Re: Environmental - Warming River Water
The thermal gradient around the plant will exist, but that will be a very localised effect. Looking at the river as a whole, there is a small effect that a localised temperature difference might have by making it hard for fish etc. to pass through the affected region, but I struggle to see that being particularly significant here.
How many miles down a fairly turbulent water flow would you expect a relevant gradient to persist?
Using the whole mass flow is done to account for the fact for the vast majority of the river the effect will be distributed amongst the entire mass flow.
The presence of buildings at all is likely to have a significant impact on the local environment anyway - even if it didn't directly connect to the river it would significantly affect runoff etc.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
