discharged from seawater desalination processes. The concentrations of the brines are usually found to be double or close to double that of natural seawater. In the case of evaporation methods, thermal pollution is also produced. Although the concentrate from thermal processes such as Multi-Stage Flash Seawater Desalination System (MSF) and Multi Effect Distillation (MED) is typically mixed with cold water prior to discharge, the dilution of concentrate results in a final discharged effluent is still more than the receiving water in temperature and in salinity.
